Interesting to me that Forbes runs an article like this. Perhaps there is hope for corporate America! Makes me even less impressed with organizations (like TalkTalk) that don't bother encrypting their data.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/10/30/tor-instant-secure-messaging-guide/

Tor Releases Private IM Tool -- Here's An Idiot's Guide To Using Encrypted Messaging

The Tor Project announced an instant messaging tool today, Tor Messenger.

Though not perfect, it’s ideal for anyone looking for an IM tool designed with privacy in mind, as it not only encrypts communications, but routes users through the Tor network, made up of different “hops” or relays, to hide their original IP addresses. Logging is disabled by default too, so there should be no record of conversations.

Most web users aren’t, of course, au fait with the nitty gritty of cryptographic communications. But it’s now remarkably straightforward to set up encrypted instant messaging and not too tricky to do so with a good degree of security.

That's education! (Sung to the tune: “That's entertainment”)

http://hackeducation.com/2015/10/30/hack-education-weekly-news/

Hack Education Weekly News

… California has become the first state to ban schools from using “Redskins” as a team name or mascot.

… The US Department of Education has proposed “a new regulation that would require any new intellectual property developed with grant funds from the department to be openly licensed,” says Education Week.

… Using her cellphone, a student at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina videotaped a school resource officer violently throwing a fellow student, a young black woman to the ground, purportedly because she refused to comply quickly enough to her teacher’s demand she put her phone away. Both students were arrested. The video – horrific – went viral. Ben Fields, the sheriffy’s deputy, was subsequently fired. More, via The Atlantic, on “Race and Discipline in South Carolina Schools.”

… Via The Atlantic: “The Law-School Scam Continues.” (More, via The NYT, on a study that has discovered schools are admitting students who are unlikely to ever pass the bar.)

… The Harvard Law Library is digitizing some 40 million pages of its collection, with the intention of making “a complete, searchable database of American case law that will be offered free on the Internet, allowing instant retrieval of vital records that usually must be paid for.”

… “Can a Professor Be Forced to Assign a $180 Textbook?” More on the controversy in the math department at Cal State Fullerton in The LA Times.

… “Stratford University, a for-profit institution based in Virginia, this week announced that it has become a public benefit corporation,” Inside Higher Ed reports.