Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Encryption That Will Freak Out the Feds


From Slate:

For the past few months, some of the world’s leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they’ve decided it’s time to tell all.

Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily. Now, the company is pushing things even further—with a groundbreaking encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files securely from a smartphone or tablet at the touch of a button. (For now, it’s just being released for iPhones and iPads, though Android versions should come soon.) That means photographs, videos, spreadsheets, you name it—sent scrambled from one person to another in a matter of seconds.[...]

Law enforcement agencies will almost certainly be seriously concerned about how it could be used to aid criminals. The FBI, for instance, wants all communications providers to build in backdoors so it can secretly spy on suspects. Silent Circle is pushing hard in the exact opposite direction—it has an explicit policy that it cannot and will not comply with law enforcement eavesdropping requests. Now, having come up with a way not only to easily communicate encrypted but to send files encrypted and without a trace, the company might be setting itself up for a serious confrontation with the feds[...]


If governments don’t come round, though, Silent Circle’s solution is simple: The team will close up shop and move to a jurisdiction that won’t try to force them to comply with surveillance.
“We feel that every citizen has a right to communicate,” Janke says, “the right to send data without the fear of it being grabbed out of the air and used by criminals, stored by governments, and aggregated by companies that sell it.”


The new Silent Circle encrypted data transfer capability is due to launch later this week, hitting Apple’s App Store by Feb. 8.

Read the full article here.

(ht Dan Cotter)

12 comments:

  1. huh, A Navy Seal who's a REAL hero!!
    Well Done!

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  2. Where is this company located at ?
    That is a cause for concern.

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  3. I think the feds will lean on apple and others not to allow the app to be downloaded.

    Encrption need not be perfect, btw. If it just defeats the generic data mining that would be a big step.

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  4. Heroic company. The Feds will probably just pressure Apple to remove the app from the App Store.

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    Replies
    1. One more reason to go Android.(When they port it).

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  5. ROBERT...I WAS LISTENING TO 620am IN FLORIDA AND HEARD A TELEPHONE
    CALLER COME ON IT SOUNDED LIKE YOU ?

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Feds might pressure Apple in to not accepting it, but anyone that might want to use it has probably rooted their phone already anyway and can install it from another source.

    This is awesome though.

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  7. Some very good FREE encrypted chat & voicemail apps are Wickr for iPhone and ChatSecure for Android.

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  8. Great. The apps are free, but to use them you and anyone you want to have an encrypted communication with both have to have a subscription at $20/month.

    Thanks but no thanks.

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  9. Robert, I wrote this reply to the article:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/02/06/pressure-increases-on-silent-circle-to-release-application-source-code/

    ReplyDelete
  10. In a related story, NSA is still baffled by intercepted al-Qadea message chatter that reads: "Obama nana bo bana, fe fi fo fana, me my mo mana, Obama"

    Informed sources have confirmed that after nearly four years of trying to break the code, their fastest computer took a gigantic, constipated tera-flop on the floor. The resulting stench forced personnel to abandon NSA headquarters until Homeland Security swat teams arrived to neutralize the situation with buckets and mops, and grope the entire State of Virginia...

    ReplyDelete