Slashdot Mirror
Blackphone 2 Caters To the Enterprise, the Security-Minded and the Paranoid
Mark Wilson writes While much of the news coming out of MWC 2015 has been dominated by Microsoft's Lumia 640, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, and tablets from Sony, there's always room for something a little different. Following on from the security-focused Blackphone, Silent Circle used the Barcelona event to announce the follow-up — the Blackphone 2. The privacy-centric company has been working on the "world's first enterprise privacy platform" for some time now and the second generation Blackphone. As you would expect, there's a faster processor than before -- an 8-core beast -- as well as an upgraded 3GB RAM, a larger 5.5 inch screen and a bigger battery than before. Blackphone 2 has a $600 price tag and will be unleashed in July.
Y nd t s blckphn t s ll th vwls
Gemalto SIM card?
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Y nd t s th Blckphn n rdr t s th vwls.
Is it a commodity now? I'll take 10,000.
Just say paranoid next time
Just thought I'd ask, 'cuz right now that's the biggest threat to my personal privacy. Roscoe P. Coletrain and his sidekick Cletus (a.k.a., local police forces) just love toys like this.
Not just for "Security minded & paranoid."
"Security minded" people either don't carry cell phones or use plain burner phones housed in tin boxes when not in use and throw them away quickly.
Blackphone 2 Caters To the Enterprise, the Security-Minded and the Gullible.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
privateOS based on? hope not on android
First, I have a lot of respect for PRZ, but I don't see what this gets me, if I were looking for an enterprise device, other than enmeshed in vendor lockdown.
As an individual, if I want a phone that I can trust, I'd go for a HTC One M8, or if the M9 is as easy to get an open bootloader as the M8, a M9, when it comes out.
As an IT person shopping for company phones, I'd probably focus on security and maintainability, so Blackberry comes to mind because RIM has a solid reputation. The HTC One is also a decent business phone, as well as the MS Windows running Nokias, and of course, iDevices. My goal is to have/need as few vendor specific programs as possible.
RIM is an exception, since BES does add a security element and strong client/server mechanism for E-mail encryption. However, most devices I can admin with Exchange, and assuming the device has encryption for its mail store, that is good enough.
For added security, there are third party apps like TouchDown and Divide.
Maybe this might be useful for small divisions, but I don't see why I should pay the price premium over just using Exchange, or for secure conversations, RedPhone and TextSecure.
Hey now! I resemble that!!!
I wonder if they'll improve this version in such a way that they double the time it takes those are the blackhat conference to break it. So, 30 minutes this year!?!?!?!
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really after you.
In fact, we know they are after us. It is publicly known and admitted to by now.
WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
Pretty sure they don't need "phones".
LLAP
Need Mercedes parts ?
Is there any way in the world to verify beyond doubt that these devices haven't been pwned by some TLA hard-baking some spyware into it? If not, what's the point?
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
There's secure access to the locked down Silent Store, and enterprise admins have an all-important remote lock and wipe option to fall back on.
So my "secure" phone can be remotely locked and wiped by "enterprise admins"... am I really supposed to consider someone outside my own control having that power is a good thing?
Check out the free Signal app for secure calling and messaging on iOS and Android.
This company is taking advantage of the paranoid. I want a device that actually has a chance at respecting my privacy. Your not going to get that in a true mobile phone as the GSM module is going to enable big brother to track you at all times. It's just how the thing works. What we need is a device that is mass produced, cost effective (as you need significant numbers for it to be privacy friendly), and text-oriented. That GSM modem can't be always-on or they'll learn who you are by the movements you make. We need a device that communicates only occasionally, can be purchased anonymously, and is identical to other devices-or near so. The carrier should never be able to identify the messages being sent or to whom. There also needs to be separation of the GSM modem from the main device to avoid the GSM modem being able to snoop. The GSM modem also needs to be controlled by the main device (ie so you know your in control). Then we need the source code for rest of the device. The complete set of sources. Not some “open source” device where we really don't have a clue whats going on because there is some proprietary piece.
Is there an SD card slot? I can't tell. Google seems to be pressuring hardware manufacturers to drop them.
...except my cable modem does not share storage with my PC. On the other hand, the baseband and Android system (not to mention the device-specific efs/imei stuff and the user data stuff) are all located on the same emmc on many devices. (Hence the ability to "flash a new radio")
Could the baseband access or change data on the Android partitions or the efs data? I'm not sure, but the articles suggest to me that they could.
Also, my cable modem doesn't share memory with my PC either: ....the application processor (with Android e.g.) and the baseband processor can share memory, so that an attack and takeover of the baseband stack offers the possibility to attack Android.
The baseband may have a separate CPU from Android, but it could access peripherals, sensors, etc. As an example:
The baseband processor (and thus REX OS) has direct access to the phoneâ(TM)s hardware (speakers, microphones), and also seemingly the ability to write to the same memory as the SoC (or application processor).
That's bad.
Also, unlike your cable modem analogy, which communicates to your router via a known network protocol, the baseband communicates with Android in most cases via the involvement of closed-source, mysterious "binary blobs".
So I guess if your cable modem were fused to your computer, sharing a hard drive, with direct access to its memory and peripherals, and communicating to your computer via a mysterious unauditable binary, then maybe your analogy would hold up.
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
He doesn't use his anyway for security reasons.
On the web page they claim to support open source etc, but their product is apparently closed source as much as possible.
They have opened the kernel and two apps, the rest is closed down.
https://support.blackphone.ch/...
So you got to trust them to not be a NSA honey-pot or something else.
I think not.
The encryption is so good that I have to squint to read the screen..
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
Anyone that expects and wants privacy in their private communications from surveillance by their own governments (a requirement for democracy to last) - needs to be encrypting them.....this isn't paranoid, this is the reality of our existence (U.S. or otherwise) - what we've learned over the last year and a half details the reasons.
That's not being paranoid, that's just being realistic. You could say all that paranoid stuff (and tinfoil hat stuff) several years ago, but now that we know (some of) what the five eyes have been doing, just about the worst things the tinfoil hatters were saying, turned out to be true.
These folks (the creator of PGP is one of the leaders of the company) represent one of the only avenues for a general consumer to be able get something somewhat locked down out of the box, (not from a U.S. company as well), if they want. Amazes me the constant attacks they've taken.
If it is, it's like arguing that you can make a secure windows 98 network attached device.
Secure phone? Phone network is not secure (ref. SS7 Vulnerabilities) and it's quite hard to have security while on the network. As to process & OS security, why not just use OpenBSD?