While the errors are both glaring and funny as hell in the below article, the concept is an interesting one. -- Yours, J.A. Terranson sysadmin@mfn.org 0xBD4A95BF "What this country needs is a good old fashioned nuclear enema." ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 00:15:50 -0700 From: Sir Nobody in Particular <ouaoua@comcast.net> Reply-To: TSCM-L@yahoogroups.com To: TSCM-L@yahoogroups.com Subject: [TSCM-L] http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/24/business/wireless25.php Secure communications: Available, but not cheap <http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?query=By%20Andreas%20Tzortzis&sor t=swishrank> By Andreas Tzortzis International Herald Tribune MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2005 In the 1990s, everyone from blue-chip company executives to Princess Diana fell victim to mobile phone eavesdroppers who recorded their conversations for financial gain. Since then, technology to encrypt calls has gotten better, but the bad boys have been playing catch-up too. Last month, Silentel, a Bratislava, Slovakia, technology company, became the newest arrival in the small but growing market for secure mobile calls. Like Beaucom in Munich and its crosstown rival, Rohde & Schwarz, along with a General Dynamics unit in Scottsdale, Arizona, Silentel promises security by encypting voice conversations with mind-numbingly complicated codes. But while Beaucom features an encryption card and the Sectira wireless phone from General Dynamics works with a built-in encryption chip, Silentel says it is the first to offer a software solution. Clients can download a software application that works with the Symbian operating system, which is used in phones made by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and others, according to Igor Kocis, chief executive of Silentel. To make a secure call, you punch a button on the phone and begin calling the other phone, which must also have the technology. The software compresses your voice into data and encrypts it using a digital key with a sequence 256 bits long. That is one step higher than military-level encryption, which is 128 bits and would take a computer years to crack. "Then your voice, in encrypted form, is transferred directly to the phone of your partner, in contrast to standard communication where it is not encrypted after it hits the nearest tower," Kocis said. At a starting price of 990, or $1,295, it is one of the cheapest solutions available, he said, and can work with 10 Nokia and Siemens phone models. But if clients want the ability to talk at the same time during a conversation, they have to pay 200 more for a piece of hardware that stores and safeguards the digital keys and allows callers to talk simultaneously. The company officially began selling the products in March. Kocis said he hoped to one day count governments, security agencies, business executives and lawyers as his customers. "We see a market anywhere - in Western Europe, in developing countries," said Kocis, who studied cryptography in Bratislava and whose father was a cryptologist who worked with the Czechoslovakian government during the cold war. When Siemens in 2000 introduced an encrypted version of its popular S35i phone, Interior Minister Otto Schily of Germany received the first one. Five years later, frustrated German police officials say they still haven't been able to crack the encryption code. "Not only are we not technically able to listen in, but we don't have the legal ability to force companies to tell us how to do it," said Bernd Carstensen, a spokesman for Germany's Union of Police Investigators. "That means if someone is using these phones to plan a crime, we aren't able to listen in." But secure mobile phones haven't exactly flooded the market, so governments have not been concerned, said Peter B|ttgen, a spokesman for Germany's data protection commissioner. Beaucom introduced its Enigma phone on the market in 2003. The handset, which it said cost more than 6 million to develop, has a card inside that stores and produces random encryption keys for each call. Since its introduction, the company has sold "a few thousand handsets" at about 2,200 each, said Wilhelm Decker, Beaucom's representative in Germany. "We expected it to go up a lot earlier," he said about the market for secure calls. "But it's coming, slowly but surely." Some have their doubts. Justin King, a director of the London security company C2i International, said that the signal quality of secure mobile phones was still a problem. "It's a Catch 22," said King, whose business advises large companies on counter-espionage measures. "These products are expensive. We'd rather spend #200 on air fare and talk about whatever it is at a coffee shop." In the 1990s, everyone from blue-chip company executives to Princess Diana fell victim to mobile phone eavesdroppers who recorded their conversations for financial gain. Since then, technology to encrypt calls has gotten better, but the bad boys have been playing catch-up too. Last month, Silentel, a Bratislava, Slovakia, technology company, became the newest arrival in the small but growing market for secure mobile calls. Like Beaucom in Munich and its crosstown rival, Rohde & Schwarz, along with a General Dynamics unit in Scottsdale, Arizona, Silentel promises security by encypting voice conversations with mind-numbingly complicated codes. But while Beaucom features an encryption card and the Sectira wireless phone from General Dynamics works with a built-in encryption chip, Silentel says it is the first to offer a software solution. Clients can download a software application that works with the Symbian operating system, which is used in phones made by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and others, according to Igor Kocis, chief executive of Silentel. To make a secure call, you punch a button on the phone and begin calling the other phone, which must also have the technology. The software compresses your voice into data and encrypts it using a digital key with a sequence 256 bits long. That is one step higher than military-level encryption, which is 128 bits and would take a computer years to crack. "Then your voice, in encrypted form, is transferred directly to the phone of your partner, in contrast to standard communication where it is not encrypted after it hits the nearest tower," Kocis said. At a starting price of 990, or $1,295, it is one of the cheapest solutions available, he said, and can work with 10 Nokia and Siemens phone models. But if clients want the ability to talk at the same time during a conversation, they have to pay 200 more for a piece of hardware that stores and safeguards the digital keys and allows callers to talk simultaneously. The company officially began selling the products in March. Kocis said he hoped to one day count governments, security agencies, business executives and lawyers as his customers. "We see a market anywhere - in Western Europe, in developing countries," said Kocis, who studied cryptography in Bratislava and whose father was a cryptologist who worked with the Czechoslovakian government during the cold war. When Siemens in 2000 introduced an encrypted version of its popular S35i phone, Interior Minister Otto Schily of Germany received the first one. Five years later, frustrated German police officials say they still haven't been able to crack the encryption code. "Not only are we not technically able to listen in, but we don't have the legal ability to force companies to tell us how to do it," said Bernd Carstensen, a spokesman for Germany's Union of Police Investigators. "That means if someone is using these phones to plan a crime, we aren't able to listen in." But secure mobile phones haven't exactly flooded the market, so governments have not been concerned, said Peter B|ttgen, a spokesman for Germany's data protection commissioner. Beaucom introduced its Enigma phone on the market in 2003. The handset, which it said cost more than 6 million to develop, has a card inside that stores and produces random encryption keys for each call. Since its introduction, the company has sold "a few thousand handsets" at about 2,200 each, said Wilhelm Decker, Beaucom's representative in Germany. "We expected it to go up a lot earlier," he said about the market for secure calls. "But it's coming, slowly but surely." Some have their doubts. Justin King, a director of the London security company C2i International, said that the signal quality of secure mobile phones was still a problem. "It's a Catch 22," said King, whose business advises large companies on counter-espionage measures. "These products are expensive. We'd rather spend #200 on air fare and talk about whatever it is at a coffee shop." [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/EpW3eD/3MnJAA/cosFAA/UBhwlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> ======================================================== TSCM-L Technical Security Mailing List "In a multitude of counselors there is strength" Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. 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