Erik Prince Wants To Sell You a 'Secure' Smartphone That's Too Good To Be True (technologyreview.com) 86
MIT Technology Review obtained Prince's investor presentation for the "RedPill Phone," which promises more than it could possibly deliver. From the report: Erik Prince's pitch to investors was simple -- but certainly ambitious: pay just 5 million euros and cure the biggest cybersecurity and privacy plagues of our day. The American billionaire -- best known for founding the notorious private military firm Blackwater, which became globally infamous for killing Iraqi civilians and threatening US government investigators -- was pushing Unplugged, a smartphone startup promising "free speech, privacy, and security" untethered from dominant tech giants like Apple and Google. In June, Prince publicly revealed the new phone, priced at $850. But before that, beginning in 2021, he was privately hawking the device to investors -- using a previously unreported pitch deck that has been obtained by MIT Technology Review. It boldly claims that the phone and its operating system are "impenetrable" to surveillance, interception, and tampering, and its messenger service is marketed as "impossible to intercept or decrypt."
Boasting falsely that Unplugged has built "the first operating system free of big tech monetization and analytics," Prince bragged that the device is protected by "government-grade encryption." Better yet, the pitch added, Unplugged is to be hosted on a global array of server farms so that it "can never be taken offline." One option is said to be a server farm "on a vessel" located in an "undisclosed location on international waters, connected via satellite to Elon Musk's StarLink." An Unplugged spokesperson explained that "they benefit in having servers not be subject to any governmental law." The Unplugged investor pitch deck is a messy mix of these impossible claims, meaningless buzzwords, and outright fiction. While none of the experts I spoke with had yet been able to test the phone or read its code, because the company hasn't provided access, the evidence available suggests Unplugged will fall wildly short of what's promised.
[...] The UP Phone's operating system, called LibertOS, is a proprietary version of Google's Android, according to an Unplugged spokesperson. It's running on an unclear mix of hardware that a company spokesperson says they've designed on their own. Even just maintaining a unique Android "fork" -- a version of the operating system that departs from the original, like a fork in the road -- is a difficult endeavor that can cost massive money and resources, experts warn. For a small startup, that can be an insurmountable challenge. [...] Another key issue is life span. Apple's iPhones are considered the most secure consumer device on the market due in part to the fact that the company offers security updates to some of its older phones for six years, longer than virtually all competitors. When support for a phone ends, security vulnerabilities go unaddressed, and the phone is no longer secure. There is no information available on how long UP Phones will receive security support. "There are two things happening here," says Allan Liska, a cyberintelligence analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. "There are the actual attempts to make real secure phones, and then there is the marketing BS. Distinguishing between those two can be really hard."
"When I worked in US intelligence, we [penetrated] a number of phone companies overseas," says Liska. "We were inside those phone companies. We could easily track people based on where they connected to the towers. So when you talk about being impenetrable, that's wrong. This is a phone, and the way that phones work is they triangulate to cell towers, and there is always latitude and longitude for exactly where you're sitting," he adds. "Nothing you do to the phone is going to change that."
The UP Phone is due out in November 2022.
Boasting falsely that Unplugged has built "the first operating system free of big tech monetization and analytics," Prince bragged that the device is protected by "government-grade encryption." Better yet, the pitch added, Unplugged is to be hosted on a global array of server farms so that it "can never be taken offline." One option is said to be a server farm "on a vessel" located in an "undisclosed location on international waters, connected via satellite to Elon Musk's StarLink." An Unplugged spokesperson explained that "they benefit in having servers not be subject to any governmental law." The Unplugged investor pitch deck is a messy mix of these impossible claims, meaningless buzzwords, and outright fiction. While none of the experts I spoke with had yet been able to test the phone or read its code, because the company hasn't provided access, the evidence available suggests Unplugged will fall wildly short of what's promised.
[...] The UP Phone's operating system, called LibertOS, is a proprietary version of Google's Android, according to an Unplugged spokesperson. It's running on an unclear mix of hardware that a company spokesperson says they've designed on their own. Even just maintaining a unique Android "fork" -- a version of the operating system that departs from the original, like a fork in the road -- is a difficult endeavor that can cost massive money and resources, experts warn. For a small startup, that can be an insurmountable challenge. [...] Another key issue is life span. Apple's iPhones are considered the most secure consumer device on the market due in part to the fact that the company offers security updates to some of its older phones for six years, longer than virtually all competitors. When support for a phone ends, security vulnerabilities go unaddressed, and the phone is no longer secure. There is no information available on how long UP Phones will receive security support. "There are two things happening here," says Allan Liska, a cyberintelligence analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. "There are the actual attempts to make real secure phones, and then there is the marketing BS. Distinguishing between those two can be really hard."
