Published On: Tue, Feb 23rd, 2016

Scrambl3 encryption app lets you make secure calls on your mobile phone

The Scrambl3 app lets you make secure calls.


USMobile is launching its Scrambl3 encryption app for iPhones and Android smartphones today.

The app enables users to make secure calls or send secure messages without worrying about eavesdropping, according to USMobile, which includes people who worked with the National Security Agency on a previous project. The app is sure to stir more debate as Apple continues to square off against the FBI over getting access to an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino massacre shooters.

In an interview with VentureBeat, USMobile CEO Jon Hanour said he agrees completely with Apple CEO Tim Cook about denying the government access to the encrypted iPhone.

The app for both consumers and enterprises took more than 2.5 years to develop. USMobile had to create a backend infrastructure with the help of IBM to create the enterprise-grade technology that could deliver the encrypted data and voice calls over the network without any annoying delays, Hanour said.

USMobile previously worked with the NSA to build the secure architecture from 2011 to 2013. But Hanour said that the system does not have a backdoor, or secret way to circumvent the security in the app. The work took collaboration with both IBM and Apple to produce Scrambl3. The secure service is free for 30 days, and then it costs $ 10 a month. Since you have to eventually pay with a credit card, Hanour said he doubts that terrorists are going to use his app to disguise themselves.

“We don’t maintain those credit card records, but you still have to go through credit-card processing,” Hanour said. “The actual phone number can be tracked by law enforcement.”

Enterprise customers can use the technology to build a $ 2,000 server that they can use to create a closed network for their employees. USMobile operates its own network for the consumers who adopt the service. The users are anonymous to USMobile. The app creates a top-secret grade virtual private network (VPN) for making calls and securing messages. The app requires iOS 9.2 or higher. USMobile created a “dark Internet tunnel” to ensure security so that communication is cloaked. No call or message is stored on any server.

“To make this cost effective, we knew we had to bring the costs down,” Hanour said. “We have implemented it as a software-defined network. We used elliptic curve cryptography, as RSA is no longer secure.”

If you’re a high-value target for hackers and corporate espionage, then the app is probably a good idea for you to use, Hanour said. That includes people like business executives at publicly traded companies, politicians, law enforcement, lawyers, celebrities, and others who need privacy.

USMobile is based in Irvine, Calif., and it has 16 employees. The company has raised $ 4 million to date. USMobile was formed in 2013 as a spinoff from Cyvergence Corp.

“USMobile’s Scrambl3 has implemented the most salient security features of NSA’s ‘Fishbowl’ (secure phone) initiative secure Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) architecture, and has a number of unique characteristics that put it in a class ahead of existing commercial secure VoIP techniques,” said encryption expert Yuliang Zheng, a professor of cryptography at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in a statement.

 

 

 

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