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$629 Blackphone aims to hide you from the NSA

Filed under
Android
Linux

Like the idea of using a pocket-sized computer to make calls, send messages, surf the web, and smash birds into pigs… but don’t like the idea of government agencies snooping on your communications?

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This promise of security

This promise of security smells of closed source and vendor lock-in ... I'm not in a hurry buy it (also, the price is quite unrealistic).

Trust

The backers of the phone have reputation that give them some trust (earned, not inherited).

I know, I have one of the

I know, I have one of the Geeksphone Firefox OS devices, but this is something else. Once they open source everything, _maybe_ then I'll change my opinion.

Fair point

Fair point. Either way, if they keep it proprietary they'll lose credibility.

A friend of mine wrote a bit

A friend of mine wrote a bit more on the subject:
https://manurevah.com/blah/en/blog/Monetising-Fear-Presents-the-Blackphone

SSL

Your friend's SSL cert is making it hard to access the site (the cert needs to be updated). There is now more coverage of the false promise of security, so you were right.

"This experience has taught me one very important lesson: without congressional action or a strong judicial precedent, I would _strongly_ recommend against anyone trusting their private data to a company with physical ties to the United States." -Important quote from the messenger himself

Android now has some nice Tor clients that Rianne and I are using, accessing this site via Russia, India, and so on. The server has good security, but it is located in the US and the Web side uses no SSL cert.

Self Signed SSL

Hi,

Just to add to Nux's comment, the SSL is fine. The issue you might be seeing is that it is signed by my own "CA".

You could avoid warnings by importing my Root CA, but that would mean I could produce and sign a certificate for google.com for example and your browser would trust it. This could worry some people as the average browser trusts over a 100 various organisations to behave and to be secure.

So as Nux said, there's nothing wrong with my SSL, there's something wrong with how SSL is implemented.

BTW, you can verify my SSL by using `dig`

dig manurevah.com TXT

Also, my website is available in cleartext as well: http://manurevah.com/blah/en/blog/Monetising-Fear-Presents-the-Blackphone

Cheers,

Useful to know perhaps

For some visitors that head towards the HTTPS version it might be hard to enter. It can be useful to know.

The SSL is just fine, feel

The SSL is just fine, feel free to inspect the cert. Smile

speaking of ssl

there is a https://tuxmachines.org
but it opens something else.

Host

I wasn't aware of it. Maybe we should just turn this site to SSL-enabled (at least as an option) for privacy?

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