There’s also all the cybersecurity and privacy news you need to read. Out every Monday, it’s a mix of strange true crime and real-world surveillance, with all the relevant search warrants and court documents for you to pore over.

This story is part of The Wire IRL feature in my newsletter, The Wiretap.

Whilst the FBI and other government agencies can’t read your WhatsApp messages or see who is Whispering, they can get enough information from either to potentially locate a target. Kevin Alexander Guerrero-Beltran, 29, was arrested in May by Boaz police officers after he allegedly used the Whisper app to set up a sexual encounter with a. He pleaded guilty and was given 10 years in prison in 2020. When they’d posted a simple whisper saying that boys were immature, a suspect got in touch and arranged a meeting, only to be arrested and charged with attempted sexual enticement of a minor. According to a search warrant from 2019, a detective with the Boone County Sheriff's Department Cyber Crimes Task Force (BCCCTF) in Missouri set up a “decoy” of a 14-year-old girl. The feds have used the same tactic on Whisper before. Whisper was able to tell police that the Forsei user was male, aged between 26 and 29, “whose phone location services placed him on Guam.” According to the warrant, Whisper can provide various information to law enforcement, including location, chat log timestamps, the content of whispers and IP address. They also obtained information from WhisperText, the San Mateo company that runs Whisper, which had, in 2014, courted controversy for providing user data to the Department of Defense. The police didn’t just rely on WhatsApp for corroborating information.

Whisper app arrests 2019