Whisper
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Whisper left users' details exposed in an open database for years
The once-popular app Whisper promises a place where you can share secrets anonymously. According to a Washington Post report, however, it left sensitive information that can be tied to users' confessions exposed to the public for years. Apparently, Whisper kept a non-password-protected database that allowed anyone to freely browse its records. Those records included users' age, ethnicity, gender, hometown, nickname and membership in groups, which were mostly about sexual confessions and sexual orientation discussions.
Microsoft patent suggests you inhale whisper to your voice assistants
While voice assistants have grown in popularity over recent years, many people still hesitate to use them in public spaces, and that's a problem Microsoft is looking to tackle. In a patent filing, the company notes that for a number of reasons -- not wanting to disturb those nearby, not wanting to share private information around strangers -- people often avoid issuing voice commands when in public. "Although performance of voice input has been greatly improved, the voice input is still rarely used in public spaces, such as office or even homes," says the patent filing. "These are not technical issues but social issues. Hence there is no easy fix even if voice recognition system performance is greatly improved."
Who needs friends when you have anonymous feedback apps?
The No. 1 app in the iOS App Store has a curious name. It's called Sarahah, and it's been at the top of the iTunes Free Apps chart for the past few weeks. It's an anonymous messaging service for personal feedback. Anyone -- whether they're on the service or not -- can leave comments for users without revealing who they are.
Terror threat posted on Whisper leads to arrest
A man from North Carolina was arrested by federal authorities shortly after he submitted a post that sounded like a threat to the anonymous secret-sharing app Whisper. According to the feds' affidavit, Garrett Grimsley from Cary posted the words "Salam, some of you are alright, don't go to Cary tomorrow" written on a photo of a bearded man carrying a red flag with a black star in the center. Another user who asked for a clarification through private message contacted authorities after receiving his response:
Twitch rolls out a private-message system called Whisper
Psst. We heard something about Twitch that you might enjoy. Lean in. A little closer. A little closer. Perfect: You can now send private messages to friends on Twitch, even if your buddies are watching different streams than you at the time. It's a feature called Whisper and it works by typing "/w" in a Twitch chat box, followed by the username you want to chat with. This creates a message that only you and your friend can see. For now, Whisper messages populate in the standard Twitch chat window and you can't set up private group messages, but the company is working to establish pop-out private messages and offline delivery. And, of course, you can block Whisper messages from certain users and dictate privacy preferences in Settings. See what those options look like below.
BitTorrent's messaging service goes wide, adds ephemeral options
Last we heard of BitTorrent's chat client, Bleep, it was just debuting. Today the news is that the secure messaging client is moving from open alpha to a release aimed at the general Android and iOS owning public. With it comes peer-to-peer messaging with the ability to communicate -- even sending messages to friends who are offline -- no servers required, which theoretically means no threat of hacking. Perhaps the biggest new feature is an ephemeral option called "whispers" for evaporating messages. Unlike Snapchat, though, you can choose on a message by message basis which texts or photos you send will evaporate after 25 seconds. It isn't an all or nothing affair here. And to further distance itself from the ghostly messaging service, you can even send these from a computer. BitTorrent says with whispers you can swap back and forth between them and normal messages seamlessly without breaking the flow of conversation too.
Whisper CEO denies Guardian allegations that it tracks users locations
While on stage at the WSJD Live conference, Whisper CEO Michael Heyward defended his company against the Guardian's recent allegations that the anonymous sharing app stores and tracks its users locations. He told Wall Street Journal reporter Evelyn Rusli that not only were all the paper's accusations wrong and misleading, but that he would fire the employee who supposedly told the Guardian that it would follow a particular Whisper user, who happens to be a lobbyist, for life. The company has already suspended its editorial staff to conduct an internal investigation and find out just who this person is. "This does not reflect our values and what we're all about," he said.
