Bill Gates and Steve Jobs didn’t finish college, and they did okay. John Brooks dropped out of middle school at age 13, and he is doing okay.
Now 22, he began developing an encrypted chat program called Ricochet some four years ago — long before Edward Snowden so profusely exposed the National Security Agency’s spy-on-everyone programs.
Wired reports that Brooks eventually crafted “a full-fledged desktop client that was easy to use, offered anonymity and encryption, and even resolved the issue of metadata — the ‘to’ and ‘from’ headers and IP addresses spy agencies use to identify and track communications. . . .” He did a better job crafting the package than others offering similar armored tech.
One problem. For a long time, few people knew about his robust chat program. But dramatic revelations of unfettered surveillance by both government and businesses of everybody can sure concentrate the mind. Many more people have become worried about metadata that can be easily scavenged without a warrant. And Brooks realized that his achievement would be widely welcome if only he could get the word out and prove that Ricochet does what it is supposed to do. If not now, when?
That’s around the time a group called Invisible.im announced plans to develop an encrypted chat program to do what Brooks had already done. He told them about his own software; they dropped their plans and are helping him finalize and distribute Ricochet.
May the best private, secure, anonymous chat program win.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.