"This matters much less to criminals than it does for everyone else," he says. FBI director Louis Freeh argued in 1997, for instance, that "uncrackable encryption will allow drug lords, spies, terrorists and even violent gangs to communicate about their crimes and their conspiracies with impunity."īut Marlinspike points out that criminals today can use other means to avoid wiretaps, such as anonymous, prepaid "burner" phones, like the one used by the Times Square attempted bomber. Since the 1990s, opponents of encrypted communication technologies have argued that scrambling messages would give free rein to criminals and terrorists. If the new apps see widespread adoption, the usual criticisms of wiretap-defeating encryption may follow. "Individuals need to start taking steps to protect their privacy and the confidence of their communications." "We've entered this really problematic situation where we have insecure infrastructure everywhere, communications being broadcast in the air around us, and anyone with a bit of radio equipment can reach out and intercept communications," says Marlinspike. He points, for instance, to the Athen Affairs, a situation in 2005 when legal intercept capabilities in Ericsson equipment were used to spy on Greek politicians including the country's prime minister. Marlinspike, whose past work has focused on SSL vulnerabilities and thwarting Google's data collection, says his apps are meant to offer privacy in an age of overzealous legal wiretaps, as well as those that may be using vulnerabilities created by CALEA for illegal surveillance. There were 2,376 wiretaps by law enforcement agencies in 2009, 26% more than the year before, and 76% more than 1999. Since the passage of CALEA in 1994, the number of those law enforcement wiretaps has exploded. Marlinspike argues that because those apps interface with the traditional telephone network, they may also be subject to the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, (CALEA) which requires companies to build backdoors into their technologies for law enforcement wiretaps. But apps like Skype and Vonage don't publish their source code, leaving the rigor of their security largely a matter of speculation. Whisper Systems' apps aren't the first to bring encrypted VoIP to smartphones.
The two apps will likely remain free even once they leave beta, Marlinspike says, though he also plans to offer a premium, paid version of the programs.
Both apps automatically generate a new key and delete the old one with every communication so that even if a user's key is stolen, none of his or her past calls or texts can be deciphered. TextSecure uses a similar scheme developed by cryptographers Ian Goldberg and Nikita Borisov known as "Off The Record" to exchange scrambled text messages.
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