Android By Russell Holly Jan. 15, 2014 8:28 am
Five months after they shut down their secure email service, Silent Circle has partnered with GeeksPhone to create a more secure smartphone.
Amid the global conversation regarding how secure individuals are from companies and governments who would use their personal information without permission, are groups aimed at trying to create privacy where it seems like there is none. We’ve seen companies such as Cyanogen Inc released tools for Android that allow for more secure messaging and permission restriction in apps, but everyone involved will agree that there’s still a lot more work to be done.
Silent Circle and Geeksphone have announced their own attempt to offer mobile privacy with a new OS and a new piece of hardware they are calling Blackphone.
The only information made available so far by Geeksphone and Silent Circle is more than a little underwhelming. The website announcing the hardware has no real information about how the phone will secure users, but it promises to offer a secure user experience.
PrivatOS is an Android-based OS that is supposedly full of tools that will make users more secure, but there’s no information about what those tools are and what they offer. The website is great for getting your attention, but not very good at explaining anything. The assumption is that more information will come if you fill out the form at the bottom of the website.
There’s more than a few questions left to be answered about this phone and how it will be more secure. Even if Geeksphone and Silent Circle manage to create an OS that is more secure than anyone else right now, there’s still the baseband processor and the SIM card that are controlled by other organizations and often can’t be monitored by the OS.
While more secure is certainly better than not at all secure, Blackphone might be guilty of promising more than they can deliver.
More...
Amid the global conversation regarding how secure individuals are from companies and governments who would use their personal information without permission, are groups aimed at trying to create privacy where it seems like there is none. We’ve seen companies such as Cyanogen Inc released tools for Android that allow for more secure messaging and permission restriction in apps, but everyone involved will agree that there’s still a lot more work to be done.
Silent Circle and Geeksphone have announced their own attempt to offer mobile privacy with a new OS and a new piece of hardware they are calling Blackphone.
The only information made available so far by Geeksphone and Silent Circle is more than a little underwhelming. The website announcing the hardware has no real information about how the phone will secure users, but it promises to offer a secure user experience.
PrivatOS is an Android-based OS that is supposedly full of tools that will make users more secure, but there’s no information about what those tools are and what they offer. The website is great for getting your attention, but not very good at explaining anything. The assumption is that more information will come if you fill out the form at the bottom of the website.
There’s more than a few questions left to be answered about this phone and how it will be more secure. Even if Geeksphone and Silent Circle manage to create an OS that is more secure than anyone else right now, there’s still the baseband processor and the SIM card that are controlled by other organizations and often can’t be monitored by the OS.
While more secure is certainly better than not at all secure, Blackphone might be guilty of promising more than they can deliver.
More...
