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NSA Publishes Blueprint For Top Secret Android Phone

Posted by samzenpus on from the you-keep-using-that-word-I-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means dept.

mask.of.sanity writes "The National Security Agency has designed a super-secure Android phone from commercial parts, and released the blueprints(Pdf) to the public. The doubly-encrypted phone, dubbed Fishbowl, was designed to be secure enough to handle top secret phone calls yet be as easy to use and cheap to build as commercial handsets. One hundred US government staff are using the phones under a pilot which is part of a wider project to redesign communication platforms used in classified conversations."

3 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. transparent case and dip switches... by jdogalt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    All I've really wanted for christmas for the last 10 years is a phone easily disassemblable, with a transparent case, and user facing dip switches for the mic, the antennas, the battery, and these days, the power line going to the camera. Or alternately for the camera, a physical piece of plastic that slides to expose/cover the camera. Also the dip switches should be placed in such a way that it is reasonably convincing to technical users that they are in fact breaking the relevant physical traces/wires.

    Maybe in 10 more years...

  2. fishbowl !=blowfish by optimism · · Score: 5, Interesting

    re: "The doubly-encrypted phone, dubbed Fishbowl"

    A strange combination of clever and ironic.
    Fishbowl is an anagram of Blowfish, though I dunno if they use that cipher.
    However to most folks, a fishbowl is something in clear view, under close observation.
    Quirky.

  3. They are smarter than that by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    MS knows that the government controls patents and that national security is a grounds that the government can take a patent away and make it public domain.

    Interestingly enough the NSA has special status when it comes to patents. They can file secret patents that remain classified until someone tries to patent the same thing. At such time their patent is revealed and is valid from that date of revelation.