Data and Voice Encryption Company Ups the Ante to $250 in Gold to Flush Out Hackers and Spies
Gold Lock, a provider of secure mobile communications devices and computer-based encryption products, increases its $100,000 reward to $250,000 for anyone that can defeat the company’s voice encryption protection.
Tel Aviv, Israel , 7th December 2009 – Gold Lock (www.gold-lock.com), a leading provider of military-grade secure mobile communications devices and data encryption tools, wants more spies, hackers and professional communications eavesdroppers to try to unseat the company’s position as a top provider of secure voice and data solutions. To make sure word hits the streets, the company has increased the reward to $250,000 in pure gold.
It was just a month ago that Gold Lock announced its $100k Gold Challenge. The company posted a sample encrypted telephone conversation on its web site and invited anyone to download and decrypt it. The company offered $100,000 in gold, as well as a position at the company, to the first person to send a transcript of the call. And while file downloads have been brisk, the company is turning up the heat.
The company reports well over one thousand downloads since it announced the challenge, but that’s not nearly as many downloads as had been expected. By increasing the reward to $250,000, Gold Lock hopes to draw more challengers out of the shadows.
Gold Lock is well known as a worldwide provider of comprehensive end-to-end IT and cellular encryption solutions. “Since 2003 we have been telling everyone how our products provide unbreakable protection for their voice and data transmissions, but talk is cheap. So now we are putting our claims to the ultimate test by inviting anyone that thinks they have the skills to take us down,” said Noam Copel, Gold Lock’s CEO.
The increased attention doesn’t worry him. “I don’t think there is a chance at all that I’ll be giving away the gold. No individual, group or intelligence agency has the skills, technology or time needed to defeat our technology,” Mr. Copel continued.
Gold Lock products utilize technology so powerful they have been licensed by the Israeli Ministry of Defense. For example, when protecting voice calls, Gold Lock automatically changes the keys multiple times for each call, a feature that makes it virtually impossible to zoom in on a specific set of keys and decrypt it. But despite the complex technology taking place in the background, the company’s software and voice products require no technical skills to use. The company claims that if you can speak on a cell phone or upload a file to a computer, you have all the skills you need.
Increased threat levels around the world have made secure voice and data communications a necessary part of doing business in both the public and private sectors. Gold Lock’s products protect their users from having sensitive business and personal information intercepted and used against them.
To learn more about the contest and download the pre-recorded 10-minute file, visit https://www.gold-lock.com/app/en/HackerChallenge. To learn more about the military-grade encryption solutions offered by Gold Lock, visit https://www.gold-lock.com.
About the Company:Gold Lock is a leading international provider of comprehensive end-to-end data encryption solutions. The Gold Lock group of products is used daily by government, military, private and public organizations, as well as individuals seeking the highest level of digital and voice security. The company’s 30 highly trained digital security experts walk the cutting edge of the rapidly changing world of security threats and solutions.
Contact:Noam Copel, CEOGold Lock Tel Aviv, IsraelTel: +972 8935 2335Fax: +972 8935 2335http://www.gold-lock.com
Who’s on the phone?
A murky twist in the fight between the ruling party and the military old guard
DURING an interview with a Turkish minister recently, your correspondent was asked to remove the battery from her mobile telephone. “Otherwise our conversation will be tapped,” the minister explained. His paranoia may be understandable; over the past week Turkey’s elite has been rocked by tales of politicians, judges and journalists being wiretapped. Even the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, complained that “they eavesdropped on me for six years”.
Much about this story remains murky. It is not clear, for instance, who might have been listening in on Mr Erdogan. Indeed, the scandal mainly involves allegations that the justice ministry, led by Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party, has been monitoring members of the elite suspected of involvement with coup-plotters in the so-called Ergenekon case.
The uproar started when Istanbul’s top prosecutor, Aykut Cengiz Engin, discovered his calls were being recorded. Some 55 other judges and prosecutors were being similarly tapped under orders from the justice ministry. “This is worse than Watergate,” fumed Deniz Baykal, the leader of the pro-secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
The justice minister, Sadullah Ergin, says the surveillance was legal and he may have been right. But as Husnu Ondul, a human-rights activist, puts it, “it’s the laws that are screwed up and most of them were passed by the AK party.” Under these broad legal powers, he says, “it is possible for a person to be tapped separately and concurrently by the police, the national intelligence services and the gendarmerie.”
Turkey’s chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, who spearheaded a court case last year to ban AK, has seized on the affair to threaten to investigate whether the wiretaps were in breach of the constitution. If so, this could provide him with another excuse to try to shut down AK.
The row has little to do with justice. Rather, it is another twist in the long-running power struggle between Mr Erdogan and his mildly Islamist party, and an old guard led by the generals that has steadily lost ground. The army’s standing has been damaged by a slew of leaked documents detailing plans to foment chaos and topple the government. AK is hitting back with new laws pruning the army’s powers. The secret wiretaps may be just another weapon in this political fight.