'Whisper' app accused of not hiding whistleblowers
Whisper lets you share secrets without the fear of it getting traced back to you. At least that's the pitch. Now, according to a Guardian report, the service is tracking the location of users that didn't want to be tracked. The report, which deep dives on several issues regarding user privacy and security, adds that Whisper is apparently also sharing info with the US Department of Defense and is retaining posts and user data in a searchable database. Responding to the claims, Editor-in-chief Neetzan Zimmerman says that Whisper "neither receive(s) nor store(s) geographical coordinates" from users who opt out of geolocation services. "User IP addresses may allow (a) very coarse location to be determined to the city, state, or country level."
Whisper app now includes related posts, still keeps your identity anonymous
Whisper, the anonymous secret-sharing app, now delivers a more personalized experience -- but don't worry; your identity will still be hidden. To show you relevant posts without revealing who you are or using your phone's address book, the Whisper team redesigned the app to show related content after you submit a new secret. In other words, the app isn't personalized to display confessions from people you know, but instead it delivers content related to your own anonymous secrets. Additionally, the app now sorts Whispers by location, so you'll be able to zoom into general (not super-specific) areas to see what users are talking about.
Twitter's working on a 'Whisper mode' to make conversations private
When sharing gossip on Twitter, there's always that moment when you have to boldly announce that the conversation will have to continue over DM. Sadly, as well as killing the mood, it means that group discussions get broken up in favor of individual messages behind the veil. It's a problem that Twitter boss Dick Costolo is aware of, and told Bloomberg that the company would look to build a "whisper mode" that lets you grab whole conversations with friends (plural) and make them private at the push of a button. Naturally, an off-hand by a CEO can't be taken as gospel, and we don't know if this is instead of, or beside, the long-mooted private messaging app that would break out Twitter DMs to another platform. Given the rise in real-time messaging platforms like WhatsApp and the anonymity afforded by apps like Secret, however, it looks as if Twitter's going to muscle up so that we never again have to type "Let's take this to DM, k?" ever again.
This machine creates careless synthetic whispers
What do you get when you combine a few respirator bags, some silicone air valves and a motion detector? A contraption that produces a synthetic version of our most sensual form of communication, the whisper. By fudging the aforementioned items together with a few other crude bits and bobs, designer Minsu Kim has built The Illusion of Life, a machine that he says mimics the breath temperature, humidity, smell and vocal qualities of a whisper. If you're asking yourself "why?" you aren't alone. Kim says that these artificial murmurs work to facilitate "strong bonds of communication and connection between the user and a machine." In effect, using intimate human interaction to bring you closer to a gadget. Modern tech has already surpassed what the human eye is capable of perceiving, but he says that Life serves to explore which of the other five senses technology should stimulate next. Laugh now, but once the likes of Benedict Cumberbatch or Scarlett Johansson start whispering your to-do list, you'll likely thank Kim.
Shh, it's a Secret: The allure of the anonymous internet
"I'm terrified I might not actually be all that smart." "Made a batch of Jello just to stick my dick in it. No regrets." "I like taking the ferry because I get to drink in public legally." This is just a small sampling of posts I've recently seen on Secret, an anonymous-sharing app that's part of a new trend in Silicon Valley. It's a little like Whisper, a competing app that's been around since 2012, except that instead of letting you broadcast your anonymous missives to the world, posts on Secret are limited to a network of friends based on your phone's address book.
The Onion: Google 'whisper ads' detect keywords in phone calls (video)
Oh man, The Onion really outdid itself this time. Its latest tech parody takes on ad-supported phones from Google meant to drive down the device's cost. Funny, because it's true. Users won't even remember a time when they didn't have a second voice whispered in their ear. P.S. The Yahoo dig at the end is classic.