"When I worked in US intelligence, we [penetrated] a number of phone companies overseas," says Liska. "We were inside those phone companies. We could easily track people based on where they connected to the towers. So when you talk about being impenetrable, that's wrong. This is a phone, and the way that phones work is they triangulate to cell towers, and there is always latitude and longitude for exactly where you're sitting," he adds. "Nothing you do to the phone is going to change that."
The UP Phone is due out in November 2022.
Let me guess... (Score:4, Interesting)
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I was thinking the same thing, seems pretty on the nose.
Re:Let me guess... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's a grift. We've got a billionaire, known for shady business, asking for money and making absurd promises that he can't possibly deliver.
Boy, that sounds familiar...
Even the name "RedPill" is obviously intended to target far-right conspiracy nuts, the easiest of all marks. It's a wonder any of them have any disposable income left.
Re:Let me guess... (Score:5, Funny)
I misread the intro as this: "...cure the biggest cybersecurity and privacy plagues of our day, The American billionaire"
I was, like, "This sounds interesting...", then I spotted it wasn't a comma.
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It's by Eric fucking Prince of all people too, so it's pretty clear that nothing good could possibly come out of this scheme.
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No, this time it will be different.
It's like programming languages. The new one solves every single problem of the old terrible ones. Creating a new a perfectly secure and bug-free world. Java did this for Android of course which is what this phone uses.
Let me guess, this uses Rust instead of Java?
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More than likely, it is this North Korean Android phone [wikipedia.org] which is built like a surveillance device [google.com]
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Another Anom? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOM)
I was thinking "Another EncroChat": https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Cellular vs. Communication device. (Score:4, Informative)
"This is a phone, and the way that phones work is they triangulate to cell towers, and there is always latitude and longitude for exactly where you're sitting," he adds. "Nothing you do to the phone is going to change that."
Uh, nothing you do will change how a cellular phone works. That said, I can communicate a hell of a lot from my iPad that contains exactly zero triangulation capability, and 21st Century ignorance has re-defined the definition of re-defining, so we probably shouldn't simply assume "phone" means what you think it means anymore.
Re:Cellular vs. Communication device. (Score:5, Informative)
IP addresses are OSI layer 3. IMEI is roughly equivalent to OSI layer 2. Layer 5 represents sessions, which are ephemeral.
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Sorry, was thinking NAT... or something.
Re:Cellular vs. Communication device. (Score:5, Insightful)
The older I've gotten, I've realized and internalized several things:
a) I'm pretty smart, pretty knowledgeable, and pretty skilled
b) While I'm probably top 5%, that leaves a HUGE number of people who surpass me in all three of those things
c) A team of people dumber than me can still beat me, by working in a group
But hey, who knows, maybe you're "the one". Maybe you're smarter, more skilled AND harder working that the security agency of the most powerful country in the world. Me? I'm going to assume that the US government has a backdoor into pretty much any communication if they really want it.
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Sometimes you don't need to be "ahead", you just need to spend more money.
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One has to separate politicians from government. In general, I have a lot of respect for government workers, who do their damnest, knowing that they are looked down upon, and their pay isn't anywhere near the private sector. They are the quiet ones keeping stuff from just imploding. Now, politicians, on the other hand, are usually creating more problems than they fix... guessing it may be for job security.
I will never look down on a government worker. They do a lot more than they are given credit for.
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Because no one can possibly determine anything about your location from you IP address... ::eyeroll::
I saw a police investigation on TV where they convicted a guy by showing that the naughty criminal phone went to all the same places at exactly the same times as the everyday phone he had registered under his name.
They had months of records of him driving around the country and the two phones pinging cell towers simultaneously and stuff like that.
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this has been another exciting edition of geekmux says something stupid
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I don't know if I should smack him, or pat him on the head and tell him everything will be ok.
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this has been another exciting edition of geekmux says something stupid
Gosh, where are my manners? Sorry about that. I wasn't aware that I was taking your responsibility here.
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Uh, nothing you do will change how a cellular phone works. That said, I can communicate a hell of a lot from my iPad that contains exactly zero triangulation capability
Actually it doesn't really need to in order for somebody to find you. If you're using any form of wireless communication, there's typically a way to do so that doesn't require your device to actively participate. This is especially true of wifi where simply knowing the BSSID that you're communicating with, or merely any BSSID that is nearby, is often enough to have a very good idea of where you are within about 80 meters or so. It gets even better than that when you are near multiple wireless APs nearby, do
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The point is, you pretty much have to connect to a network to communicate. In this case, "phone" means "portable device" and not something that only connects to a hardline somwhere.
