Loading AI tools
American enterprise mobile security company From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Whisper Systems was an American enterprise mobile security company that was co-founded by security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and roboticist Stuart Anderson in 2010.[1] The company was acquired by Twitter in November 2011.[2][3][4] Some of the company's software products were released under open-source licenses after the acquisition.[5] An independent group called Open Whisper Systems later picked up the development of this open-source software,[6] which led to the creation of the Signal Technology Foundation.[7][8]
Industry | Encryption software, Mobile software, Mobile security |
---|---|
Founded | 2010 |
Founders |
|
Defunct | November 28, 2011 |
Fate | Acquired by Twitter |
Headquarters | , |
Website | www See Archived 17 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine |
Security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and roboticist Stuart Anderson co-founded Whisper Systems in 2010.[9][1] The company produced proprietary enterprise mobile security software. Among these were an encrypted texting program called TextSecure and an encrypted voice calling app called RedPhone.[10] They also developed a firewall and tools for encrypting other forms of data.[1][11]
On November 28, 2011, Whisper Systems announced that it had been acquired by Twitter. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by either company.[2] The acquisition was done "primarily so that Mr. Marlinspike could help the then-startup improve its security".[12] Shortly after the acquisition, Whisper Systems' RedPhone service was made unavailable.[13] Some criticized the removal, arguing that the software was "specifically targeted [to help] people under repressive regimes" and that it left people like the Egyptians in "a dangerous position" during the events of the 2011 Egyptian revolution.[14]
Twitter released TextSecure as free and open-source software under the GPLv3 license in December 2011.[15][16][1][5] RedPhone was also released under the same license in July 2012.[17]
Marlinspike later left Twitter and founded Open Whisper Systems as a collaborative Open Source project for the continued development of TextSecure and RedPhone.[18][6] Open Whisper Systems consisted of a large community of volunteer Open Source contributors, as well as a small team of dedicated grant-funded developers. In November 2015, Open Whisper Systems merged TextSecure with RedPhone and renamed it as Signal.[19] In 2018, Signal Messenger was incorporated as an LLC by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton and then rolled under the independent non-profit Signal Technology Foundation. Today, the Signal app is developed by Signal Messenger LLC, which is funded by the Signal Foundation.[7][8] The foundation has stated publicly that they are not tied to any major technology companies and "can never be acquired by one either."[20]
Whisper Systems' products were all made for Android and included:[21]
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.