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Company Makes Inconspicuous Secure Cellphone

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the price-tags-that-probably-cause-physical-pain dept.

dponce80 writes "With concerns over privacy at an all-time high, it's refreshing to hear that Swiss company VectroTel is making a secure mobile phone. The X8 encrypts secure calls (the unit is also able to make regular calls) with a virtually unbreakable 128-bit key, itself generated through a Diffie-Hellman exchange. While transmission does get somewhat delayed, communication is secure."

4 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Re:unbreakable? by Bromskloss · · Score: 5, Informative
    isn't WEP also 128 bit?
    WEP isn't insecure due to its 128 bits, but due to other problems. As I understand it, anyway.
    --
    Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
  2. Why not get one from cryptophone.de? by fe105 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Cryptophone is a company that has been making phones like this for some time already.

    They employ some of the smartest crypto people, use well-known algorithms and publish their sources so you can check them yourself.

  3. Some points... by Kaptain_Korolev · · Score: 5, Informative

    Reading the comments made me cringe, so here goes....

    Some points;

    - 128 bit keys are probably good enough, depending on the nature of the conversation. Diffiehellman generates a per-session master secret. To this you would then apply a KDF ( Key Derivation Function ) in order to produce your session key for use with your symmetric cipher, most likely AES or 3DES, maybe even TwoFish. A new master secret is generated every time you make a call, hence the session key changes per call, this is UNLIKE your WEP key, which is constant or one value selected from a set. The consequence of this is that although it is practical to break an 128 bit symmetric key, it is NOT practical to do so in the time interval in which the call is taking place. Hence the encryption applied is strong enough for protecting calls in the short term, although if someone captured the call they could possibly decrypt it at a later date.

    - GSM does feature limited cryptography. Unfortunately, and rather amusingly this encrypting is only carried out on radio traffic. Once the data reaches the base station / cell, it is sent in the clear around the cable cellular netork's backbone infrastructure.

  4. Sectra Tiger by martingunnarsson · · Score: 5, Informative

    A Swedsh company called Sectra has made secure cellphones for years. Their latest model is the only cellphone certified to the security level NATO SECRET by NATO.

    http://www.army-technology.com/contractors/navigat ion/sectra/

    --
    Martin