Does your iPad have LTE or 5G connectivity? Then it's a "phone" for all intents and purposes of the article quote on triangulation.
iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation), iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation), iPad Air (5th generation), and iPad mini (6th generation) work with the 5G cellular networks of certain carriers. Learn how to use 5G cellular service.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212196 [apple.com]
Re:Cellular vs. Communication device. (Score:4, Informative)
That said, I can communicate a hell of a lot from my iPad that contains exactly zero triangulation capability
It's not very convenient. You can't really do it while you're driving around, can you?
PS: I'm happy you can afford an iPad but any cheapo phone with no SIM card will do the same.
Re: Cellular vs. Communication device. (Score:4, Informative)
> That said, I can communicate a hell of a lot from my iPad that contains exactly zero triangulation capability
Anything with a transmitting wireless radio (Wifi, Bluetooth, cellular, etc) can be triangulated...
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Android foundation for a secure phone (Score:1)
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Any bets that LibertOS is really just a modification to LineageOS? Both claim to get rid of the marketing crap (i.e., Google).
I mean, did they audit every line of code or something? There's so much code in Android this is extremely difficult, especially when it's a mix of C, C++, assembly, Java, Kotlin, and other languages.
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He doesn't want to make a secure phone. He wants to fleece the rubes.
I'd be amazed if any alterations were made that weren't merely cosmetic.
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No kidding. I expect the only reason it's not called the MAGAphone is Trump probably has that trademarked and would want a cut. :)
(Working on the assumption that the "real" QAnon-ers who know what all the "RedPill" jargon means are a comparatively small subset of the target market).
PutinPhone... (Score:2)
If you can't trust PMC mercenaries (Score:5, Interesting)
I do wonder when we're going to reach peak grift. The point at which the right wing have grifted their fools so hard that those fools are completely out of money. I mean between televangelists, Donald Trump and his whole maga movement, Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and people like them plus people spending their own money on pointless recounts in Kansas and those idiots who gave millions of dollars so a couple of truckers could drive around Canada for a bit... When are the boomers going to run out of money?
And I know it's the boomers feeding this machine of grift because Gen X M and z don't have any money at all. You can't squeeze blood from a stone and you can't squeeze money from somebody under 50. Not after we lived through five or six major economic collapses.
The left do occasionally get bamboozled. There were some black lives matters scams. And of course goop. But we do tended to bunk and catch it eventually..
I just saw a video of a fake pastor attacking his flock because they didn't buy him some expensive designer watch. He apologized in public but made the point at his church didn't think he did anything wrong.
And every single person in that church votes. They're deciding how you're going to live your life
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Re: If you can't trust PMC mercenaries (Score:2)
Yes but when YOU worked for it the wage you were paid would actually support your life. Not so today.
It's a "Overthrow US Govenment" Phone (Score:4, Insightful)
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That traitor went to serve foreign nations and private billionaires when he pitched his mercenaries as the future of the US military (privatized contractors.) He tried (and likely later succeeded) to setup a back channel between Trump and Putin outside the government oversight (and security.)
If you trust him then you are a fool. Oh and yes, he will help neo-fascist movements since that is his political leaning. Fascism is fundamentally franchise as it is based upon extreme nationalism and so each franchis
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It could be done.... (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of poo pooing comments here. Erik Prince seems shifty, I'll give them that, but I want to go over a few things.
Government Grade Encryption:
Sure, it sounds like buzzwords, but the decks don't contain details on what this is. I have a secret clearance, and have worked on SIPRnet for the DOD. I just googled to see if some of the hardware we use to encrypt endpoints is documented there out in the wild, it isn't. I won't even risk going into details on what it is, or how it works. I like my job. That being said, let's just say SIPR has magic black boxes used to encrypt things end to end, and if these magic boxes lose power, you'll be unhappily calling up an RNEC to explain why you didn't do the yearly replacement on the UPS batteries while they remotely get this magic black box working again.
The one thing I can say about SIPR is clients are almost always a VM using a citrix thin client. If this smart phone is simply going to act as a thin client, then ya, they could really get that part secured.
The other side of government encryption is smart cards, used in nearly all branches. There's tokens for SIPR as well. So if the phone was paired with a physical token + pin or biometrics, it should be pretty well locked down.
I see a lot of poo pooing about cell tower triangualation. If all the traffic is proxied to one of UPphones servers, then it would make triangualation moot. Law enforcement could ask "Who owns this phone number" and UP could just say, "We do, but we won't tell you who the customer is since we run outside your jurisdiction" That might work for a while, until the fed outlaws the phone. If all traffic is encrypted, then again, moot point.
