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Sirin Labs Launches Solarin, a $14,000 Privacy-Focused Smartphone (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via VentureBeat: Sirin Labs has launched its high-end Android smartphone called Solarin. The company's mission is to create the Rolls-Royce of smartphones -- an advanced device that combines "the highest privacy settings, operated faster than any other phone, [and is] built with the best materials from around the world." Solarin promises "the most advanced privacy technology, currently unavailable outside the agency world." It has partnered with KoolSpan to integrate chip-to-chip 256-bit AES encryption, which is similar to what the military uses to protect its communications. As for the specs, Solarin features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, with support for 24 bands of LTE, and "far superior" Wi-Fi connectivity than standard mobile phones. There's a 23.8-megapixel rear camera sensor and a 5.5" IPS LED 2K resolution display. The phone goes on sale June 1st for nearly $14,000 ($13,800 to be exact).
...and then the Facebook app gets installed. Game over.
Well Ennetcom produced a PGP phone, they even marketed it to lawyers as secure enough for lawyer - client privileged conversations. It was built ontop of Blackberry's platform.
The Dutch police raided it, seized its servers claiming the phone was being used by criminals hence it had the right to close it down as a tool of crime. It looked a bit from the timing like the Dutch police wanted to influence the iPhone encryption court case.
So we were sure it actually WAS secure only after this (blatantly illegal) police action.
And in turn we're also sure the Blackberry phone is backdoored, because police are very happy with that phone and make no attempt to raid Blackberry servers these days, and Blackerry CTO says they take a more balanced approach to end to end encryption than some of their competitors (i.e. Apple).
So we won't know that this phone is secure, till its shutdown by an out of control police force.
A supposedly secure minded phone with screen with 178 viewing angle... genius!
You may scape the NSA but you will not scape the prying eyes of your neighbor.
I know next to nothing about security, but I do know that mobile phones aren't secure no matter how your design them. Their entire purpose it to interconnect with other phones and networks. Once you enter an non-secure network you are not secure.
From twitter:
Farewall, $14,000 phone. We hardly knew ye.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You really do know next to nothing about security, it seems.