The website doesn't really tell me anything about the phone.
Blackphone
51–60 of 210 posts
Re: Blackphone
#52The privacy issue in smartphones isn't the freaking application processor running Android. Sure, that ones terrible enough. But the actual problem is the baseband processor running completely non-free software, with an enormous attack surface and access to all the interesting periphery (GPS, microphone). There is not just opportunity to compromise your privacy, Qualcomm and others actively implement such features at…
> But the actual problem is the baseband processor running completely non-free software
True, and once that one will be made open-source too, there's still the NSA tracking mobile phones worldwide and generating all kinds of privacy-invading data based on it:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tr...
(And until that is resolved, my mobile phone will stay in flight mode only.)
So once again, while tech may help in the short term, long-term solutions will have to be structural/systemic ones regarding government in general.
Re: Blackphone
#53Is it an Android phone?
Re: Blackphone
#54For a project concerned with privacy and anonymity the news subscription form is asking way too much. Also, why is domain on .ch ?
I wondered that as well, could entirely just clever branding because of neutrality.
They state in the video: "Blackphone is a Swiss joint venture between Silent Circle and Geeksphone"...
Still doesn't reveal much, as both companies in this joint venture aren't swiss and in the swiss company register I couldn't find an entry for them.
Re: Blackphone
#55The phone image is missing. Check "images/teaser_site/img03.jpg", css #phone style.css line 396
Thanks
Re: Blackphone
#56Completely useless web page. All wooly 'feel-good' words and no hard, concrete information. So I guess we just have to take it on trust then? Also, their privacy policy is laughable: We turn the logging level on our systems to log only protocol-related errors - great! the pages on our main web site pull in javascript files from a third party. This allows our web developers and salespeople to know which pages are bein…
"Blackphone is re-shaping the landscape of personal communications. Pre-ordering begins..."
How is it re-shaping anything before it's started shipping?
Re: Blackphone
#57The privacy issue in smartphones isn't the freaking application processor running Android. Sure, that ones terrible enough. But the actual problem is the baseband processor running completely non-free software, with an enormous attack surface and access to all the interesting periphery (GPS, microphone). There is not just opportunity to compromise your privacy, Qualcomm and others actively implement such features at…
The solution is for your phone to not be a phone. Strip out the baseband entirely, use usb or wifi to a 4G LTE dongle, do VoIP. Extra benefit that you can explicitly know when you're radiating (and thus being location-tracked).
Blackphone is pretty lame, IMO. There's something better coming from a trusted source in weeks, and plenty of work being done on the "there is no phone" phone concept.
Re: Blackphone
#58For a project concerned with privacy and anonymity the news subscription form is asking way too much. Also, why is domain on .ch ?
I think it's just a (clever) part of their branding; Switzerland has long had an explicit policy of neutrality. Not a super-reputable source, but succinct: http://www.wisegeek.org/why-is-switzerland-regarded-as-a-neu... Official Swiss propaganda, but has more info: http://www.vbs.admin.ch/internet/vbs/en/home/documentation/p...
There's also a strong branding presence of Swiss products in UAE and China (including some brands you'd never hear of in Switzerland itself), there seems to be a very strong association of "Swiss Made" with luxury product. I've even seen opticians advertising "Swiss Glass"(?) in Hong Kong. Thinking back to a talk by the founder of Virtu, I wouldn't be surprised if the middle and far east are key markets for this type of product.
Re: Blackphone
#59Well, this is just a splash page and says very little. It's in partnerships with http://www.geeksphone.com/ which is FirefoxOS based. But yet the Blackphone splash has an image of a phone with Android buttons. They claim no hooks to vendors, so if it's Android I can't imagine this is going to carry the Play store. I'd be interested in knowing how they will secure and make private the core functionality of being a pho…
Geeksphone actually made Android phones originally.
Re: Blackphone
#60The privacy issue in smartphones isn't the freaking application processor running Android. Sure, that ones terrible enough. But the actual problem is the baseband processor running completely non-free software, with an enormous attack surface and access to all the interesting periphery (GPS, microphone). There is not just opportunity to compromise your privacy, Qualcomm and others actively implement such features at…
Hmm, I'd say the real privacy issue is the user who installs and runs all those Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. apps and freely shares his private information with everyone.
You can't really prevent that with technology unless you start to educate kids/users better. But who am I kidding? People will forfeit their private data for shiny stuff as long as there will be shiny stuff and private data.