Communications of the ACM
Moxie Marlinspike: The Coder Who Encrypted Your Texts
Moxie Marlinspike says he sees an opening, following Edward Snowdens revelations, to simplify encryption so more people use it.
Credit: Jason Henry/The Wall Street Journal
SAN FRANCISCO—In the past decade, Moxie Marlinspike has squatted on an abandoned island, toured the U.S. by hopping trains, he says, and earned the enmity of government officials for writing software.
Mr. Marlinspike created an encryption program that scrambles messages until they reach the intended reader. It’s so simple that Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp made it a standard feature for many of the app’s 800 million users.
The software is effective enough to alarm governments. Earlier this year, shortly after WhatsApp adopted it, British Prime Minister David Cameron called protected-messaging apps a "safe space" for terrorists. The following week, President Barack Obama called them "a problem."
That makes the lanky, dreadlocked and intensely private coder a central figure in an escalating debate about government and commercial surveillance. In a research paper released Tuesday, 15 prominent technologists cited three programs relying on Mr. Marlinspike’s code as options for shielding communications.
His encrypted texting and calling app, Signal, has come up in White House meetings, says an attendee. Speaking via video link last year as part of a panel on surveillance, former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked troves of U.S. spying secrets, urged listeners to use "anything" that Mr. Marlinspike releases.
From The Wall Street Journal
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