Twitter To Open Source Encrypted Text Software For Android

Less than a month after being brought into the Twitter fold, Whisper Systems’ Android secure text-messaging client TextSecure is being made open source.

According to Twitter’s Chris Aniszczyk, the company, a supporter of open source, plans to do the same with other Whisper Systems software.

We love open source

According to a blog post, he said that putting the source code onto GitHub, its resource for developers, was not a decision Twitter made lightly or on a whim.

“Before we fully release Whisper Systems’ code to the public in the coming months, we need to make sure it meets legal requirements and is consumable by the open source community,” he said. “The plan is to open source the code in an iterative fashion, starting today with TextSecure, which provides support for encrypted texts on Android devices. We hope individuals will continue to find it useful and build upon it.”

“We’ve always been interested in the ability for individuals and organisations to communicate freely and securely,” read a Whsiper Systems statement. “In the year and a half since Whisper Systems launched TextSecure, we’ve received an enormous amount of thanks, feedback, and encouraging stories from users who have employed TextSecure towards those ends. We hope that as an open source project, TextSecure will be able to reach even more people, with an even larger number of contributors working to make it a great product.”

At the time of its acquisition, Whisper Systems said that some of its products would be taken offline, including its RedPhone voice encryption service and its FlashBack encrypted backup offering. Whisper Systems also develops encryption and security software for mobile devices, including WhisperCore, WhisperMonitor, Flashback and RedPhone for Android phones.