Sigillu announces 3rd generation of security phones

Sigillu announced the 3rd generation of secure phones, with improved audio quality, enhanced ultra low latency, and support for the most modern Nokia phones.

Main features:

• Easy installation on regular Nokia phones

• No external server needed

• Absolutely no back doors – encryption keys are randomly generated by the software and can not be provided to any organization, private or governmental

• Certified by the Israeli Ministry of Defense

• Complete end to end protection, from phone to phone, for both audio and text messages

• Dual combination of asymmetric and symmetric encryption

• Low audio latency (low delay)

• High audio quality

• 1024 bit RSA asymmetric master key pairs

• AES 256 bit symmetric data protection algorithm implemented

• Diffie-Hellman 4,096 key exchange algorithm

• 1024 bit random master key automatically generated per contact and replaced at every call start

• 256 bit random session key, replaced every second

Supported Phones:

 

Law revision to threaten communications privacy, civic groups say

Despite strong outcry from civic and human rights groups, the National Assembly’s Legislative and Judicial Committee on June 22 passed a revision to the law aimed at allowing the nation’s intelligence and investigative authorities to eavesdrop on personal conversations via mobile phone and Internet use records.

…

Read article

New radio system encryption would bar scanner listeners

…

“They’re not going to shut the news media out,” Turner said. He did note, however, that an encryption use policy has yet to be put in place. “I don’t know if we’re looking at adopting one policy across the county,” he said. “It could be that each department has its own protocol.”

“To have communications encrypted all the time wouldn’t be practical,” said Fairfield Fire Chief Don Bennett. He said he would consider writing a usage policy for the department if it is needed.

…

Read article

Diffie: Privacy laws could hurt the little guy

…

I believe in privacy, but privacy is just one of a number of considerations. Privacy of political conversation is essential for a democratic society. Is the privacy of information about yourself necessary for it? That’s not very clear. It’s a very squishy concept. In small communities you have very little privacy, but you have accountability, because you know who the members of the community are.

…

Read article

The politics of wiretapping and encryption

June 07, 2007 — This article is excerpted from Privacy on the Line: The Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption, Updated and Expanded Edition, by Whitfield Diffie, vice president and chief security officer, and Susan Landau, distinguished engineer, both of Sun Microsystems. Diffie is also co-inventor of Diffie-Hellman public key cryptography. This excerpt is used with permission of The MIT Press

…

The potential impact on privacy is profound. Telecommunications are intrinsically interceptable, and this interceptability has by and large been enhanced by digital technology. Communications designed to be sorted and switched by digital computers can be sorted and recorded by digital computers. Common-channel signaling, broadcast networks and communication satellites facilitate interception on a grand scale previously unknown. Laws will not change these facts.

…

When it is not be possible to prevent communications from being intercepted, it may still be possible to protect them. The primary technology for protecting telecommunications is cryptography, which, despite its ancient origins, is largely a product of the 20th century.

…

Read article