'Scrambler software' will protect phone calls from prying ears

Source: cnn.com

I believe online privacy issues will be front and center throughout the next decade. Phil Zimmermann knows a bit about this already.

Enter stage left a veteran of internet privacy. Phil Zimmermann is known for inventing the standard in email encryption -- PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) -- in the 1990s and for giving it away to the world for free, much to the annoyance of the U.S. government, which considered encryption software to be weaponry at the time and therefore restricted for export.

Depending on who you ask, many (or all) forms of communications are tracked on different levels so an app such as this will help in securing your private phone calls, texts, browsing etc.

Now he has a new bag of tricks which, from next month, will allow customers to scramble their mobile phone calls, text messages, emails and even video calls over Skype and Face Time. His company Silent Circle has a suite of four products that go live on September 17, and will be available to download worldwide to iPhones, Androids, desktops and laptops.

Naturally there is a cost...

The software is for use over a private network, subscription to which costs $20 a month. This is because the encryption works on a peer-to-peer basis, so both parties ideally need to be within the system. It still works if only one person uses the app, but in that case a message will only be scrambled as far as Silent Circle's servers.

One of the most interesting parts I find is this...

Silent Circle, itself based in National Harbor, in Maryland, and in Silicon Valley, has located its servers in Canada because it feels the country has superior privacy laws.

That may well be true for now but if the Conservative government gets it's way it may not be this way for long. But not to worry ATS, somebody is on your side.

Zimmermann has always felt strongly about the right to private communication in the digital age and feels that it should be simple -- you dial a number and no one else can listen; you shouldn't have to be a rocket scientist to make your conversations secure.

So the battle for privacy continues with the various corporations trying to make a dollar off your private information, the federal governments replacing civil liberties for 'security' and us, the everyday people that just want everyone else to butt out of our everyday lives.

I know nothing about any type of "scrambler software," so this post may be the work of an ignorant fool.
Oh, well, it won't be the first time.

Make no mistake, I'm all for personal privacy in all forms, liive talk, letters and electronic.

But to think that a small program put into an electronic phone or typical home computer is going to be able to out-fox the NSA with its super computers that they have now and what is coming on line is... a wishful joke at best.

For every little outfit working on an encryption program that cannot be broken--or so they will tell you--the NSA and a whole lot of other people are or will be working to break it.

reply to post by fenceSitter

There is [relatively] no anonymity.
There is [relatively] no privacy.

It's open season on commo.

The closest communication tool that we have for anonymous communication is the Mixmaster remailers and its spinoffs. They are problematic in their own right (consistency in delivery in particular).

Solution?

None that is easily implemented.
.