Tag Archives: SilentCircle

Vertu’s new Constellation is its second Android phone, and you still can’t afford it

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Vertu's new Constellation is its second Android phone, and you still can't afford it

With the Ti liberating Vertu from the Symbian shackles, it was only a matter of time before the luxury phone maker released its second Android device. The Constellation, as it's called (instead of "Constellation V" as listed by the FCC), takes a small but bold step away from Vertu's usual design language, as it lacks the iconic ceramic pillow on the earpiece. What it gains instead is the largest piece of tough sapphire glass that Vertu -- or any phone maker for that matter -- has ever crafted, as well as a layer of soft but durable calf leather wrapping around the Grade 5 titanium body. It'll also come in five colors: dark brown, orange (our favorite so far), black, light brown and cherry.

Vertu's CEO Massimiliano Pogliani told us that this "less is more" approach is to have a more neutral, less showy offer that he believes will appeal to a larger audience.

"It tested extremely well [in study groups] in China and Russia," said the exec. "In terms of design and appearance, it is being luxury but not too bling, too wild, too pushy, so I'm very happy and very confident."

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Source: Vertu

Silent Circle follows Lavabit’s example, shuts down its secure email service

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Silent Circle follows Lavabit's example, shuts down its secure email service

Silent Circle's thing has always been the promise of end-to-end secure communications, and that drive is apparently causing it to shut down the Silent Mail email service. Reasons cited in a blog post by CTO Jon Callas include the insecure nature of email protocols and preemptively avoiding the outside (read: FISA) pressures that prompted Lavabit to close its doors. Silent Circle says it hadn't received any "subpoenas, warrants, security letters, or anything else". Still, CEO Michael Janke tells TechCrunch he believed the government would come knocking due to certain high profile users of the service. Its phone, video and text products remain operational and claim to be "secure as ever", if you're wondering.

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Source: Silent Circle

Silent Circle’s encryption app could revolutionize mobile privacy, if Uncle Sam lets it

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Silent Circle's encryption app could revolutionize mobile privacy, if Uncle Sam lets it

If CEO Mike Janke's boasts are to be believed, his company Silent Circle and its eponymous encryption apps could stand to "revolutionize... privacy and security." And he's willing to push the tech forward at all costs, even if that means raising the ire of the federal government. While the feds have yet to officially weigh in on his startup's novel software -- and Janke's certain they will -- others who've tested the peer-to-peer service's new Silent Text app claim its benefits for human rights activism worldwide far outweigh its potential use as a criminal aid.

This isn't the company's first crack at the mobile security space, though. A prior version of Silent Circle's subscription-based app was released last fall, granting Android and iOS users secure transmission of texts, as well as voice and video calls. But now, the controversial app in question has been beefed up, adding the ability to send encrypted files (up to 60MB) with a set "burn" (read: deletion) time. And since Silent Circle doesn't host the required encryption key on its servers, there's no way for the company to access users' data. What's more, the company's also pledged to not cooperate with surveillance requests from law enforcement, nor will it compromise the service's integrity by introducing a "backdoor" for the FBI.

That's a mighty strong stance to take against Uncle Sam, but Janke's not concerned. If the United States government does eventually prove an impediment, he's ready to move Silent Circle's shop to a locale that understands "...every [citizens'] right to communicate... without the fear of it being... used by criminals, stored by governments, and aggregated by companies that sell it." Based on that quote alone, we'd say Janke's what you might call a freedom fighter. For now, the souped up app's set to launch on the App Store February 8th, with an Android release to follow soon after. When it lands, we'd advise you to get it while it's hot -- preferably, before Capitol Hill deems it too hot to handle.

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Source: Slate