I happened to hear from Lee Caplin of Starium today. They've apparently (I'm looking at Lee's email message while typing this, but I don't wish to speak for them) abandoned plans to sell the bump-in-a-wire device. Now they're thinking of marketing a small RJ11'd cryptophone an executive would carry around. Also, Lee says Starium has filed for patents on a desk phone, answering machine and conference phone. -Declan On Tue, Oct 23, 2001 at 03:06:29AM -0000, Dr. Evil wrote:
(is that the correct plural of Starium?)
http://www.tactronix.com/s100.htm
NOW TAKING PRE-ORDERS FOR DELIVERY IN DECEMBER 2001/JANUARY 2002
Very Limited Quantity Available
A 50% Deposit Will Reserve Your Units Today!!
1-10 Units $995 USD Each
11-20 Units $936 USD Each
21-50 Units $884 USD Each
51 Units+ Call For Price
What do people here think of this? My initial thoughts are:
Pros:
1. Voice encryption is great. It's the Last Great Encryption Taboo (the other is file encryption, but that's not nearly as taboo as voice). I'm glad to see something on the market which addresses this. Obviously, all traffic, including saying hi to grandma, should be encrypted.
2. The unit looks very easy to use. I could travel anywhere in the world with it (well, anywhere that it's legal) and plug it in and press one button and it works. That's great.
Cons:
1. I would like to see an open source reference software implementation, or some way to verify that there are no "naughty bits" in this thing. I know, open source isn't much of a business model, but with encryption products, it seems almost essential.
2. It's expensive. It costs more than a PC. However, $2k for two units is small compared to the value of data it could be securing, so for many users, the price will be fine.
3. A minor nitpick: It uses 3DES. What's wrong with AES?
I think I would like to buy some of them, but I can't decide if I want to be an early adopter, or wait for cheaper and better versions to come out.