The Threat of Silence
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For the past few months, some of the world’s leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they’ve decided it’s time to tell all.
Back in October, the startup tech firm Silent Circle ruffled governments’ feathers with a “surveillance-proof” smartphone app to allow people to make secure phone calls and send texts easily. Now, the company is pushing things even further – with a groundbreaking encrypted data transfer app that will enable people to send files securely from a smartphone or tablet at the touch of a button. (For now, it’s just being released for iPhones and iPads, though Android versions should come soon.) That means photographs, videos, spreadsheets, you name it – sent scrambled from one person to another in a matter of seconds.
“This
has never been done before,” boasts Mike Janke, Silent Circle’s
CEO. “It’s going to revolutionize the ease of privacy
and security.”
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True, he’s a businessman with a product to sell – but I think he is right.
The technology
uses a sophisticated peer-to-peer encryption technique that allows
users to send encrypted files of up to 60 megabytes through a “Silent
Text” app. The sender of the file can set it on a timer so
that it will automatically “burn” – deleting it from
both devices after a set period of, say, seven minutes. Until now,
sending encrypted documents has been frustratingly difficult for
anyone who isn’t a sophisticated technology user, requiring
knowledge of how to use and install various kinds of specialist
software. What Silent Circle has done is to remove these hurdles,
essentially democratizing encryption. It’s a game-changer that
will almost certainly make life easier and safer for journalists,
dissidents, diplomats, and companies trying to evade state surveillance
or corporate espionage. Governments pushing
for more snooping powers, however, will not be pleased.
February 7, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Slate