Posted on 02/12/2013 9:54:51 PM PST by Windflier
Meet the groundbreaking new encryption app set to revolutionize privacy and freak out the feds.
For the past few months, some of the world’s leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they’ve decided it’s time to tell all.
Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily. Now, the company is pushing things even further—with a groundbreaking encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files securely from a smartphone or tablet at the touch of a button. (For now, it’s just being released for iPhones and iPads, though Android versions should come soon.) That means photographs, videos, spreadsheets, you name it—sent scrambled from one person to another in a matter of seconds.
“This has never been done before,” boasts Mike Janke, Silent Circle’s CEO. “It’s going to revolutionize the ease of privacy and security.”
(snip)
The technology uses a sophisticated peer-to-peer encryption technique that allows users to send encrypted files of up to 60 megabytes through a “Silent Text” app. The sender of the file can set it on a timer so that it will automatically “burn”—deleting it from both devices after a set period of, say, seven minutes. Until now, sending encrypted documents has been frustratingly difficult for anyone who isn’t a sophisticated technology user, requiring knowledge of how to use and install various kinds of specialist software. What Silent Circle has done is to remove these hurdles, essentially democratizing encryption. It’s a game-changer that will almost certainly make life easier and safer for journalists, dissidents, diplomats, and companies trying to evade state surveillance or corporate espionage. Governments pushing for more snooping powers, however, will not be pleased.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
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And... other than the auto-delete function, which should not be all that difficult to add for any file with a simple scriptfile I would think, this is better than PGP/GPG exactly how?
Dunno, but the guy who created PGP is one of the crew who developed this privacy tool. That alone tells me that it's worth looking into.
bookmark
Ping for security
Yar, I see good ol’ Phil is there so that is indeed a definite plus. No name for the app, however, and no info if they will release the sourcecode as well. Can’t wait for us ‘Nix sorts to get hold of something to play with, and I hope someone over at SourceForge will have some helpful links soon.
That's part of the reason I posted the article. There are some serious heavy hitters in that development crew.
No doubt, they want to make a buck, but more importantly, they're pissing off big brother, which gives them ultimate cred in my book.
Yep.
"Big Brother" with the Ubama regime in charge scares me as much as the Clinton mob did. I lurked here for nearly three years before signing up because I was waiting for the Gore to finally concede and the rats to be officially done at the White House. I was certain Free Republic members were on their "enemies list" just as surely as the Clintons had hundreds (thousands?) of FBI files stashed away.
newsflash - every single person here likely has a file on them
Sometimes paranoia is just common sense when people (or your government) are after you.
Well it’s sort of anonymous. I remember reading where the hubs can still get your data. So all the gov’t needs to do is run the main hubs and it can get your data.
Your encrypted data, I believe.
Great find! Thank you!
Your hotlink to Tor looks impressive! Have you used it? If so, what is your humble, but always correct, opinion?
I'll have to look at the implementation, but if true, then it's a lot like mixmaster.
Two points:
1. Even if the govt. could crack this wouldn’t they make noise and make it seem like they couldn’t?
2. There’s a very high bar for normal people using encryption - I think it’s because of the old “I’ve got nothing to hide”. Yet no one would think twice about using a letter and an envelope as opposed to a postcard. Ideally people would use encryption in the same way as they would put a letter in an envelope. That would have the advantage of encrypted messages not looking like they stood out.
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