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Two New Anti-Spy Cell Phones to Hit Market

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The disclosure of the U.S. NSA eavesdropping cases has led to the creation of cell phones with anti-spy software.Two French security contractors are set to release the first in a new market of secure mobile phones and encrypted communications. The new technology being released in Paris coincides with the recent revelations regarding the extent of American government surveillance.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Bull, a French maker of cybersecurity and intelligence gear, will begin to ship to ship a new, $2,760 smartphone for businesses, It will be called the Hoox m2 and is based on Google’s Android software, but has been re-engineered to resist hacking and encrypt calls.

A brochure for the new smartphone reads: “Unnecessary to speak in ‘coded language.'”

Also emerging from Paris, the Journal reports that the partly state-owned defense contractor Thales is “selling an enterprise-software system dubbed Teopad. Priced in the “hundreds of euros” per license, the software will split any Android phone or tablet “in two,” according to Thales, with one side for personal use and the other encrypted for sensitive business applications—and secure phone calls.”

The products emerging from these dueling French companies are part of what has become a growing niche, mostly coming from small firms and defense giants to capitalize on the growing demand for high-end encryption amid rising threats from organized hackers and growing fears of ubiquitous surveillance.

The Journal reports that some of the new secutiry measures in smartphones include “secure messaging apps like U.S.-based Wickr or mobile-device security platforms like California-based Good Technology Corp.

Others offer actual hardware, like Germany’s GSMK, which has sold tens of thousands of its CryptoPhone models, including an Android-based smartphone, in the past decade.”

The market for security software used in mobile devices was expected to grow 38% in 2013 to $1.33 billion, and it should hit $3 billion by 2017, which according to market-research firm Infonetics Inc., the Journal reported.

Interest in security and encryption has risen since the U.S. National Security Agency was accused in the fall of having hacked into the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among other world leaders. Though the NSA says it doesn’t conduct industrial espionage, security experts say businesses have woken up to the need for tighter security.

“Five years ago, businesses were asking me why I was so paranoid,” Björn Rupp, GSMK’s founder, told the Journal. “Now they’re all nodding when you give the presentation.”

In Europe, cloud-computing services have tried to cash in on espionage fears, arguing that by hosting their data on European soil they can avoid the prying eyes of U.S. spies. But many U.S. companies that offer communications services say that well-implemented cryptography can remain secure.

For example, the U.S.-based Silent Circle once pre-emptively shut down its encrypted email service “because it feared the government could request data that remained on central servers. But the company continues to offer its mobile calling and messaging services because only subscribers have the encryption keys,” the Journal reported.

Despite the predicted growth of the sector, security experts warn that it will be difficult to verify how secure many of the new products actually are. The Journal explained that “while several well-known cryptography schemes aren’t thought to be breakable for the moment, experts say they can be difficult to implement properly, possibly allowing hackers to access data on a phone before it is encrypted.

“To guard against that, independent security consultants often recommend open-source solutions, because outsiders can more easily spot security holes and notify the public. But many companies are reluctant to share their methods with competitors. And open-source approaches still require a leap of faith—both that the published code is the real code, and that the open-source community has properly vetted it,” the Journal reported.

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