Skip to main content

Opportunistic Encryption - Rewarding Good Behaviour

Years ago, the OpenSWAN project tried to implement IPV6 with opportunistic encryption, but the project failed due to ever increasing complexity.  Some alleged that the increasing encryption complexity and failure was pushed by NSA agents working inside OpenSWAN.  Be that as it may, there is new activity now, as a collective knee-jerk reaction against the pervasive snooping.

Skype used to be a secure product and became immensely popular, because it was very easy to use, but it was purchased by Microsoft - a company world renowned for its insecure software products - and all calls are now recorded.  I don't like having a PFY American Military Policemen sitting in on every call I make, so I started to look for alternatives.

One project of note, is the Redphone Android App from Whisper Systems:
https://whispersystems.org/

This is a neat application for Android Smart Phones which can save you oodles of money, and also help you claw back some of your lost privacy.

Redphone installs on your Android phone and hooks into the regular phone dialler such that when you call someone who also has Redphone installed, then the call will proceed over the data network, securely encrypted end to end - if not, then the call will proceed normally.  The result is that you will save money - especially when calling friends in other countries, same as with Skype, Ekiga or Jitsi.

Simply install Redphone and call people as usual.  If they don't have it, then you will get the option to send them a download link.  If they do have it, then you will get the option to use the lower cost internet link.  Whatever you do, you can always talk to them normally too, so you get the best of both worlds.

Redphone is very easy to use and easy to install.  The system sends a SMS to the phone to generate a key and then it Just Works.  (If you want to create a new key, just re-register the phone.)

Textsecure, another app by Whisper Systems, does the same thing for SMS messages.

To me, the brilliance of this approach is that it provides everyone with a financial incentive to improve their security.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Parasitic Quadrifilar Helical Antenna

This article was reprinted in OSCAR News, March 2018:  http://www.amsat-uk.org If you want to receive Satellite Weather Pictures , then you need a decent antenna, otherwise you will receive more noise than picture. For polar orbit satellites, one needs an antenna with a mushroom shaped radiation pattern .  It needs to have strong gain towards the horizon where the satellites are distant, less gain upwards where they are close and as little as possible downwards, which would be wasted and a source of noise.  Most satellites are spin stabilized and therefore the antenna also needs circular polarization, otherwise the received signal will flutter as the antennas rotate through nulls. The helical antenna, first proposed by Kraus in 1948, is the natural solution to circular polarized satellite communications.  It is a simple twisted wire - there seems to be nothing to it.  Various papers have been published on helix antennas, so the operation is pretty well understood. Therefore,

To C or not to C, That is the Question

As most would know, the Kernighan and Ritchie C Programming Language is an improved version of B, which is a simplified version of BCPL, which is derived from ALGOL, which is the Ur computer language that started the whole madness, when Adam needed an operating system for his Abacus, to count Eve's apples in the garden of Eden in Iraq.  The result is that C is my favourite, most hated computer language , which I use for everything. At university, I learned FORTRAN with punch cards on a Sperry-Univac, in order to run SPICE, to simulate an operational amplifier.  Computers rapidly lost their glamour after that era! Nobody taught me C.  I bought the book and figured it out myself. Over time, I wrote a couple of assemblers, a linker-locator, various low level debuggers and schedulers and I even fixed a bug in a C compiler - not because I wanted to, but because I had to, to get the job done!   Much of my software work was down in the weeds with DSP and radio modems ( Synchronization,

Weather Satellite Turnstile Antennas for the 2 meter Band

NEC2, 2 m band, 146 MHz, Yagi Turnstile Simulation and Build This article describes a Turnstile Antenna for the 2 meter band, 146 MHz amateur satcom, 137 MHz NOAA and Russian Meteor weather satellites.  Weather satellite reception is described here .  A quadrifilar helical antenna is described here .   Engineering, is the art of making what you need,  from what you can get. Radiation Pattern of the Three Element Yagi-Uda Antenna Once one combine and cross two Yagis, the pattern becomes distinctly twisted. The right hand polarization actually becomes visible in the radiation pattern plot, which I found really cool. Radiation Pattern of Six Element Turnstile Antenna Only a true RF Geek can appreciate the twisted invisible inner beauty of a herring bone antenna... Six Element Turnstile Antenna Essentially, it is three crosses on a stick.  The driven elements are broken in the middle at the drive points.  The other elements can go straight throug