NDM

Blackphone: can a mobile ever truly be hack-proof?

Encryption and security specialists Silent Circle has teamed up with Geeksphone, a joint project between security-conscious developers, entrepreneurs and ex-special forces operatives, to launch a new mobile phone that claims to give users back control of their data and lets them “determine what data they want to reveal, rather than be forced”.

On the face of it, the Blackphone does exactly that. For $629 (£377), customers get a smartphone that includes one year’s subscription to secure communication service Silent Circle and a virtual private network (VPN) for secure browsing, a ”remote wipe” anti-theft feature, a firewall and a year’s subscription to 5GB of secure cloud storage.

It also has no sign-up process, no ecosystem like Android or iPhone has (although it runs a modified Android OS) and a Blackphone specific app-store that is on the way, although users can still download apps from the Google Play Store or third party apps unrelated to Google.