Zimmermann's Silent Circle Now Live

e065c8515d206cb0e190 writes "Several websites have announced the launch of Silent Circle, PGP's founder Phil Zimmermann's new suite of tools for the paranoid. After a first day glitch with a late approval of their iOS app, the website seems to now accept subscriptions. Have any slashdotters subscribed? What does SilentCircle provide that previous applications didn't have?"

Comments

Now, with centralized user tracking!

[Animats]

The "Silent Circle" uses their own "Silent Network", allowing centralized user tracking. Also, the code isn't open source, so you have no idea if the crypto key generation is any good or if there are backdoors.

Re:Now, with centralized user tracking!

[pnot]

Part of it is keeping his work closed source, which is extra scary when talking about cryptography. Being asked to trust a security solution that you can't examine is insane.

Unless you're a crytpographer and a programmer... examining the source is pretty much pointless. It may give you a warm happy fuzzy to be able to do so, but you lack the qualifications to actually evaluate it.

The point, surely, is not that I am necessarily a cryptographer, but that the source is available to those who are. It's not necessary for every user to independently audit the code, because the skilled individuals who do audit the code can then communicate their findings.

"But why trust the skilled individuals?", you may ask. Answer: because I find it unlikely that all the world's cryptographers are conspiring to keep quiet about any vulnerabilities they find the code. At any rate it's a more sensible strategy than "assume that Zimmerman is both infallible and incorruptible".

You cannot subscribe to good crypto

[betterunixthanunix]

How many times will subscription approaches to crypto have to fail before people understand that it does not work? It failed with Hushmail, and it will almost certainly fail here.