By RT –
Silent Circle – an encryption firm that has made it its mission to defy NSA snooping – is releasing what it says will be the world’s most secure smartphone.
“What we are trying to do is to make a smartphone whose whole purpose is to protect users’ privacy,” said Phil Zimmerman, a renowned cryptographer and one of Silent Circle’s founders.
Makers say that both the hardware and software of the device, dubbed the Blackphone, has been specially modified, and all communication services come pre-installed, meaning the handset has “no hooks to carriers or vendors.”
The company has partnered with Geeksphone, a niche Spanish phone manufacturer that uses the Android platform for its mobile devices.
A darkened photo on the Blackphone website is the only hint as to how the device will look, and no specifications have been announced, though the producers say the phone will be manufactured in security-conscious Switzerland.
Silent Circle was one of the biggest providers of encrypted email in the world in the past several years, but pre-emptively shut down its services in August last year ahead of an expected broad surveillance request by the FBI.
