Crypto-punks the 'net around are in mourning after yesterday's announcement that Whisper Systems was being purchased by Twitter. For those of you who haven't heard: Whisper Systems was the fledgling company of Moxie Marlinspike a hacker most recently in the news for his work with Wikileaks. His company produced many very interesting cryptographic tools for Android including WhisperCore - a full encryption and security system for Android, WhisperMonitor - a software firewall tightly integrated with WhisperCore, and FlashBack - an encrypted cloud backup system. Though the software will reportedly be available again soon it is the loss of the RedPhone service which will be mourned by geeks and activists alike.
RedPhone was an end-to-end encrypted VoIP platform combined with anonymous routing. This service was one of the most exciting technological developments I have ever encountered. The potential for such a service should not be understated. It would strike fear in the heart of tyrants and make authorities of all stripes tremble in their jackboots.
And so the app is already pulled from the market and the servers are down. What will Twitter do with their newly acquired technology? We'll have to wait and see. One thing's for certain, though, this couldn't have happened at a more inopportune time.
On a related note: another one of Moxie's controversial services WPA Cracker is still online. WPA Cracker does not appear to be affiliated with Whisper Systems which probably explains how it narrowly escaped the fate of the other services.
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