As Skype shuts down, its legacy is end-to-end encryption for the masses

In the early evening of March 5, 2012, in Cairo, Egyptian revolutionaries stormed the headquarters of the secret police called the State Security Investigations (SSI) service, a building known as “the capital of hell” because of its reputation as a place where ruthless officers tortured prisoners. Inside, protesters found both intact and shredded documents, torture devices, hard drives, and CDs, and DVDs — all documenting nightmarish torture and widespread surveillance. Among the documents, protesters found a memorandum written in Arabic by SSI officers about a mysterious software called FinFisher, made by the British-German company Gamma International. The officers reported that FinFisher was a “high-level hacking system” with several capabilities, including the ability to access email inboxes, to upload “spy files” on the target’s device, tracking their communications, gaining “complete control” over the devices of the hacked targets, and — crucially — documenting their “success i ... Read full article.