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posted by mattie_p on Monday February 24 2014, @07:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the security-will-cost-you dept.

fliptop writes:

"Promising that orders will start shipping in June, Silent Circle has announced the Blackphone is ready for pre-orders. (Domain registered in Switzerland)

Touted as 'The high-end smartphone which puts privacy and security ahead of everything else' the Blackphone has a 4.7" screen, 2GHz quad-core CPU and 16GB storage. It also includes several Silent Circle apps.

The Blackphone makes use of a customized version of Android called PrivatOS, is fully unlocked, and the encryption can be used on any compatible network. Purchase includes a 1-year subscription to the apps; after that it's $10 a month (in addition to your carrier's charges).

In order to take advantage of the encryption, the other person you're communicating with has to have their own Blackphone or use Silent Circle apps on their Android or iOS phone."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday February 24 2014, @09:15PM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Monday February 24 2014, @09:15PM (#6188) Journal

    I completely agree. Here's the "but" -- why make it any easier for the spies? A vulnerability in one of the binary blobs would probably be of a type that gives the evildoer root, and they could then get whatever. To get there, they have to target you in some way, or hope you get hit with some bit of malware, and write tools (which will need updating as systems and programs change) that will convert your keystrokes to sendable text, get the content of your received messages and resend them, etc. etc. None of that is impossible or even unlikely, but it is a whole lot more effort than simply putting a splitter on a backbone and copying every bit of plain text as it passes -- no need to worry about patches closing old vulnerabilities, or app updates breaking your tools, or any other myriad issues.

    So, while encrypting the data may not be foolproof, it does increase the resources the NSA must expend to get a bunch of cat pics, in which case, conservation of those resources may well seem wise, and encourage them to do their actual job, which is monitoring overseas communications.

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