Hasta La Gadget!

It’s pretty much agreed that Google’s Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption is a good thing. Why not get a little free protection given that our search queries are often a good way of piecing together exactly what’s going on in our lives?

Read more…

One of the more ambitious and interesting hardware projects on a crowdfunding platform recently has to be the Quasar IV, a smartphone designed entirely around security, encryption and identity protection. QSAlpha’s Quasar IV uses authentication tech called Quatrix, and a hybrid Android/Linux and Quatrix mobile OS called QuaOS to make sure communications in and out of the phone are protected.

The Quasar IV is going to be made, despite the fact that there are only nine days remaining in its Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, and only $48,796 raised out of $3.2 million sought on a fixed funding goal (meaning they don’t get anything if they haven’t got the whole amount committed). While the Quasar IV won’t raise that much money in the next 9 days, it apparently will get made regardless thanks to help from outside investors.

On the Quasar IV Indiegogo page, an update posted a few hours ago says that production with “one of the world’s largest consumer electronics OEMS manufacturers” has already begun, as a result of support from “various vendors and companies” who share the founding team’s passion for a vision of an ultra-secure mobile device. Early backers will be added to the pre-order list for the Quasar IV automatically, and will be notified about how to buy one when the time comes, which QSAlpha CEO and founder Steve Chao says will happen sometime in Q2 2014.

There’s very little in the way of information about who has picked up the tab for the initial production run, but Quasar’s appeal, while niche, applies very specifically to firms that require incredibly high levels of security and encryption, which are resistant to outside attempts (*cough* NSA *cough*) to read said data. QSAlpha has said it was inspired by the stealthy ways of the ninja in designing the phone and its operating system, and there are, conceivably, clients who would pay well for a phone that stays truly off-grid.

Indiegogo has sort of become a place for ambitious new smartphone concepts to go to attract a lot of attention before falling well short of their funding goal (see the Canonical Ubuntu Edge), but it looks like the Quasar IV might become real with a little help from some potentially high-powered friends. Or, it could always disappear in a puff of smoke, ninja-style.

BitTorrent has revealed BitTorrent Chat, its secure take on instant messaging using the peer-to-peer technologies that made it notorious for file-sharing so as to escape the eyes of the NSA. Described as “a pre-Alpha experiment in server-less messaging” the new chat client promises to shuttle conversations across an encrypted, peer-to-peer network rather than routing them […]

After Canonical asked the world for $32 million to produce its Ubuntu Edge handset, $3.2 million seems like small potatoes, right? All right, it’s still a bunch, but QSAlpha’s got some big plans for the money. The Quasar IV promises unprecedented security, according to the company’s new Indiegogo campaign. That entails military-grade encryption, with either 64- or 128GB of encrypted local storage augmented by a lofty 128GB encrypted in the cloud. The idea here is to “leave no trace in the digital world,” and just to be clear, the company’s got a ninja in its pitch video to really drive the point home. In fact, ninjas were apparently QSAlpha’s starting point: “if a ninja had a phone, what would it look like?” We’d guess more sharpened corners and maybe some smoke bombs, but this is a start.

Apparently it would also feature an Android / Linux / Quatrix hybrid called QuaOS based on Android 4.3 and rock some pretty heavy duty specs like a quad-core 2.3GHz Snapdragon 800 processor, 3GB RAM, 5-inch 1080p IGZO display, 3,300mAh battery, IP57 certification and dual 13MP rear facing cameras for a better augmented reality experience. Like what you hear? The first 1,250 backers to shell out $345 will get a 64GB version when the handset starts shipping in April. Miss out and you won’t be able to pick one up until June, and who knows what sorts of secrets you might spill in the meantime?

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

Comments

Source: Indiegogo

Quantum cryptography is crack-proof by its nature — you can’t inspect data without changing it — but the available technology is currently limited to one-on-one connections. Toshiba has developed a quantum access networking system that could bring this airtight security to groups as large as 64 people. The approach gives each client a (relatively) basic quantum transmitter, and routes encrypted data through a central, high-speed photon detector that returns decryption keys. Such a network would not only secure entire workgroups, but lower the cost of encrypting each user. Quantum access networks won’t be useful across internet-scale distances until researchers improve the signal integrity, but there may be a time when surveillance agencies will run out of potential targets.

Filed under: Networking, Alt

Comments

Via: Quartz

Source: Nature