Feral Jundi

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Mobile Apps: Silent Circle

Check this out. Silent Circle is a subscription service that promises to deliver a secure and encrypted communications platform. Phil Zimmermann put this concept together and he is marketing this thing for security professionals with the help of some former Navy SEALs.

What I like about this service is that companies could actually set up accounts with contractors/employees using Silent Circle, and know that the communications between all parties will be secure. From the phone calls to text messages to emails–the entire communications system will be secure and extremely difficult to hack.

Families can also be a part of a separate Silent Circle account between the contractor and their loved ones/friends. This is great because today’s enemy’s and hostile governments all have a desire to hack into the accounts of folks involved with security operations throughout the world. They monitor everything from Facebook and Twitter accounts, to emails/phone calls etc. You have to assume all of that is happening, and to have any tools to help in the battle to secure your communications is a good thing. –Matt

 

 

Silent Circle

When a Silent Circle subscriber makes a phone call, sends a text or video chats with another Silent Circle member, that transmission is secured and encrypted end-to-end from the iPhone, Android, iPad or computer on our crystal-clear secure network. Silent Mail is an elegant and encrypted email solution, however, it utilizes server side key encryption not peer-to-peer. Our Silent Phone, Silent Mail and Silent Text products also allow you to call or send/receive emails to anyone in the world – any phone number – any email address, even to those not in our secure Circle (subscribers). Our products download from the Apple App Store, Android Play Store and from our website – simple, fast, secure.
Silent Network
We Designed It, We Custom-Built It & We Own The Network
Silent Circle Network provides encrypted communication tools that leverage cutting edge and simple to use apps and software. Here’s how we do it:
• Open Source Peer-Reviewed Encryption – Our founders are the inventors of the world’s most trusted encryption protocols: PGP, ZRTP, SCimp
• Multimillion dollar custom-built high definition network
• Geographic server redundancy – Servers located in Montreal and Toronto built with scalability for continued geographic expansion (Our Switzerland Network will come online Fall 2012)
• 100% dedicated network – No sharing
• Custom-built servers, PBXs and hardware – Ensuring security integrated through design
• E-Commerce, customer service, analytics and network monitoring software all custom built and designed to ensure security
• Device-to-Device Encryption – True peer-to-peer key negotiation with every communication session. Keys are destroyed at the end of every call eliminating the possibility of retroactive compromise
• Interactive Voice Authentication – Visual and vocal encryption verification eliminating the possibility of MiTM (man in the middle) attacks and a short authentication string (SAS)
• Peer Reviewed Encryption and Hashing Algorithms
– Elliptic Curve Cryptography (P-384)
– Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256)
– Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA-256)

Company website here.

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Phil Zimmermann’s Silent Circle Builds A Secure, Seductive Fortress Around Your Smartphone
By Neal Ungereider
October 5, 2012
The cryptography legend is teaming up with two ex-Navy SEALs to offer encrypted phone calls, video conferencing, and text messages with no learning curve whatsoever. The target market? Businesspeople and government employees traveling abroad.
In the 1990s, cryptography pioneer and Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) creator Phil Zimmermann faced federal criminal investigation. His encryption software was so strong, it was charged, there was fear it violated arms trafficking export controls.

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Friday, November 25, 2011

Mobile Apps: Palantir Mobile For Military And Law Enforcement

Filed under: Mobile Apps — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 3:36 PM

After checking out some of the videos on Palantir’s youtube channel, I came across these videos that talked about putting Palantir on mobile. I like that, and that puts a lot of capability in the hands of the guys out in the field. And notice the military and law enforcement applications? Very cool…..but what about a contractor application? lol

But on a serious note, tools like this could be very helpful to private industry as they operate in the various war zones of the world. There is so much open source data that could be tapped into in order to assist in the planning for operations. In order to take full advantage of that sea of data, you need tools like Palantir that can quickly process it for you and present it into a logical format that is easy to understand and interpret. It could save lives and help accomplish the mission.

Either way, check it out and let me know what you think? Everyone has smart phones now, and to not take advantage and fully leverage that capability is really missing the boat. If your company is interested in using this app, you will have to contact Palantir directly about it. –Matt

 

Monday, August 29, 2011

Mobile Apps: Feral Jundi Upgrade For Mobile Viewing

Recently I have been doing some research on the statistics of the blog and stumbled upon a startling figure. Feral Jundi has had a massive increase in traffic from mobile devices like iPhone, Android, Blackberry, or from tablets like iPad. Here is a screen shot of what I am talking about. The key figure here is that the blog went from 1,222 visits from mobile devices in 2010 from Jan to July, to 10,246 visits during the same time period this year. That is a 739 % increase!

The top 5 devices used, and in this order were iPhone, Android, iPad, iPod, and BlackBerry. So with this data, I decided I needed to upgrade and improve upon the mobile version of Feral Jundi.  After doing some research and shopping around, I finally settled upon a company called Brave New Code that makes some software that converts blogs into mobile websites. The set up is called WP Touch Pro, and I am very happy with the final product. I paid $39 for it, and it was a good investment in my view. (disclaimer–I am now an affiliate for WP Touch Pro because I like it so much!)

I went with the Pro version, as opposed to the free version, just because it had some features that I really liked. Plus you get access to their support. The only tweaking I had to do to make it work with my blog is to modify my Quick Cache plugin. In their forum, they talk about exactly how to do this, and it was easy to do. Here is a screen shot of the home page as it would look on iPhone.

