Twitter crypto purchase leaves Egypt dissidents in lurch

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/28/twitter_buys_whisper_systems/

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco
The Register
28th November 2011

A company that provided free cellphone encryption to dissidents in Egypt 
abruptly suspended its services on Monday so that Twitter could 
integrate some of its privacy enabling technology into the microblogging 
site.

Twitter's acquisition of San Francisco-based Whisper Systems came on 
Monday, the same day Egyptian citizens participated in their nation's 
first parliamentary elections since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, whose 
repressive regime ruled the country for three decades. That means 
Egyptian dissidents who relied on Whisper Systems RedPhone to encrypt 
voice calls made with their Android smartphones abruptly lost the 
ability to protect calls from government-controlled eavesdroppers at a 
time they might need it most.

It was only nine months ago that Whisper Systems said it was rushing out 
an international version of the encryption software to support the 
historic protests that were then sweeping the African nation's populace.

“The timing is atrocious,” said Chris Sogohian, a privacy researcher 
with the Open Society Foundations. “Today is Egypt's first election 
after it threw out its old regime, and the only encrypted voice 
communication tool for Android goes dark. This couldn't have happened at 
a worse time for people in Egypt.”

[...]

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