Phil Zimmermann has spent his life trying to save an endangered species - human privacy. His new product, Blackphone, allows “two humans to whisper in each other’s ears from across the world.”The Fortune 50 have always reliably supported the Fed.Gov. But this time, its their ox being gored, and so they are taking steps to protect themselves - and particularly, their executives. Welcome to the land of Unanticipated Consequences, NSA!
Demand, he says, has been "huge” for the customised Android device which offers encrypted phone calls and texts which can’t be unscrambled even by spy agencies.
A majority of the companies on America’s Fortune 50 list - the top companies ranked by revenue - have already ordered. Blackphone will cost around £375 and be on sale in June.
Of course, this won't protect you from metadata collection, and ultimately won't protect you from eavesdropping if the NSA really, really wants to. However, it will make it a lot more expensive for them, which will make their whole "slurp everything" strategy less useful.
I can't wait to see what the next five years brings. The NSA has galvanized the security community - and corporate America - like nothing I've ever seen. High five, Internet!
1 comment:
Sad that it takes NSA intrusiveness (and Gov. spooky-stuff) to galvanize the industry, you'd hope that a market niche would already exist.
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