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posted by Woods on Thursday May 15 2014, @09:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the coming-up-with-department-names-is-hard dept.

Anonymously spilling personal gossip and corporate secrets online is all fun and games-until someone gets a subpoena. Startups like Secret and Whisper have defined a buzzy new category of social media, attracting millions of users and tens of millions of dollars in venture capital investments with the promise of allowing anyone to communicate with anonymity. But when it comes to actually revealing corporate and government secrets -a "whistleblowing" function that the two services either implicitly or explicitly condone- users should read the fine print. For all their vaunted anonymity, both companies collect enough information to easily identify their secret-sharers, and both have exceptions written into their terms of service that allow them to rat out their private users at the first whiff of legal controversy.

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/whistleblowers-beware /

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Buck Feta on Thursday May 15 2014, @09:56PM

    by Buck Feta (958) on Thursday May 15 2014, @09:56PM (#43975) Journal

    > Secret and Whisper have defined a buzzy new category of social media, attracting millions of users and tens of millions of dollars in venture capital

    I'm not saying we're in a bubble, but boy is it starting to get frothy.

    --
    - fractious political commentary goes here -
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday May 16 2014, @12:03AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 16 2014, @12:03AM (#44033) Journal

      I'm not saying we're in a bubble, but boy is it starting to get frothy.

      At least the froth is not made with stock market money. If/when it happens, time to switch your investments to something more conservative.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Thursday May 15 2014, @10:19PM

    by edIII (791) on Thursday May 15 2014, @10:19PM (#43989)

    Anonymity is going to be impossible with any kind of paid service in which you authenticate to unless you also use protocols similar to TOR. Even then, it will be pseudo which is not as valuable, but still useful.

    It's unreasonable to expect these companies to be on your side. Are you really going to be that tough for a bunch of faceless customers when the government is threatening your entire life and family? Will you be brave enough for full disclosure when those corrupt and wholly unpatriotic Americans threaten you with jail if you even disclose that it happened?

    Post Patriot Act the government lost all pretense of justice and service to the citizens and turned into the infamous men in black. Except it's not a humorous Will Smith wanting to give you happy memories, but true scum of the Earth that are nothing more than thugs and zealots, may they all burn.

    It's *dangerous* to run a communications oriented service in the US, or really anywhere the Five Eyes have direct jurisdiction, and more than likely deadly where they do not. They will have their data.

    Zero knowledge services are the only hope and defense we have. It affords us real privacy, at least in the sense that a corporate executive can't shit his pants and hand over the keys to the men with guns. That's not hyperbole either; I wish it was. Remember that moron at the FBI that took down an entire data center and scores of businesses? Yeah.

    You simply cannot trust any middlemen whatsoever and must viciously fight for your privacy and anonymity, while relying on strength of numbers to mitigate the risk of them coming after you directly for daring to have it.

    Never trust these corporations, as a pistol pointed at their head will erase whatever ideals they are espousing with their shiny websites, fancy tech buzzwords, and we-are-tough-and-edgy attitudes. They are just like us and want to go home and enjoy the bread and circuses too.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday May 16 2014, @11:27AM

      Fuck the scientologists; bring back anon.penet.fi

      (I have a colleague in Finland who is seriously considering doing that, as we believe that the bullshit which the Co$ used to cause it to be pulled down two decades ago no longer has teeth.)
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 16 2014, @02:29PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday May 16 2014, @02:29PM (#44199) Homepage

      I found it pretty hilarious that people actually believed that apps like Snapchat would actually keep their naked pics private, as if they couldn't just be captured with a screenshot app.

      Sweet Jesus, people are fucking dense.

  • (Score: 2) by tathra on Friday May 16 2014, @08:19PM

    by tathra (3367) on Friday May 16 2014, @08:19PM (#44411)

    uh oh, this is a dupe of a story posted on /. today! why are we bothering to exist if all we do is continue to copy slashdot?! /sarcasm

    seriously, those "this is a /. dupe!" comments are really annoying.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 17 2014, @06:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 17 2014, @06:34AM (#44593)

      What is this slashdot you mention?