Radio Interview about Gold Lock Hacker Challenge
Gold Lock is proud to announce that Douglas Haskins, Channel Manager-North America, is scheduled to be interviewed by Federal News Radio AM1500 in Washington, DC, Monday 12/14/09 at 8:30am (eastern time). Federal News Radio contacted Gold Lock to schedule the radio interview to discuss the Gold Lock Hacker Challenge: a $250,00o prize to anyone who can hack a 10 minute encrypted conversation.
Would be hackers are free to use any tools or technology at their disposal. This contest is open to anyone, anywhere, unless your participation is specifically prohibited by law.
Hackers have until 12:00 AM (GMT/UTC + 02:00 hours) on February 1st 2010 to provide us with the transcript. Read the contest rules for complete details and restrictions. Be sure to complete the entry form on that page before you start trying to grab the gold.
Voice Encryption Firm Offers $250K In Gold To Hack Its Technology
An Israeli mobile security firm that a month ago offered $100,000 in gold to anyone who could hack its voice encryption technology has upped the ante to $250,000. Gold Lock posted a sample of an encrypted voice conversation on its Website and is offering the golden reward to any hackers who can crack it and send the company a transcript of the call.
Gold Lock, which sells military-grade mobile devices and data and voice encryption tools, says the voice call file has been downloaded more than 1,000 times in the Gold Lock Hacker Challenge contest. But that’s nowhere near the number the vendor had expected, so it decided to make the contest more attractive with a bigger bounty.
“Since 2003, we have been telling everyone how our products provide unbreakable protection for their voice and data transmissions, but talk is cheap. So now we are putting our claims to the ultimate test by inviting anyone that thinks they have the skills to take us down,” said Noam Copel, CEO of Gold Lock, in a statement.
Product Watch: Voice Encryption Firm Offers $250K In Gold To Hack Its Technology
By Kelly Jackson Higgins DarkReading Dec 07, 2009
An Israeli mobile security firm that a month ago offered $100,000 in gold to anyone who could hack its voice encryption technology has upped the ante to $250,000. Gold Lock posted a sample of an encrypted voice conversation on its Website and is offering the golden reward to any hackers who can crack it and send the company a transcript of the call.
Gold Lock, which sells military-grade mobile devices and data and voice encryption tools, says the voice call file has been downloaded more than 1,000 times in the Gold Lock Hacker Challenge contest. But that’s nowhere near the number the vendor had expected, so it decided to make the contest more attractive with a bigger bounty.
“Since 2003, we have been telling everyone how our products provide unbreakable protection for their voice and data transmissions, but talk is cheap. So now we are putting our claims to the ultimate test by inviting anyone that thinks they have the skills to take us down,” said Noam Copel, CEO of Gold Lock, in a statement.
Copel says he doesn’t expect to have to give away the gold, however. “I don’t think there is a chance at all that I’ll be giving away the gold. No individual, group or intelligence agency has the skills, technology or time needed to defeat our technology,” he said.
[...]
Open Source Effort to Hack GSM
If you’re still using a cellphone based on early digital standards, you better be careful what you say. The encryption technology used to prevent eavesdropping in GSM (Global System for Mobile communications), the world’s most widely used cellphone system, has more security holes than Swiss cheese, according to an expert who plans to poke a big hole of his own.
Karsten Nohl, chief research scientist with H4RDW4RE, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based security research firm, is mounting what could be the most ambitious attempt yet to compromise the GSM phone system, which is used by over 3 billion people around the world. Others have cracked the A5/1 encryption technology used in GSM before, but their results have remained secret. However, Nohl, who earned a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Virginia and is a member of Germany’s Chaos Computer Club (CCC), intends to go one big step further: By the end of the year, he plans to make the keys available to everyone on the Internet.
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Yahoo: Our spying policy would ’shock’ customers
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In response to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking details of Yahoo’s! policies allowing the Justice Department to request wiretaps of its users and the amount they charge US taxpayers per wiretap — the search engine leviathan declared in a 12-page letter that they couldn’t provide information on their approach because their pricing scheme would “shock” customers. The news was first reported by Kim Zetter at Wired.
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Smartphone security software market shows strong potential for channel
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Smartphone security business challenge and channel opportunity
Sales and support opportunities for encryption are likely to grow as smartphones use more business applications, such as SAP, and store more corporate data. As discussed earlier, the potential for antimalware sales and support is enormous when smartphones finally become subject to widespread attack.
While encryption vendors offer mobile-specific products on their own, they are also included as part of their overall corporate endpoint encryption suites. Check Point’s Svegby said PC encryption orders for, say 5,000 seats, often come with an additional 150 to 200 licenses for smartphone encryption.
Some vendors, such as Credant Technologies Inc. and Check Point offer only encryption products, others such as F-Secure Corp. and Kaspersky Lab Inc. offer only antimalware, and still others, such as Symantec and McAfee Inc., offer both encryption and antimalware. In terms of operating systems, most vendors support Windows Mobile and Symbian, and some support Palm OS and Blackberry as well. There have been reports that several vendors are working on iPhone antimalware, as well.
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