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Blackphone and Deutsche Telekom

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From the "also useful for white guys" department:
Title: Blackphone pricing and Deutsche Telekom security push bode well for mobile privacy
Author: David Meyer
Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2014 11:38:10 -0500
Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/-8EzR0_9cgk/
Podcast Download URL: http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/6599daccfd7e897e68744fe0065e5a2e?s=96&d=retro&r=PG

Want to make your mobile use more private? Then a couple of announcements
coming out of this year’s Mobile World Congress may interest you.

For one thing, we now know pricing details for the Blackphone[1], a handset
that’s designed around privacy. Meanwhile, the carrier group Deutsche Telekom
has revealed privacy-enhancing customizations to Mozilla’s Firefox OS, and
promised an app that will encrypt the voice and text communications of its
customers.

Blackphone details

You’re never going to be entirely private with a mobile handset, because such
devices have to track you in order to work, but that doesn’t mean advances
can’t be made in that direction.

Blackphone[2] is an attempt to tune as many elements of the handset as
possible to make it more private, from its PrivatOS version of Android to the
suite of apps that comes with it. As we explained last month[1], it comes
from a credible team with a strong history in the field, and while the target
audience is business folks, it’s still far more mass-market than the kinds of
specialist devices used by top politicians, for example.

As we learned on Monday, the device will retail at $629 plus shipping and
taxes. That’s a fairly standard price for a solidly-specified handset (an
at-least-2GHz quad-core chipset, 4.7-inch screen and so on) but it can be
seen as an outright bargain if you factor in the services in the bundle.

This includes 2 years of the Silent Circle tools for encrypted voice, text
and contacts, which cost $99 per year if you buy them separately. Also in the
mix are 3 one-year subscriptions to these services for friends and family
(handy, as both sides of the conversation need to be using the tool if
encryption is to be effective), as well as two-year subscriptions to
Disconnect (private search, including a VPN app) and SpiderOak (secure cloud
storage).

In total, Blackphone company SGP Technologies reckons the bundle is worth
just north of $1,500, which is why this is a good deal. The handset will be
available direct from SGP or through carrier partners. Unsurprisingly, the
first of those is the Dutch telco group KPN, which became a Silent Circle
reseller[3] last week.

Deutsche Telekom’s privacy drive

Over to Deutsche Telekom now. The carrier group is making a proper meal of
the surveillance scandal[4], touting its security credentials in the wake of
the Snowden revelations, and it’s not stopping now.

First off, on Sunday DT revealed[5] close work with Mozilla on customizing
Firefox OS for customers’ privacy needs, as part of a joint initiative called
Future of Mobile Privacy. DT is one of the main carriers pushing Firefox OS
(it also announced new models and markets) and it’s come up with three new
features for the HTML5-centric platform: Guest Mode, Find My Phone, and
Location Blur.

Guest mode does what it says on the tin: it makes it possible to hand someone
else your phone and not have them see your call and browsing history, or
address books. It’s interesting to see this on cellphones – Android, for
example, allows multiple accounts for tablets but not handsets[6]. Find My
Phone, too, is a familiar concept, though DT’s implementation doesn’t require
central registration of the device.

Location Blur, meanwhile, allows the user to give different apps different
levels of location accuracy – a navigation app will need fine-grained
location, for example, whereas a weather service should content itself with
relative vagueness.

Of course, most DT customers don’t use Firefox OS, and the company’s
T-Systems enterprise unit is apparently working with the encrypted phone
service firm GSMK on a security app that will be properly unveiled at CeBIT
in March.

According to The Guardian[7], DT and GSMK’s app will be available for Android
first, then iOS. It will encrypt conversations and text messages – by the
sounds of it in a similar fashion to Silent Circle, though details remain
light for now.

Indeed, deep technical detail is still scarce for most of these new
privacy-enhancing systems, but it will come out in time (Blackphone is
open-source for example, allowing auditing by anyone) and the trend is in
itself heartening. If you want to get people using encryption, carriers need
to throw their weight behind such initiatives and services need to be priced
right. In this first year After Snowden, the Blackphone/KPN and DT
announcements bode well for the future — and they’re just the start.
[image 8]

[image 10][9]

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial[11].

* Takeaways from mobile’s second quarter[12]
* Where new opportunity lies in the mobile operating system space[13]
* How to deliver the next-generation web experience[14]

[image 16][15][image 17]

Links:
[1]: http://gigaom.com/2014/01/15/meet-blackphone-a-security-centric-handset-from-some-serious-encryption-veterans/ (link)
[2]: https://www.blackphone.ch (link)
[3]: http://gigaom.com/2014/02/19/silent-circle-gets-its-first-telco-distributor-as-kpn-prepares-to-offer-encrypted-communications/ (link)
[4]: http://gigaom.com/2013/08/13/in-germany-suspect-anti-surveillance-promises-are-doing-the-rounds/ (link)
[5]: http://www.telekom.com/media/company/216482 (link)
[6]: http://pocketnow.com/2013/07/26/multi-user-android-phones (link)
[7]: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/24/deutsche-telekom-to-launch-secure-voice-and-text-app (link)
[8]: http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=gigaom.com&blog=14960843&post=819716&subd=gigaom2&ref=&feed=1 (image)
[9]: http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?iu=/1008864/Gigaom_RSS_300x250&sz=300x250&c=522071 (link)
[10]: http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/ad?iu=/1008864/Gigaom_RSS_300x250&sz=300x250&c=522071 (image)
[11]: http://research.gigaom.com/?utm_source=mobileutm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=auto3&utm_term=819716+blackphone-pricing-and-deutsche-telekom-security-push-bode-well-for-mobile-privacy&utm_content=superglaze (link)
[12]: http://pro.gigaom.com/2012/07/mobile-second-quarter-2012-analysis-and-outlook/?utm_source=mobileutm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=auto3&utm_term=819716+blackphone-pricing-and-deutsche-telekom-security-push-bode-well-for-mobile-privacy&utm_content=superglaze (link)
[13]: http://research.gigaom.com/report/where-new-opportunity-lies-in-the-mobile-operating-system-space/?utm_source=mobileutm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=auto3&utm_term=819716+blackphone-pricing-and-deutsche-telekom-security-push-bode-well-for-mobile-privacy&utm_content=superglaze (link)
[14]: http://pro.gigaom.com/2013/01/how-new-devices-networks-and-consumer-habits-will-change-the-web-experience/?utm_source=mobileutm_medium=editorial&utm_campaign=auto3&utm_term=819716+blackphone-pricing-and-deutsche-telekom-security-push-bode-well-for-mobile-privacy&utm_content=superglaze (link)
[15]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OmMalik?a=-8EzR0_9cgk:uD74MKxYGFo:yIl2AUoC8zA (link)
[16]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/OmMalik?d=yIl2AUoC8zA (image)
[17]: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OmMalik/~4/-8EzR0_9cgk (image)

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Blackphone and Deutsche Telekom RS Wood  <rswood@therandymon.com> - 2014-02-24 18:17 +0000

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