Encrypting Phone Storage and Transmission? (2011 Version)

An anonymous reader writes "Soon I'll be moving to one of the hot, culturally restrictive countries which has recently been in the news ... and which monitors and filters web traffic. ISPs and cellular providers are both owned by the government. Needless to say, I'm concerned about privacy and am even posting to my fellow Slashdotters as an anonymous coward. Which smart phones are the best for a) encrypted storage, and b) encrypted transmission? I'm not worried about encrypting SMSs or traditional voice traffic, but I would like all IP traffic as secure as possible. Setting up a server in my less restrictive home country is an option. What storage encryption and transmission encryption would you recommend for that situation? I'm willing to buy yet another device, if necessary. (No, I won't get a SatPhone.) I currently have a Nokia N900 running Maemo5 and another device running Symbian S60v3. I was hoping to have a secure OS like BackTrack running on the N900, but it looks like the software was never totally ported for the device."

Comments

Traditional VPN?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Why not a traditional VPN with an Android or iOS device? Symbian should also be able to support VPN connections as well.

Blackberry + BES Express

[ballwall]

Set up a BES Express server, and get a BlackBerry. I'm not sure you can find equivalent security on any other platform. The BES Express server (free) offers transparent VPN. The devices themselves are unmatched, security-wise (though you'd be stepping back like 5 years in features). Email might be a problem if you don't want to also run exchange or lotus domino, but you could easily set up an IMAPS server and use that.

n900 is probably the most flexible

[xeno]

Some resources for the n900:

----- file system encryption--
Truecrypt for true cross-platform encryption on the phone's non-boot volume
  (available by default in the N900's Extras-Testing repository)
A nice script to simplify use of TrueCrypt (no screen icon = non-obvious = good)
  http://forums.internettablettalk.com/showthread.php?p=597269
Also note that for your pc, you can put the x86 tc.exe on the phone's unencrypted boot volume, ...and then mount the phone's encrypted volume from the card, thru 1 usb connection

----- IP encryption
Tor is available as a package and works well, tho with caveats
  http://www.torproject.org/docs/N900.html.en
SSH is also available

----- semi-secure voip
Skype support is inbuilt (tho sometimes suspect w/proprietary encryption & whatnot)
  configure thru Settings>Connectivity>VoIP and IM.
Run your own Asterisk PBX on the n900 with an encrypted config/tunneled
  available in the Extras repository

----- alt boot options
option to boot alt OS hidden on card
  http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900/Install/Dual_Boot
  http://neopwn.com/ (sometime soon, one hopes)
option to carry a hidden/alt bootable PC OS in your phone
  http://zitstif.no-ip.org/?p=451

Re:Solution.

[guruevi]

Welcome to the US. If you're speaking on a phone, you're not talking in private, if you're talking in a room where other people are or have been, you're not talking in private. Better-paid attorneys will actually sweep the rooms regularly for bugs and have external audits performed.

Why you ask? The duty to keep the attorney/client privilege is not on the state but on the attorney so the state could get a warrant (or not if you're DHS/FBI, the Patriot Act cares for it) for the wiretapping of an attorneys office if they could demonstrate (or not) that it could further their case. If a cop 'accidentally' overhears a conversation between an attorney and his client, it can be used or even if it can't be used in court it could be used in questioning and pressuring. The only exception to that is at a prison or a state office where the attorney or client can request a private area to conduct their conversation (again, duty is on the attorney or his client to request such privacy) but most likely they won't carry on a conversation in those settings - the focus would be to get them out of there first without saying too much if possible.