Secure Mobile Phone

The feds aren't going to like it when you hook up your Vectrotel X8,a normal-looking GSM cellphone that has some serious 128-bit encryptioninside. It has the usual features of a run-of-the-mill handset, such asa Bluetooth and USB connectivity, 1.3-megapixel camera, a 320x240display, and it works like an everyday cellphone, too.

Things get really different when you want to encrypt phone calls,where the catch is that you'll need two of these phones talking to eachother for the encryption to work. After a 10- to 30-second handshakingprocess, the two phones share a unique 128-bit key that uses somethingcalled a 1024-bit Diffie-Hellman shared secret exchange. The two phonesuse this particular key just once and then delete it after the call.

Can the encryption be broken? Vectrotel says yes, it is possible todecrypt a phone call, but it will take you about a trillion years. Thecompany didn't say how much the phone will cost but if you have somesecret stuff to talk about, it just might be worth it.

Source: vectrotel.chAdded: 23 May 2006