Industry | Encryption software, Mobile software, Mobile security |
---|---|
Founded | 2010 |
Founders |
|
Defunct | November 28, 2011 |
Fate | Acquired by Twitter |
Headquarters | , |
Website | www See Archived 17 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine |
Whisper Systems was an American enterprise mobile security company that was co-founded by security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and roboticist Stuart Anderson in 2010. [1] [2] The company was acquired by Twitter in November 2011. [3] [4] [5] Some of the company's software products were released under open-source licenses after the acquisition. [6] An independent group called Open Whisper Systems later picked up the development of this open-source software, [7] which led to the creation of the Signal Technology Foundation. [8] [9]
Security researcher Moxie Marlinspike and roboticist Stuart Anderson co-founded Whisper Systems in 2010. [10] [1] The company produced proprietary enterprise mobile security software. Among these were an encrypted texting program called TextSecure and an encrypted voice calling app called RedPhone. [11] They also developed a firewall and tools for encrypting other forms of data. [1] [12]
On November 28, 2011, Whisper Systems announced that it had been acquired by Twitter. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by either company. [3] The acquisition was done "primarily so that Mr. Marlinspike could help the then-startup improve its security". [13] Shortly after the acquisition, Whisper Systems' RedPhone service was made unavailable. [14] Some criticized the removal, arguing that the software was "specifically targeted [to help] people under repressive regimes" and that it left people like the Egyptians in "a dangerous position" during the events of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. [15]
Twitter released TextSecure as free and open-source software under the GPLv3 license in December 2011. [16] [17] [1] [6] RedPhone was also released under the same license in July 2012. [18]
Marlinspike later left Twitter and founded Open Whisper Systems as a collaborative Open Source project for the continued development of TextSecure and RedPhone. [19] [7] Open Whisper Systems consisted of a large community of volunteer Open Source contributors, as well as a small team of dedicated grant-funded developers. In November 2015, Open Whisper Systems merged TextSecure with RedPhone and renamed it as Signal. [20] In 2018, Signal Messenger was incorporated as an LLC by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton and then rolled under the independent non-profit Signal Technology Foundation. Today, the Signal app is developed by Signal Messenger LLC, which is funded by the Signal Foundation. [8] [9] The foundation has stated publicly that they are not tied to any major technology companies and "can never be acquired by one either." [21]
Whisper Systems' products were all made for Android and included: [22]