So I figured I would highlight some of the features of this thing. If you want to read a post you can click on the title and the whole thing will pop up. Or you can see just a teaser of the post by clicking that arrow button just to the right of the title. But once you get to the actual post, here is a screen shot of that.

In order to read the post, you will have to touch that right side scroll bar and move it down to check out the post. The Chitika ads are both from the website and the mobile ads. the little Chitika ad in the footer will continue to slide down as you read, or you can remove the ad by pressing that X on the ad.  Or if you want to check out that ad, just tap it and you will be able to check it out. At this time, the blog’s Ad Center is not available for mobile. I might play around with this and see what I can come up with in the future. Just check into the Advertising Page up top to find out any news about that kind of thing, or just contact me.

Now the other feature is the Menu, which is a button located in the header at the right side. To check out the Menu, just tap it with your finger and you will get this page.

Pretty self explanatory  here, and I will let the reader explore what they want from here. The book, blocks, and tags graphics are the ‘menu’, categories, and popular tags of the website. So if you want to go back and explore old posts in the archives, that is how you can do it. You can also use the search feature which is a graphic that looks like a magnifying glass.

Some other cool stuff is the comments are indicated by the red dots with numbers in them, indicating how many comments for each post. You can still make comments by following along with the post and scrolling down to the bottom. You also have several means of sharing the post, either by using the ‘share’ button between the post and the comments, or you can click the Twitter, Linkedin, and Facebook buttons at the top of the post.

Finally, and this is a cool little deal that I have been playing around with lately. I have come up with a Seal of Feral Jundi. This is something I can use for publications, icons, favicons, etc. Also, this is the homepage icon for FJ, and this new mobile platform will prompt folks to put it on their phone. This makes it very easy to go right to FJ when you want to read it. (if anyone has the old icon, just delete it and re-do the whole process to get the new icon on your mobile device or tablet. Here is a picture of the icon.

The meaning behind this seal is pretty basic, but unique. The Laurel symbolizes education and victory. The serpent swallowing the person is called the Biscione. It has different meanings to different users of the symbol, but for me, I like the Visconti family history of the symbol. It represents to them a serpent that attacked a village, and the Visconti family destroyed that serpent, and was famous for doing so. So for my purposes, the serpent represents evil or the enemy attacking the innocent, and this blog’s dedication to fighting that. And finally, the crown symbolizes leadership.

I might play around more with the concept, but so far I like it. So enjoy and I appreciate any feedback. The folks on Facebook have visited the site on different mobile platforms, and so far they said it is working. –Matt

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Cool Stuff: The Milidroid Blog

This is neat.  A friend of FJ and fellow security contractor has started a blog that deals with mobile apps for the Android operating system.  This smart phone/operating system is awesome, and it definitely is winning over contractors, police and military folks alike. So if you are an Android user, this blog is for you.  Definitely subscribe via RSS, use the badge below, or sign up for the Facebook page. And definitely ‘Tweet’ and ‘Like’ his posts if you support the content and want more of it.

On an artistic and technical note, they have a great little logo/brand and the website is very SEO friendly and easy on the eyes. –Matt

Welcome to Milidroid!
March 21, 2011
Milidroid is your one stop source for all thing military related to the android platform and associated equipment. We bring you industry news, articles on apps that may be of interest to those in the military, product announcements and reviews.
We are also looking for your input what are you using with your Android? Let us know what equipment, apps and accessories you find useful. If you are a developer give us the scoop and we’ll help you get the word out.
Mission Statement:
Milidroid is here to provide a resource for those seeking information on military specific uses for the Android platform and associated apps, devices, and equipment.
Mobile Browser Compatable
Milidroid is Android readable right our of the box. No need to install a special app just visit the site in your browser and read.

Easy Downloads
The “Android Market Badge” is a multifunction feature. For starters it’s a link that will take you to the app in the Android Market whether you’re browsing on your computer or Android device. It also has an embedded QR Code that can be scanned with your phone if you have a barcode scanning app, which will also take you directly to the app in the Android Market.
Link to blog here.
Link to Milidroid Facebook here.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Disaster Response: The Radiation Network

 

This is cool. The Radiation Network is a crowd based and privately run radiation monitoring system that is free for everyone to check out.  Each yellow disk on the map indicates a reading. The map is updated every minute by it’s network members.  So with the news in Japan in regards to their nuclear disaster, a site like this will be able show exactly the impact on the US in the West Coast.

Now what would really be cool is to turn this into a mobile application?  hint hint.  I bet a radiation network mobile app would get thousands of downloads through iTunes.  We will probably see other networks pop up, or even a group like Google might get in on the action and help the Radiation Network soup up their product?

Also, I expect the number of citizen monitors to increase, just because this nuclear disaster in Japan is causing folks to buy up detectors and everything else dealing with radiation monitoring.  But a word of caution–because this is a crowd based deal, it is very difficult to insure that quality readings are being done.

All in all though, I think this is a great resource, and in the coming days and weeks and months of this nuclear disaster, we will see the global impact of the event.  (from what I understand, a global network version is being fired up, and the network is expanding internationally) Bravo to Tim Flanegin and his crew for putting this resource together, and I just hope his host’s servers can handle the traffic. –Matt

We have received a lot of feedback on our Radiation Network, including gratitude for this service, and we really appreciate the support.  A lot of suggestions and questions (and some complaints) have been forwarded as well, so I would like to address those here, because we do not have time to respond to your individual email messages.

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