Twitter buys Marlinspike's crypto start up

Twitter has acquired Whisper Systems, a mobile device security company co-founded by well-known security researcher Moxie Marlinspike.

The company, which makes mobile encryption applications for Android devices, announced it was joining Twitter on late Monday.

"We were attracted to this not only because we saw it as an opportunity to reinvent the security solutions that never really worked in the PC environment to begin with, but also because the stakes are much higher — due to the nature of mobile devices themselves — and we didn't like the way that things were looking," the company said. Twitter confirmed the buy, telling Forbes that Marlinspike and fellow co-founder Stuart Anderson would be "bringing their technology and security expertise to Twitter's products and services."