Security News > 2020 > March > The Whisper Secret-Sharing App Exposed Locations

Whisper, the secret-sharing app that called itself the "Safest place on the Internet," left years of users' most intimate confessions exposed on the Web tied to their age, location and other details, raising alarm among cybersecurity researchers that users could have been unmasked or blackmailed.

A Post reporter was able to freely browse and search through the records, many of which involved children: A search of users who had listed their age as 15 returned 1.3 million results.

The exposed records did not include real names but did include a user's stated age, ethnicity, gender, hometown, nickname and any membership in groups, many of which are devoted to sexual confessions and discussion of sexual orientation and desires.

The data also included the location coordinates of the users' last submitted post, many of which pointed back to specific schools, workplaces and residential neighborhoods.

I hope people didn't confess things from their bedrooms.

News URL

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/03/the_whisper_sec.html