The lesson? Only use open source software which connects with open source open protocol servers or better yet uses peer to peer connections.
Some open source software is not free as in beer but as long as it is free as in speech you can verify that it is not designed to hurt you.
(edit) Also using open hardware which serves you rather than another master will help.
The lesson? Online you have hardly any shot at privacy or anonymity, so stop pretending you do.
There are implementation issues. That does not mean it is impossible nor that we should stop trying.
Eh, so the Government now knows what local adolescents want to hook up? That’s the only thing I saw when I installed it.
Snark aside, always treat anything you say online as completely public and identifiable. Anonyminity is, for better or worse (probably worse) is dead. No matter how anonymous you feel, someone with determination and resources can find out who you are.
This assumes that I have an individual identity in the first place. Not everybody subscribes to this philosophy.
When people say “online” now, they typically mean the classic ARPAnet/Internet, but the word itself can be applied to any computer networks. Make some new networks and build anonymity in from the start, then you also avoid the whole ISP wiretap problem. Sure, it’s difficult, but not that difficult.
Yes. Yes, and yes. Implementation is sort of the huge problem. All the parts must work together perfectly or there is compromise. My computer must work, the network I’m on must work, the links between me and the computer on the far end must work, the computer on the far end must work, and the users at both ends must work. Lots of places to insert, and at some point, the communication MUST be unencrypted…
Ahhh! Its the Borg!
Sorry. Not enough coffee yet.
Until someone taps it, or makes a deal with whoever is supplying encryption, or someone owns the servers. Or until a backdoor in another interconnected domain compromises it. Or until an untrusted 3rd party gains access. Or until normal bugs create a huge exploit… Or…
An analysis of the app from iPhone forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski:
http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=4056
the Whisper app does not appear to be a social networking application with analytics; it appears to be an analytics and user acquisition application that also happens to have a social networking component. With this come a few concerns about privacy and anonymity.
After reading the Guardian article and this blog post, the entire app smells fishy.
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