Moxie Marlinspike

Moxie Marlinspike is the pseudonym of a computer security researcher. His research has focused primarily on techniques for intercepting communication, as well as methods for strengthening communication infrastructure against interception. He is a member of the Institute for Disruptive Studies, former head of the security team at Twitter, founder of Open Whisper Systems, and a fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation. He runs a cloud-based WPA cracking service, manages the GoogleSharing targeted anonymity service, and is the author of the Convergence SSL authentication system.

Biography

Marlinspike moved to San Francisco in the late 1990s and worked for several technology companies, including enterprise infrastructure software maker BEA Systems Inc, before the dot-com collapse. During the mid-2000s, Marlinspike and three friends refurbished a derelict sailboat and sailed around the Bahamas.

In 2010, Marlinspike was the chief technology officer and co-founder of Whisper Systems, an enterprise mobile security startup company. In May 2010, Whisper Systems launched TextSecure and RedPhone. These were applications that provided end-to-end encrypted SMS messaging and voice calling, respectively. The company was acquired by the social-media firm Twitter for an undisclosed amount in late 2011. The acquisition was done "primarily so that Mr. Marlinspike could help the then-startup improve its security". During his time as head of cybersecurity at Twitter, the firm made Whisper Systems' apps open-source. Marlinspike left Twitter in early 2013 and founded Open Whisper Systems as a collaborative Open Source project for the continued development of TextSecure and RedPhone. In November 2015, Open Whisper Systems unified the TextSecure and RedPhone applications as Signal.