There's other possibilities that can happen here too. If there is enough of these phones out there, they could create their own star topology network like an onion network over wifi to each other, and only use cell towers to transmit bits of data. There's also the possibility of these phones only using wifi, and again if everything is proxied to a VM, good look finding it.
Given that he founded blackwater, I'm going to err towards the side of he probably knows how our government keeps things secret. It goes deeper than hardware and software. Ever have an OIG agent show up at your childhood friend or neighbors house? Ever have an OIG agent ask you about that DUI you got 30 years ago? There is a level of vetting that goes beyond what you'd find in the private sector.
It's not 100%. Snowden and Manning prove it's not 100% secure, but it's still way more secure than the average security implementation.
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It's not 100%. Snowden and Manning prove it's not 100% secure, but it's still way more secure than the average security implementation.
Ok, I'll bite. If this isn't all one big grift - and that's a big "if" - who do you think the TLAs are going to focus on? Using "tech" like this is a beacon in the night sky saying, "Investigate me!" Because it won't be John C. Public, whose biggest concerns are what the wife wants for take-out that night, but people doing shit they want hidden - you know, fascist, "Let's overthrow the government" types - that use it. And, for them, that "not 100%" will be their downfall.
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Having a phone in and of itself isn't enough just cause for conducting an investigation. TLA's would have to know a person is using the device in the first place, and there's a lot they can do to obsuficate the devices identity.
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But, what if they are the ones selling the phone to you [arstechnica.com], or at the very least influencing it's design?
"FBI sold phones to organized crime and read 27 million “encrypted” messages
Messages were routed to an FBI-owned server and decrypted with master key."
North Korea even has their RED*OS [wikipedia.org], they they build surveillance systems on top of.
Pro Tip, if you are relying on any type of phone for your secure operation, then you have already boned it up
Re: It could be done.... (Score:2)
Better: the original company making/selling their "secure" phones might just take a handout from the FBI to install the right backdoor.
Re:It could be done.... (Score:4, Interesting)
All snideness aside, why not an open, fully customizable phone where all the encryption is done in a F/OSS way? Maybe create a few F/OSS projects that are financed by the company, and use those for the phone. There are a few ways to greatly help things with phones:
Move applications to the SIM. SoftCard used to process bank transactions on the SIM, with the SIM app asking for the PIN. This greatly limited attacks malware can do on a compromised phone.
Allow the ability for users to firewall apps. While this may be too technical for most, it would be nice to have an iptables/nftables layer firewall (not a VPN hack) which would prevent some apps from phoning home to weird sites overseas.
Offer backup functionality which is actually private, granular, and decent. Something more than all or nothing when it comes to iOS backups, or the random stuff with regard to Android backups. Think Titanium Backup, before that went dead. Backups which could be kept on local storage, or synced to a secure cloud provider.
Go back to having FDE on phones, as well as file based encryption. For SD cards, use something like CryFS, which obfuscates the contents stored, as well as provides encryption. For backups, perhaps something like Borg Backup for easy compression/deduplication.
Allow for multiple users on phones, so work, home, projects, consultancy can all be in different containers, and they cannot see each other.
Perhaps offer the phone with some different authentication methods, duress code, and maybe functionality where if the phone isn't unlocked, after a certain amount of time elapses, it will erase all its keys. This way, a phone that is lost on a taxi, there is a guarantee that all data on it will be rendered inaccessible after a certain period of time.
Piggyback and work with an open source project like Lineage OS. Save everyone time and effort.
Finally, maybe offer a way to do cryptographically signed SMS that is done at the cellular/SIM level. This would be quite useful for deterring caller ID spoofing, and with E2EE, allow SMS based texts as reliable, secure 2FA.
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Because it's a really really really hard project where 90% of the code you need to write is highly technical, complex and utterly boring to write.
There have been many "open source phone OS" projects over the years, like OpenMoko among others. Ther
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Android was bought out. Done right, it is very secure, be it SELinux in the kernel, dm-crypt for disk encryption (which has been phased out for file encryption). However, so many mechanisms are put in for analytics and app tracking, it makes Android a lot weaker.
If a phone started with AOSP, but diverged, perhaps using LXC or other containers and/or jails, as well as a filesystem like btrfs on the backend which can deduplicate data, this might strike an ideal balance. As for encryption, it would be nice
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Government grade encryption is such a misnomer. While most governments do have their own, proprietary encryption schemes many also approve IPSEC based solutions up to TOP SECRET CODEWORD. The encryption scheme is somewhat irrelevant (it's not but it's well understood) as at that level what they care more about is side channel attacks and the security of the keys (which is why many of the devices will wipe the key stores if they detect tampering as the first step).
