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How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

theguardian.com

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Re: How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

#31

Post by secfirstmd »

pessimizer wrote: post #10
scw wrote: post #4

> The Guardian witnessed this practice on a three-day visit to the company’s Los Angeles headquarters last month, as part of a trip to explore the possibility of an expanded journalistic relationship with Whisper. So they look to partner, don't like what they see and turn it into a story? Whisper has two problems: violating its users' trust, and letting an external group in without an agreement in place. The Guardian…

>The Guardian also looks bad flipping this into a lede in my mind. The Grauniad would look bad for claiming to be journalists and not reporting on this. edit: really? Journalists, not under any 'off-the-record' or non-disclosure agreements, seek to partner with an app that allows anonymous communication, and finds that it's tracking it's users, storing all information, ignoring opt outs, and funneling information to…

Agreed. The overwhelming public interest was served by The Guardian publishing it.

Re: How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

#32

Post by Cyther606 »

rubyrescue wrote: post #8

I'm the CTO of Whisper. This is really bad reporting. A few notes: 1. we use a legacy maxmind geoip database so we can put the whisper in a general location. that is so inaccurate as to be laughable. for instance, my current IP using our service says "USA", though I'm in Venice, CA. This is hardly a privacy violation, and it's really important for a bunch of reasons: a) The whisper needs to actually appear in the app…

Whisper is valued at over $200,000,000.

As the CTO of this woefully "under-capitalized" startup, you surely must be living hand to mouth.

Forgive me, but the fact is you are working with the DoD while claiming to offer users anonymity.

So egregious are your company's violations of trust with its userbase that it warranted the Guardian publicly shaming your entire enterprise.

> This is not a scandal

You're right, it's not a scandal. It's a demolition derby.

Re: How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

#33

Post by danso »

rubyrescue wrote: post #8

I'm the CTO of Whisper. This is really bad reporting. A few notes: 1. we use a legacy maxmind geoip database so we can put the whisper in a general location. that is so inaccurate as to be laughable. for instance, my current IP using our service says "USA", though I'm in Venice, CA. This is hardly a privacy violation, and it's really important for a bunch of reasons: a) The whisper needs to actually appear in the app…

What's your take on this?

> A team headed by Whisper’s editor-in-chief, Neetzan Zimmerman, is closely monitoring users it believes are potentially newsworthy, delving into the history of their activity on the app and tracking their movements through the mapping tool. Among the many users currently being targeted are military personnel and individuals claiming to work at Yahoo, Disney and on Capitol Hill.

This paragraph may imply something more ominous, i.e. that users are being tracked despite geolocation being turned off...I'm assuming that's not the case...but would you say that the users in this scenario are aware that their data is being analyzed at this granular level for news and research purposes by third parties?

Re: How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

#34

Post by SteveD3 »

rubyrescue wrote: post #8

I'm the CTO of Whisper. This is really bad reporting. A few notes: 1. we use a legacy maxmind geoip database so we can put the whisper in a general location. that is so inaccurate as to be laughable. for instance, my current IP using our service says "USA", though I'm in Venice, CA. This is hardly a privacy violation, and it's really important for a bunch of reasons: a) The whisper needs to actually appear in the app…

I'd like to see the email screenshot, as referenced in #4.

Re: How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

#35

Post by blueMist »

protothomas wrote: post #21
rubyrescue wrote: post #8

I'm the CTO of Whisper. This is really bad reporting. A few notes: 1. we use a legacy maxmind geoip database so we can put the whisper in a general location. that is so inaccurate as to be laughable. for instance, my current IP using our service says "USA", though I'm in Venice, CA. This is hardly a privacy violation, and it's really important for a bunch of reasons: a) The whisper needs to actually appear in the app…

Do you have any comment on the claims relating to the Department of Defence?

apparently they're sharing "aggregate counts" for specific keywords associated w/ city-level locations. According to info from Whisper on Twitter..

Re: How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

#36

Post by superuser2 »

moxie wrote: post #16
superuser2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% of network services "track" their users' IP addresses. Every website that is accessible outside of Tor can see its users' IPs. That is the nature of TCP/IP. You act like this is a deliberate violation of privacy. I don't know what to say, except that you're wrong. If you ask a question, you consent to be "tracked" to the extent necessary to deliver an answer to you. On the internet, that means IP address.

I don't know what to say, except that you're right . This is the problem that Tor is trying to solve, which is why Tor gets to claim that it is "anonymous," and random websites or apps don't get to make that claim. I don't think it's a deliberate violation of privacy to operate a website, but I do think that it's a violation to operate a normal website and call it "anonymous." Because, as you point out, it's not. Not…

It's "anonymous" if it doesn't publish your name/identifier alongside your content. 4chan is anonymous. When you use it, you are anonymous to the people reading your comments.

Does this app pretend at any point that its operators couldn't identify users if they wanted to? That would be dishonest. But what word do you expect them to use for "your name will not be published" besides "anonymous"?

Re: How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

#38

Post by blueMist »

rubyrescue wrote: post #8

I'm the CTO of Whisper. This is really bad reporting. A few notes: 1. we use a legacy maxmind geoip database so we can put the whisper in a general location. that is so inaccurate as to be laughable. for instance, my current IP using our service says "USA", though I'm in Venice, CA. This is hardly a privacy violation, and it's really important for a bunch of reasons: a) The whisper needs to actually appear in the app…

Question: in 1 e) above you mention you throw away the original IP info and then in 2 mention work w/ academics around not being able to group whispers from same users. What is the relation between these statements and the ones in the article linked below about "delving into a user's history" in order to verify veracity of claims ? That would seem to suggest you are in fact aggregating user history information (e.g. sets of whispers) for at least a subset of users.. http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/01/24/3-reasons-....

Re: How Whisper app tracks ‘anonymous’ users

#40

Post by famousactress »

superuser2 wrote: post #36
moxie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what to say, except that you're right . This is the problem that Tor is trying to solve, which is why Tor gets to claim that it is "anonymous," and random websites or apps don't get to make that claim. I don't think it's a deliberate violation of privacy to operate a website, but I do think that it's a violation to operate a normal website and call it "anonymous." Because, as you point out, it's not. Not…

It's "anonymous" if it doesn't publish your name/identifier alongside your content. 4chan is anonymous. When you use it, you are anonymous to the people reading your comments. Does this app pretend at any point that its operators couldn't identify users if they wanted to? That would be dishonest. But what word do you expect them to use for "your name will not be published" besides "anonymous"?

I think they essentially do, which is part of @moxie's point about can't vs won't. Above the CTO says "I can't tell you who a user is without them posting their actual personal information", which is very misleading to the general public without the addendum: "...unless I try to".
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