Whisper Suspends Editorial Team Involved in Guardian Visit

It might be worse, because it gives a false sense of security. People might be swayed into using the service and not realise the risk.

True, I neglected this. Guardian points out (perhaps too imprecisely) that they changed the ToS to include storing data in other countries, and their response is essentially, "Calm down, right now we're only in the US." They've obviously made a deliberate move to open the door to storing data somewhere other than the US, but expect everyone to be reassured that they haven't actually walked through the door yet. Like the server-side location fuzzing, it's an unverifiable promise of security/privacy, not actual security and privacy.

> their new ToS are not active yet.

How not? http://whisper.sh/privacy , dated 13 October, has the "other countries" clause, and says "Any changes become effective when we post them on the Site."

> that is obvious since that is an integral part of the app.

I have to admit, I'm also a bit surprised that this, of all privacy issues, is blowing up so much. Still, I support raising awareness of privacy, and I'm getting sketchy vibes from Whisper's damage control, so that I wonder if they have more to hide or something.

True. I guess somehow saying "If you want real security, use PGP and only talk to people you know and trust" just isn't as good for their bottom line, or as fun/useful for their users. I would still consider it worthwhile for us to point this stuff out, so that people who care about it can inform themselves from somewhere other than a CEO whose company depends on making money off of them.