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Comment by rdl | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if this is governmental pressure or merely "ran out of money"/normal commercial concerns.

"ran out of money" wouldn't have this "we can't say anything, we are closing it now" odor.

Current "encryption" related concerns provide save-face cover for ran of money quite nicely.

True, but there's also arguably more demand for encryption now than ever. An experienced entrepreneur like Ziptr's CEO should have been able to play this to the company's advantage with customers, investors, etc. Unless of course they got shut down.

This company also seems pretty low risk, unlike, say, a consumer privacy messaging or VPN service.

Consumer privacy services have very low revenue per customer, so if you attract a few customers with huge attached legal costs, you probably just shut down. I think if you're not a dick, you shut down and offer to pay your existing customers to use an equivalent (if available) service elsewhere for some transition period, since you can't continue operating your service directly.

Nonsense. There are many reasons to shut down a service suddenly and almost none of them are things you'd want to brag about. Nobody wants to admit they failed as an entrepreneur.

I would wager that the chance of closure through financial pressures is supremely more common and likely than sneaky government intervention.

I know these guys ... I doubt they ran out of money, they're really good at executing. If the business wasn't panning out, they would've sold to someone.

NSA concerns clearly.

Clearly? Really? There is nothing in the slightest clear about it.

That's exactly what makes one suspicious.

It could be anything embarrassing or that would be dangerous/costly to talk about. Government interference is only one possibility. Maybe a competitor paid them to shutdown. (probably not, but it's possible)

When in doubt, assume it was the NSA. That's a safe assumption to make any time you have no knowledge at all.

I'm going to start blaming them for the weather.

I've got no evidence that they're controlling the weather, but it seems like something they would do if they could.

actually it's provable that the weather is partly controlled, at least in Germany. http://www.br.de/themen/wissen/wetter-meteorologie-rosenheim... No need to be a conspiracy-theorist, it's simply true. They use that to avoid hail damaging the crops.

They clearly can manipulate the weather, the question is to what degree and when do they do it and with what aim: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_modification

Yes, that's my algorithm.

Company Quietly Closes - NSA Backdoor Concerns?

Concerned NSA Quietly Closes Backdoor Company

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