Ask HN: What do you use when you need a "secure" VoIP/IM connection?

[jason_tko]

With any semblence of privacy being eroded from Skype, I was wondering what tools/systems HN readers are using when they require a more secure connection for voice and IM.

[dfc]

I use OTR[1], works with irssi and pidgin (maybe all libpurple clients?). For voice I recently saw a reference to Jitsi[2] here on HN. So I have no experience with it.

[1] http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr/

[2] https://jitsi.org/

Addendum:

I went to give jitsi a try and was suprised to see that there are no signatures for any of the downloads. It does not seem that binary signatures are that important to the jitsi team. I took a peak inside the debian package and discovered that the repository signing key has no signatures on it. There is also an open bug to have signatures for the windows binary but that is also an open issue.

If you get bored add a +1 to:

https://java.net/jira/browse/JITSI-1162

https://java.net/jira/browse/JITSI-1161

https://java.net/jira/browse/JITSI-1048

[nwh → dfc]

I use OTR very frequently. It also works in Adium on OSX>

[wmf]

You may want to recalibrate your idea of what "any semblence of privacy" means. Meanwhile I recommend http://www.whispersystems.org/

[jason_tko → wmf]

This thread is part of my re-calibration. There's always a trade-off between practicality and security, and I'm interested to see where it falls for everyone else.