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App to provide military-level encryption for smartphones


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SALT LAKE CITY — The first line of a recent Buzzfeed story is enough to make anyone cringe.

"The first rule, former Navy SEAL Mike Janke tells me, is that you have to assume the worst: ‘Everything you do and say — email, text, phone — is monitored on some level,'" Russell Brandom writes.

Janke, former Navy SEAL sniper, has developed a smartphone application that provides military-grade encryption for users, and they acknowledge the app could be put to bad use just as easily as it could be used for good.

Many people are unaware of just how available their data is, although they may have an inkling. With the right skill set, emails can be picked up over Wi-Fi and deleted text messages can be pulled out of cellphones.

Phil Zimmerman, the creator of PGP, the most widely used email encryption software in the world, and Janke said they were concerned about how easily privacy can be breached in today's world, so they created Silent Circle.

"The overall sort of temperature of surveillance ...we see emerging all over the world, and in the U.S. as well, is it's just becoming worse and worse, and we have to push back against this sort of panopticon of surveillance. We have to do something about it," Janke said in a video promoting the product.

App to provide military-level encryption for smartphones

The app works by encrypting transmissions sent via phone call, email, text messages or video chats. Additionally, text and picture messages can be sent that will self destruct five minutes after being opened.

The app will be launched Oct. 15 and will be available for Apple and Android phones for a $20-a-month subscription.

Janke acknowledges the app could be useful for myriad reasons, ranging from a contractor carrying sensitive information to the more nefarious adulterer or drug lord.

Even celebrities may find it worth it to use Silent Circle, as recent privacy breaches have led to embarrassing scandals, not the least of which includes photos taken of Kate Middleton at a private location in France. Phone hacking scandals, too, could be prevented by using Silent Circle.

"The general rule has always been, don't say something on a phone that you wouldn't say in a crowded room," Vern Abila, a former soldier and one of the app's first beta testers, told Buzzfeed. "Silent Circle will change that."

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Stephanie Grimes

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