I believe one of the fastest and easiest ways to reduce domestic spying is if everything we do is encrypted.I stumbled upon Cryptocat a little while ago. It allows you to create a chat room via a firefox plugin. You can choose any name you want even numbers. I'm unsure of how well it works (plugin says its not a magic bullet) but it's a hell of a lot better then being completely naked. If this plugin helps you I hope you'll support the people who made it.
Its been a long time since this post was created and im quite amazed that no one has replied to it yet. Cryptocat seems to go long way in last (almost) two years and offers not only private group chat but also you can add it as a security layer to your facebook chat so that noone (not even guys at Cryptocat) can read your messages.
It comes as a plugin for Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, OS X and iPhone. They r currently working on android app.
Ive created group called "teksyndicate" (without " ") so you can join and try it out.
PS: Im not in any way connected to the creator of this app (that i personally find amazing), and i just want to support it by telling others like minded guys here to try it out and create their own opinions on it.
I have it, but have to beg others to use it with me :(
The mobile iOS version seems to drop the conversation name and "buddies" after a certain amount of time. It makes it's difficult to continue or have a conversation without texting/calling for their buddy name and conversation name. Anyone else run into this?
I tried using SecureChat also, but they make you create an account (which I don't like) using either faceyspace login, Google Talk, or Jabber. I tried to create an account on Jabber, but they said they were moving their database to another location and is temporarily down for maintenance. Anyone else use it or try it out? And why the hell are they pushing to use Facebook or Google for a login with an encrypted chat client??