Yes, from /. New Cellphone Offers Big Shots Eavesdrop-Proof Call Tue Nov 18,10:23 AM ET Add Technology - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A German company launched a new mobile handset on Tuesday targeted at business executives that secures lines are free from eavesdroppers, sparking criticism that it could also make criminals harder to catch. Missed Tech Tuesday? Find the perfect tricked-out cell phone, plus best hybrid phones and great phone games. Berlin-based Cryptophone, a unit of privately held GSMK, developed the phone by inserting an encryption software inside a standard handheld computer phone. This ensures that calls can only be decoded by a similar handset or a computer running the software. But the phone is seen as a mixed blessing in some European countries. While the benefits for business managers exchanging sensitive information are obvious, such a device could potentially have the side effect of helping criminals. Security specialists in the Netherlands said the device could threaten criminal investigation by the Dutch police, which is one of the world's most active phone tappers, listening in to 12,000 phone numbers every year. But privacy lobbyists say the new handset is a "freedomphone" much more than a "terrorphone." "It's a tremendous step forward, because the level of surveillance by authorities is breathtaking," said Simon Davies, director of Privacy International in Britain. Cryptophone says unlike rivals such as Sweden's Sectra, Swiss Crypto AG and Germany's Rohde & Schwarz, it has no ties to national security and defense organizations and that there is no back door for government agencies. "We allow everyone to check the security for themselves, because we're the only ones who publish the source code," said Rop Gonggrijp at Amsterdam-based NAH6. Gonggrijp, who helped develop the software, owns a stake in Germany's GSMK. <snip> http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20031118/tc_nm/tech_cellphones_security_dc