Whisper App Tracks ‘Anonymous’ Users

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It's pretty sad that an app that promises to keep you anonymous tracks you better than the NSA.

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.
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Is it just me, or is practically every app now just a front for getting all of your personal information.
 
Megalith said:
Is it just me, or is practically every app now just a front for getting all of your personal information.
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yes, pretty much any app is made to harvest personal data because it's profitable. even water-level, compass and flashlight apps want access to all your contacts and the internet. i pretty much don't use any app at all except winamp and a browser, sometimes google sky to find things while taking astro pics. and the phone is offline 99% of the time. i guess it will vomit every cached information into the next wireless lan i connect to. that's totally not the way these phones were designed to be used and i miss a lot of usability, but to me that's still better than accepting everything corporations and intelligence services want me to do.
 
Whisper has responded to the claims that it tracks users calling the allegations a "pack of vicious lies."

Whisper’s editor-in-chief, Neetzan Zimmerman, went into attack mode immediately after the story was published, saying it was a “pack of vicious lies” and that “the Guardian made a mistake posting that story and they will regret it.”
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temujin987 said:
yes, pretty much any app is made to harvest personal data because it's profitable. even water-level, compass and flashlight apps want access to all your contacts and the internet. i pretty much don't use any app at all except winamp and a browser, sometimes google sky to find things while taking astro pics. and the phone is offline 99% of the time. i guess it will vomit every cached information into the next wireless lan i connect to. that's totally not the way these phones were designed to be used and i miss a lot of usability, but to me that's still better than accepting everything corporations and intelligence services want me to do.
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And yet with all the steps you take to remain anonymous you're probably being tracked just as accurately as anyone else, unfortunately, just by less people. If the phones OS is spying on you and the NSA is capturing any online activity there isn't much to be done about it besides just not having a smartphone or computer. They know what they're doing.

I understand less invasion is better than more but I'd prefer to have the option for no invasion of privacy. That said, you can install apps even if you don't trust them but then block them from going outbound. Best of both worlds?
 
How can personal data have any value anymore? With so many apps tracking us it seems like the amount of info would be more than anyone could handle thus driving the price of it down.
 
m heisty said:
How can personal data have any value anymore? With so many apps tracking us it seems like the amount of info would be more than anyone could handle thus driving the price of it down.
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Please explain how 10,000,000 credit card numbers is less valuable per unit than 5,000,000.
 
My point is that rape times two is two rapes, not 1.5. The value of private data doesn't change regardless of its quantity.
 
JeffDC said:
Please explain how 10,000,000 credit card numbers is less valuable per unit than 5,000,000.
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Wait a minute, these apps aren't taking your credit card numbers. I think he has a valid point. I mean, CLEARLY there's value in collecting your location data and what you look at online. But I fail to see how companies are making extra sales/profits by purchasing my data and feeding me custom advertisements. If anything, when I see an ad that was clearly inspired by my recent browsing/shopping history - it has the opposite effect on me "nope, I don't want that anymore"
 
And furthermore, my data is probably out there in the wild ten times over. Isn't this creating competition for the data suppliers, thus driving the price down? Thus why / how are these app makers making so much money on collecting data? I mean they must be, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it...
 
Reached by phone, Zimmerman categorically denied the basis of the story, saying that while certain degrees of tracking (such as a city of location) are possible through simply connecting to the Internet, the methods the Guardian described are “either outright false or misguided or misinformed.”

One minute its lies...

“There are at least three Guardian stories written off Whisper, and two of which were using the methods the article is attacking,” Zimmerman said,

Then its not..

Please make your mind up Mr Zimmerman.
 
Megalith said:
Is it just me, or is practically every app now just a front for getting all of your personal information.
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They're just taking advantage of the stuff that Google permits in Android and the very non-technical/apathetic crowd that tends to use Android phones.
 
Cellphones are an oppressive government's wet dream.. and we pay for it, a lot!!
Every dead dictator must be turning green of envy while turning in their graves.
 
i use a dumbphone for texts and voice and a smartphone on wifi. So they know when i am at work or home. Not where i roam.
 
CreepyUncleGoogle said:
They're just taking advantage of the stuff that Google permits in Android and the very non-technical/apathetic crowd that tends to use Android phones.
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I love it when I download some silly app like a calculator and see a laundry list of access permissions it wants, only to find a competitor that wants access to absolutely nothing.

How does iOS mitigate this? Are apps just approved by Apple and the user has no real insight into what that app has access to? Or do iOS users get a similar level of granular security control over what they install?
 
McFry said:
I love it when I download some silly app like a calculator and see a laundry list of access permissions it wants, only to find a competitor that wants access to absolutely nothing.

How does iOS mitigate this? Are apps just approved by Apple and the user has no real insight into what that app has access to? Or do iOS users get a similar level of granular security control over what they install?
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I have no idea how this works with iOS. It's probably just as bad or maybe worse because no one tells you. I helped my mommy setup an iPod touch a while ago, but she really just wanted a MP3 player and didn't need or even get the idea of installing apps. Maybe an Apple device owner can answer that question.
 
It's a mixed bag on iOS. Generally speaking if an app wants to use your location, or your microphone, or whatever - you get a firewall like popup where you can allow or deny. There's a good control center spot where you can allow or nuke privileges app by app. So on the surface, it seems very well done and under control.

That said - every once and a while you hear about some app or file or something keeping tabs on you and it's 100% behind the scenes. It's not supposed to happen but it does. So it's very hard (for me) to trust the iOS platform as secure. My assumption is that something on my phone is doing mischievous things and there's nothing I can do about it.
 
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