Phil Zimmermann's 'Spy-Proof' Mobile Phone In Demand

An anonymous reader writes "BlackPhone was designed by Phil Zimmermann (inventor of PGP). The 4.7" display phone features a 2 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 4i ARM Cortex-A9 quad-core processor with 60 GPU cores, 1GB RAM and 16GB storage [more specs]. The OS is a customized version of Android called PrivatOS which offers encrypted calls, texts and emails that can't be unscrambled even by spy agencies. It also offers built-in resistance against malicious software which will be most welcomed for users worried about free Apps that are becoming increasingly invasive, if not pure data collection spyware for unknown 3rd parties. It's coming out this June, and many Fortune 50 companies have already ordered the phone to protect against industrial espionage."

Comments

Spy-Proof; Not Court-Proof

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

You can develop all the security technologies you like. They'll be worth precisely nothing when the NSA sends a pup of an agent with a national security letter to seize your files, equipment, and force your co-operation under penalty of imprisonment. The courts remain the ultimate root-kit.

Re:Spy-Proof; Not Court-Proof

[houstonbofh]

But you will know. They will not be able to listen in without you knowing. That is a big deal.

Re:Spy-Proof; Not Court-Proof

[tapspace]

Someone should enshrine that in some sort of high code of law upon which all other laws will be based in some sort of new democratic society...

Re:Limited market

[geekoid]

Of course, what is the most used pieces of informaiton gathered from a phone? location and history of location.

Re:open source?

[Immerman]

>For you to talk with another phone you must share a key. How exactly do they manage that?

Well if they both offer a rear-facing camera for video chat you could point the screens at each other for a moderately high bandwidth QR code based video stream. A few dozen bytes a frame (Version 3 QR code = 50 characters@5.5bits), times maybe 10 frames per second should be crude enough and slow enough to provide reliable data link, and it would be fast enough to communicate a 2048-bit key in under a second (2.75kbps)