Good news for consumers who don’t want their credit cards stolen, accounts hacked, or net surfing tracked by Big Data.
The Guardian reports the new Blackphone from Spain can
Make encrypted phone calls, send encrypted texts and browse the web anonymously, thanks to a partnership with American security company Silent Circle. The Blackphone, which was unveiled at last week’s Mobile World Congress, will run a version of Android called PrivatOS, which patches a number of security holes and offers greater control over the information that can be harvested by third-party apps.
In English? It will be harder for a game you download, for example, to steal the contents of your address book.
The unveiling of the Blackphone comes on the heels of another new smarter phone developed by Boeing. Only for government agencies, in addition to encryption, the Boeing phone self destructs when tampered with. How cool is that!
Now the bad news for foreign businesses, political activists, and anyone who doesn’t want government agents watching their Yahoo webchats. Blackphone and Boeing won’t stop the N.S.A. and friends. There’s still no technological fix to a political problem.
Blackphone will launch in June and is expected to sell for $629. Will it jump start the still flagging Spanish economy? Doubtful.