Shoreditch tech firm, Redact, have launched an iPhone messaging app
that they say is completely uncrackable, unhackable and totally secure. Unlike
a lot of people making big claims about their technology, they've actually put
their money where their mouth is.
They've offered a cash reward to
anyone who can intercept and crack a message from their system, as well as offering
it free to MPs and FTSE
CEOs. I suppose by laying down the gauntlet to the world hacker
community they may end up with egg on their face, but I've got a lot of time
for their confidence.
I talked to some security
experts, and asked them if Redact's claims of being uncrackable were valid.
Broadly, they agreed that it would be incredibly hard to intercept a message
and decrypt a message; unlike BBM and iMessage, Redact doesn't have any
servers, so there's no way round and messages are never stored.
One security expert told
me: "They're boasting about the fact that they have 'military grade
encryption'. In fact this is quite a bit better than what a lot of militaries
and intelligence services are using." He went on to give the example of
the British Army's radio system, which was sufficiently insecure in the late
1990s that it was reduced to using Welsh speakers on mobile phones because
the radios were so compromised.
Our troops' radios have
been upgraded since but are still unpopular. The current model was designed in
the late 1990s, cost £2 billion to develop and is expected to be in service
until 2026; if it's obsolete and despised now, how bad will it be in 13 years
time? That, of course, assumes that it will be replaced on time.
There's a whole raft of
other devices in government service that were purpose-built in the late 1990s
and early 2000s, that now look pathetic compared to a £50 off-the-shelf Android
smartphone – for example, the police are saddled with a widely despised "handheld
computer" that was introduced in 2008.
As messaging
apps overtake text messages in terms of use, it's clear that there's a market for
secure versions for high-end use. The key thing is to keep that a market, and
for the Government to stop picking "winners". At the moment, RIM have an all-but-monopoly on secure messaging for
governments and corporates; it's good to see real competition developing.
To foster this
competition, what governments have to do is resist the urge to go with single
suppliers, avoid commissioning expensive purpose-built mobile hardware, and
pick the best from the market. What you don't want is a situation like the one
in the US, where the Pentagon put out a requirement for what amounts to a custom smartphone for spies.
Especially in the age of
austerity, it makes sense to use as much kit off the shelf as possible; if
Redact is usually more secure and, running off a standard smartphone, more
functional, it offers the best value for money.
I guarantee that in five
years, once the Pentagon phone clears testing and approval, it will be a clunky
brick compared to whatever is on the market at the time – and, because of the
sunk costs, the CIA will be using it for decades. Computing power is advancing
so quickly, it just makes no sense to spend millions on a piece of hardware
that is obsolete so quickly.
Redact tell me they are
looking for government approval from the UK's Communications Electronic
Security Group. If we stick to private enterprise, maybe, just maybe, British
spies and troops will have better equipment than their American counterparts –
but I wouldn't hold my breath.
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