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If you lie awake at night worrying about faceless organisations listening in to your mobile phone calls and making judgements on the minutiae of your miserable life, then help is at hand.
The Tripleton Enigma E2 is being billed as the world’s most secure mobile — and it has a serious price-tag to match: £1,320.
Sure, it may look just like any old candybar phone but it’s proofed against ‘man in the middle’ mobile attacks — whereby someone in possession of a briefcase-sized gadget can intercept your calls by tricking your phone into thinking their suitcase is actually a mobile base station.
Tripleton claims calls made on the Enigma E2 can’t be snooped on in this way, provided you use the ‘crypto’ call button — and are calling another Enigma phone. Budding Jason Bournes should also remember to KEEP YOUR VOICE DOWN or all this fancy tech will be pointless.
Even if you’re not routinely stalked by shadowy briefcase carriers, Tripleton warns mobile networks may not encrypt your calls at busy times — making it easier for snoopers to tap in. GSM calls can be compromised from within mobile networks by a rogue insider. Tripleton cites the case of more than 100 politicians and civil servants in Greece, including its PM, whose phones were illegally tapped for more than a year using this ‘inside job’ method.
The Enigma E2’s crypto calls are protected from snoopers by the use of a second SIM card that contains “highly secure keys”. These are used by the two Enigma phones to authenticate each other and establish the highly encrypted call. Tripleton says these crypto calls are “virtually impossible to break”, adding: “Many security specialists have tried but none have succeeded.”
Of course, if you’re using the Enigma E2 to call your buddies on their bog-standard mobiles then your call will be unencrypted. You’ll need to convince all your friends to shell out for their own E2, or for Tripleton’s first Enigma mobile, which is compatible with the E2.
At present, only voice calls are secured but Tripleton plans to add encrypted text and picture messaging to the E2 via software updates that are “coming soon”.
Are you so worried about being wiretapped you’d be willing to shell out for such a pricey phone — or would you rather just use cunning code phrases such as ‘the eagle has landed’? Let me know in the comments below or post your coded missive on our Facebook page.
