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The Guardian Reveals That Whisper App Tracks "Anonymous" Users
New submitter qqod writes this story at The Guardian that raises privacy concerns over the Whisper app. "The company behind Whisper, the social media app that promises users anonymity and claims to be the “the safest place on the internet”, is tracking the location of its users, including some who have specifically asked not to be followed. The practice of monitoring the whereabouts of Whisper users – including those who have expressly opted out of geolocation services – will alarm users, who are encouraged to disclose intimate details about their private and professional lives. Whisper is also sharing information with the US Department of Defense gleaned from smartphones it knows are used from military bases, and developing a version of its app to conform with Chinese censorship laws."
It's getting to the point where you can't trust anything these days, because the NSA or other criminals seem to have access to your data.
And remember, the FBI head dude doesn't want you to use encryption.
Is this the America we are supposed to be proud of?
Be seeing you...
Any business depends on profit to survive, and there is no profit to be had in providing privacy...and certainly not privacy without a fee. A fee of course means a method of payment, and every method of payment is traceable to some extent. Even totally volunteer systems are no guarantee of privacy, as governments are certain to be the first to volunteer.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
"He’s a guy that we’ll track for the rest of his life and he’ll have no idea we’ll be watching him," the same Whisper executive said.
Pro-tip: The people who scream the loudest about privacy and anonymity, but won't show you their source: these are the honeypots. And agent provocateurs. If someone's pushing you to do something for no good reason, perhaps you should ignore them.
What the fuck are people doing using non-free software that claims to protect their privacy? If you can't even see the source, what do you expect?
Seeing the source doesn't help when (a) you are not a software developer, (b) you are a software developer with a job who doesn't have unlimited time to look at source code, (c) you are a software developer with lots of spare time but the source code that you are shown isn't the source code used.
And open source gives the bad guys an easy way to create hacked versions of secure software that aren't secure. Someone stealing your secrets is unlikely to be impressed by GPL and copyright.
Seeing the source doesn't help when (a) you are not a software developer, (b) you are a software developer with a job who doesn't have unlimited time to look at source code, (c) you are a software developer with lots of spare time but the source code that you are shown isn't the source code used.
The point is that, with free software, you have the *ability* to see the source, to hire others to audit the code, to modify the code, to hire others to modify the code, and to share any changes you make. How could any of that possibly be useless? Even just being able to *see* the source code is a step up from proprietary software. There are far more prying eyes.
The benefits of free software cannot be denied. This sort of tracking is far less commonplace.
And open source gives the bad guys an easy way to create hacked versions of secure software that aren't secure.
Doesn't help them much; just pay attention to the source you're getting it from. You might be able to fool some people, but not enough.