Of all the things we do at Raspberry Pi, driving down the cost of computer hardware remains one of the most important. Even in the developed world, a programmable computer is a luxury item for a lot of people, and every extra dollar that we ask someone to spend decreases the chance that they’ll choose to get involved.

The Birth of “Lumen”

With all of that in mind, we felt that this latest incarnation of the project would be best served with a new and more inclusive name, accessible and comprehensible worldwide. We are therefore excited to announce that as of today, the Chilling Effects project and database will be known as “Lumen”:

Lumen, the measurement unit for visible light, epitomizes our interest in illuminating the online public sphere and the platforms through which all users of the Internet post, search, speak, and read. We plan to be a light shining onto requests to remove online content for many years to come. From a practical perspective, very little will change for our users and notice submitters. All links to existing Chilling Effects notices will continue to function normally, simply redirecting to our new domain of https://www.lumendatabase.org. Notice numbers will remain unchanged, and will function as they currently do. After accommodating the name change and the change to our domain name in their internal procedures, bulk submitters will have the same access to our API that they currently do. And of course, the people on the Chilling Effects team will remain the same.

THE ANONYMITY NETWORK Tor has long been the paranoid standard for privacy online, and the Tor Browser that runs on it remains the best way to use the web while revealing the least identifying data. Now the non-profit Tor Project has officially released another piece of software that could bring that same level of privacy to instant messaging: a seamless and simple app that both encrypts the content of IMs and also makes it very difficult for an eavesdropper to identify the person sending them.

On Thursday the Tor Project launched its first beta version of Tor Messenger, its long-in-the-works, open source instant messenger client. The app, perhaps more than any other desktop instant messaging program, is designed for both simplicity and privacy by default: It integrates the “Off-the-Record” (OTR) protocol to encrypt messages and routes them over Tor just as seamlessly as the Tor Browser does for web data. It’s also compatible with the same XMPP or “Jabber” chat protocol used by millions of Facebook and Google accounts, as well as desktop clients like Adium for Mac and Pidgin for Windows. The result is that anyone can download the software and in seconds start sending messages to their pre-existing contacts that are not only strongly encrypted, but tunneled through Tor’s maze of volunteer computers around the world to hide the sender’s IP address.

After some auditing, Tor Messenger is set to become a powerful and popular tool for instant, idiot-proof, and surveillance-resistant communication.

“With Tor Messenger, your chat is encrypted and anonymous…so it is hidden from snoops, whether they are the government of a foreign country or a company trying to sell you boots,” Tor public policy director Kate Krauss wrote to WIRED in a Tor Messenger conversation. She emphasized that despite those features, the program’s use of a pre-existing chat protocol means users won’t need to rebuild their network of contacts. “You can use your Jabber address and your old contacts–you aren’t reinventing the wheel–but wow, much safer.”

Tor Messenger Beta: Chat over Tor, Easily