How to tell if a GM is whispering you
A guildie got the above whisper Tuesday night. (I have blocked out the website so as not to promote this phishing attempt.) We have reports of this happening to a lot of people in-game right now as yet another attempt to get you to go to a site, so they can steal your login info and defile your characters. Let's dissect the above whisper: It's one whisper made to look like two. This will work if your chat settings match the scammer's chat settings, but if you've fiddled with your font or chat window, then the formatting will be off and the scam will be more obvious. The whisper is from a garbage name. All "players" I've seen with random characters have been scammers or gold selling barkers. So anything after such a name should be considered highly suspect. It says [Game Master]GM. The scammers aren't even trying here. Blizzard GMs have names and have <GM> before their names. It sends you to a non-Blizzard site. Don't go to any website you get in tells or in-game mail as a general rule. If you have received a ban of any kind, you will receive an email to the account you have on file with your subscription info.
Aion patches, denies whispers
In an attempt to shut up some of those annoying gold spammers, Aion has placed a temporary restriction on whispering in today's patch. Anyone below level 5 will find themselves unable to whisper their friends until they reach the magical level, when they can once again make use of the function. In practice, this makes whispering very much like the general channel, which is also restricted to only those characters above level 5.This is only a temporary restriction while the Aion team works out a solution to keeping the gold spammers off of their channels once and for all. However, in the meantime, looks like we're going to have to suffer a bit.Today's patch also fixed a few things for the French and German language version of the game -- mostly localization issues, along with spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Pretty basic things, and nothing to write home about. If you're interested in the breakdown, check out the patch notes on Aion's PowerWiki.
Shhhh: PLAYSTATION is now PlayStation
You can finally pull the cotton out of your ears (and please throw it away, that stuff's been in there forever). The keen eyes over at PS3 Fanboy noticed that the latest PS3 firmware update added support for not only Flash 9, but a softer voice as well, replacing "PLAYSTATION" with the less obnoxious "PlayStation" when referring to the console's online service and store. It's unknown if this will be reflected across the PLAYSTATION PlayStation brand, but for now both our virtual ears and shift keys welcome the change. And while we're on the subject of welcome changes, if you could stop poking us with pointy sticks sometime soon, that would be great too. Thanks.
Linkinus 1.3 brings split chats, embedded videos, and a performance boost
Linkinus is the preferred IRC client for a lot of our readers, I know (personally I tend towards Colloquy, but only because I'm a cheapskate and it's donationware), and they kindly dropped us a note to let us know they'd updated to version 1.3. The new build includes the ability to split chat windows (as seen above), in addition to a revamped UI, "major" performance upgrades, plaintext and Spotlight support for logging, and a whole slew of fun things to play around with, including, we're told, a "Whisper" style that will actually embed images, audio files, and YouTube and Google videos right into your chat windows (a la Campfire). Apparently IRC isn't just text anymore.In fact, at $20 for all these features, Linkinus really is a steal for anyone who spends any amount of time in an IRC channel. Colloquy still does everything I need it to when I jump into IRC periodically, but if you want to chat like a pro in there, Linkinus is a great choice.
All the World's a Stage: WTF is IC - OOC? WTB RP! OK THX, CU L8R
All the World's a Stage is brought to you by David Bowers every Sunday evening, investigating the mysterious art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.While many online gamers are famous for using "leetspeak," there's a certain portion of the community that places a great deal of importance on complete sentences and good spelling. Roleplayers, as a whole, are friendly and communicative, but nonetheless have special ways of interacting that other gamers may not understand. As a new roleplayer, I remember having to figure a lot of these things out, although I was blessed to befriend many people who kindly explained things to me as well. The first and most important concept I had to get a grasp of was the idea of "in-character" versus "out-of-character" communication (usually abbreviated to IC and OOC), and in what situations the use of either sort would be appropriate.It's fair to say that on an RP server where roleplaying is still the rule rather than the exception, anything in the /say or /yell channels should be "in character." That's to say, it should be phrased with good spelling and proper punctuation, and should only refer to happenings within the WoW universe. In situations where one must say something out-of-character in these channels, it is polite to at least couch your OOC words in double parentheses to clarify your meaning.