The one significant and almost unique things
Why not just use Signal? (Score:2)
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I see a lot of poo pooing about cell tower triangualation. If all the traffic is proxied to one of UPphones servers, then it would make triangualation moot.
I don't think this is true. The cell tower companies can be tapped for triangulation. You don't need to know what is being said or where that data is routed to, you only need the cell tower protocol. That is what the triangulation is actually for, to facilitate the communication between the device and the tower.
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A lot of poo pooing comments here.
Well, maybe it is doable. With the best of experts and a lot of funding and time. Think Apollo-project. Because first, you have to write your own OS and design and manufacture your own hardware, down to the chip-level. That is why nobody with an actual clue gives these claims any credit.
Lol (Score:2)
itsatrap.jpg
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Well, if law enforcement already knows the number, and the whereabouts
opsec. (Score:1)
1. use burner phone, so phone is not connected to identity.
2. Airplane mode and/or phone off 99% of the time, except when actually making a call or using data, which one need do only sparingly and for short duration.
While those "on the phone" things do not make his claim wrong, they make
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It all depends whom you are wanting to protect against. I wish Apple still made iPod Touches because with some communications program like Signal or some other IP level messaging platform, coupled with a good VPN or even TOR, they could be rendered pretty anonymous. To boot, since they piggybacked off of other devices, there wasn't a GPS fix on the device 24/7. The closest to that now, would be an Android device with a custom firmware that wouldn't be tracking everything on the device to ad companies.
No-one to object (Score:2)
I thought ships, like cars, required compulsory insurance: That means belonging to a country.
Being in international waters means a SEAL team can easily board the vessel and do whatever, with no-one to object to this act of piracy and data-theft.
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That's my understanding - a ship in international waters under no flag can be boarded by any country, and they can do pretty much what they want with it (as long as they're not overstepping the mark into piracy or war crimes). Much the same goes for a ship under a false flag (i.e. it's not actually registered in the country it claims to be). The only way to keep people off is to be properly registered in a recognised country, in which case you're subject to that country's laws.
The way round that is to find
Re: No-one to object (Score:2)
Couldn't a SEAL team just outsource to literal pirates if a country's flag gets in the way of rules and procedure?
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Being in international waters means a SEAL team can easily board the vessel and do whatever, with no-one to object to this act of piracy and data-theft.
Why the effort? Just forbid Starlink to connect the vessel via NSL or a secret law.
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Might be easier than you think (Score:2)
Triangulation is not relevant if you dont know who the phone belongs. If they figured out a clever way to split the identity of the phone from the identity of the user then they may have something interesting. I dont think they did this tho given the source ;)
Re: Might be easier than you think (Score:2)
If they have infinite monies, maybe buy up thousands of SIMs, dump the secret contents, put those into each phone, then have each phone rotate through live SIMs? I hope I didn't just give them an idea.
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No. Triangulation works nicely to find out where the phone is and done several times together with some other data to find out who the user is.
Ah, yes, serious product name: "RedPill" (Score:1)
Yes, let's name our serious product the "RedPill" phone, that will get us taken seriously in at least one community which I am sure isn't notorious for anything.
Missing a buzzword (Score:2)
"Snake Oil".... (Score:2)
This type of security scam is so old, it has a well-established name. It always works by claiming something is "unbreakable" or "impenetrable" or "air-gaped" and the reality of things never pans out. The product often gets not even delivered. Sometimes experts break it in a few hours. Sometimes it is not even what it pretends to be and does not have any special security. My favorite of the last type is the "air gaped hardware firewall" I saw maybe a decade back, where you had a real, physically visible air-
Rob Braxman has good information (Score:2)
This fellow has a good handle on what is possible (and not possible) with cell phones.
https://odysee.com/@RobBraxman... [odysee.com]
government grade encryption (Score:2)
I suppose it matters which government. And even the US gov. publishes many standards, they usually have names, like FIPSXXX so the Marketing BS meter is bending the needle on this one.
If the phone cost $30 and was available to buy cash over the counter it's one thing, but $850 and I suppose sold via a web site needs a credit card and makes it more traceable
Maybe you could leave the phone on a bus and try to use it to establish an alibi
Security and electronic comms = mutually exclusive (Score:2)
If you have something truly important to protect, keep it off the internet completely. If convenience is more important admit you don't care then move on with life.
Intense desire for secure comms should not lead one to believe security effective against Serious People. Taliban learnt this the hard way then switched to sneakernetting flash drives to avoid drone visits.
Triangulate again (Score:2)