
Ask HN: Is Whisper App criminal? - stopwhispering
Recently I installed the Whisper App on my iPhone. After deleting and re-installing it, I noticed that the account was completely restored by default. This was already suspicious, since Apple doesn&#x27;t allow devs to access programatically the handset&#x27;s unique ID. The implication was that Whisper was using another technique to generate a fingerprint that was unique to my handset.<p>Later, I installed Whisper on another iPhone I owned. Oddly enough, the App asked whether I used it in the past. Answering &quot;Yes&quot;, I was presented with a short list of usernames and asked which one was mine. Sure enough, the username I used on the first iPhone was in that list. Consequently I was able to easily restore my profile on the new device. The profile included my posts, activity and private messages.<p>Here&#x27;s the truly upsetting part: in the same list, there was another username, which I had used 2 years ago, on an iPad (I deleted the iPad App over a year ago).<p>After some googling, I found this blog about the App[1]. The post links to a separate article by The Guardian, equally shocking.<p>I know that The Guardian article at least has been posted here before, and the consensus was that it was unacceptable what Whisper was doing[2]. This was a few years ago. It seems that the team at Whisper has since become even more competent at bypassing several of the protection layers implemented by Apple.<p>My question is, at which point does it become criminal behaviour on the part of the App developers? I feel what Whisper does cannot possibly be acceptable. What can be done about this? What should be done?<p>Here&#x27;s one last fascinating bit about the App: The only way to delete your account is by e-mailing them the request (using your e-mail address, duh!). Furthermore, &quot;deleting your Whisper account will prevent you from joining the Whisper community in the future on your device.&quot; That&#x27;s crazy!<p>[1]http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;2g0qD67<p>[2]http:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;2fH5pJd
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stopwhispering
TL;DR: Whisper App says it's completely anonymous and encourages users to
confess their secrets and talk to other users about their secrets. In the
meantime, it developed a sophisticated tracking approach, using both software
and social engineering methods. The tracking system bypasses Apple's
protection layers. It somewhat succeeds in uniquely identifying a person
across multiple devices and these records are maintained indefinitely.

