CDR: SnapSheild offers encrypted phone service.

[Trei, Peter]

(Vin McLellan pointed this out to me).

http://www.computeruser.com/news/00/11/23/news6.html
http://www.snapshield.com/

Snapshield (formerly Microlink) is offering a product consisting 
of special box which sits on your phone line and special PBXs 
which allow 'end-to-end'  encrypted voice/fax etc, based on
DES (apparently single DES) and El-Gamal.

Calls to or from their Snapshield equipped phones are routed via 
a special PBX box which provides encryption between the PBX 
and the phone. If both phones support encryption, the entire link 
is encrypted. 

Their page is kind of light on details. In particular it's not clear whether
session keys are negotiated between the 'Snapgate' PBX box or
between two of the phone boxes. Since they support point-to-multipoint
calling, and indicate that monitoring is possible, I suspect the former.
For some users, this means that the Snapgate box is an 
unacceptable point of attack. I can't find any suggestion of
robust authentication, though I have not checked everything on their site.

They are targetting telcos (for people willing to outsource their
security) and large private networks.

Anyone have any more information or comments on this product?

Peter Trei

PS: Their webpage wants me to install a plugin called
Data Detective PC Search by Appletware. Anyone know
what it does? It sounds ominous.

pt 

Disclaimer: The above represent my personal opinions only.