
Nico Sell: ‘To me, the NSA and Edward Snowden are just the tip of the iceberg’ - greenvaio
http://eunter.net/2015/01/nico-sell-to-me-the-nsa-and-edward-snowden-are-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/
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marcusgarvey
"Properly paranoid." So far the most apt term I've seen for the state we ought
to be in.

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logn
The main way people add contacts on Wickr is by entering a friend's email or
phone number which is hashed locally and then checked against a database of
hashed identifiers. An intel agency could presumably build a rainbow table by
trying every known phone/email, and then they can track meta-data and
interactions.

Many of their investors, advisors, and C-level execs seem to be part of the
revolving door Valley-D.C. culture. I doubt they're expecting to accomplish
anything radical. Nico's probably most honest when she says their goal is to
be the number one messaging app and that privacy is currently fashionable. I
don't doubt they offer at least improved privacy over e.g. Facebook,
especially considering their Terms of Use conditions. But I think they are
pretty plainly selling the image of privacy instead of actually
useful/innovative tools.

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an_engineer
Visiting the wickr.com sends requests to doubleclick, google-analytics, and
youtube tracking.

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WalterSear
Self-aggrandizing hyperbole.

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userbinator
Something about her attitude towards privacy reminds me of Fravia:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fravia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fravia)

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andyl
"Trust me, Wickr is secure". Right.

Until I can see the source and build the app myself, I'll assume Wickr is just
another government op.

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lazyjones
> _Until I can see the source and build the app myself, I 'll assume Wickr
> just is another government op._

You absolutely should and Sell must be aware of this (she sounds smart enough
to not be delusional about it). It is apparently not addressed by the Wickr
team on their web page as far as I can tell, so that's suspicious. They do
have an impressive $100K bug bounty, but that doesn't exactly make it look
less spook-ish.

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vladharbuz
_“You know what, Mom? Those problems don’t exist anymore. It’s obvious that
girls are smarter at math and science.”_

So she decided that, since people aren't saying that girls are inferior
anymore, she should declare that boys are inferior.

~~~
exit
_> How do you find the male-dominated culture of Silicon Valley?

> I think the walls are gone; more than 50% of hackers are girls. I took my
> 14-year-old daughter to a breakfast of women investors and she listened to
> them talking about how tough it was to be one of the first female investors
> in Silicon Valley. When we left the breakfast, she said to me: “You know
> what, Mom? Those problems don’t exist anymore. It’s obvious that girls are
> smarter at math and science.”_

does anyone have a source on "more than 50% of hackers are girls"?

~~~
WalterSear
[http://eunter.net/2015/01/nico-sell-to-me-the-nsa-and-
edward...](http://eunter.net/2015/01/nico-sell-to-me-the-nsa-and-edward-
snowden-are-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/)

