encryption

Brad has been working with a company to develop a strong encryption for mobile phones mostly to protect business intellectual property through text messaging and voice communications. It's called Scrambl3, and it's based on the NSA's own encryption protocol. It's available for iOS and Android.

Bob wants to write a document that has personal information on it and he wants to keep it offline and inaccessible to the internet. Is there any way to keep it stored to the hard drive and not be available? Leo says security is hard and thinking you can try and keep your information 100% safe is a fool's errand. Leo can think of several options to foil any defense, even not having it at all. The reality is, he'll most likely be protected through obscurity. He would also be much better off using a security tool like encryption.

Michael says that the longer Apple can appeal and resist the court order, the better it looks for Apple. Leo says yes and no, because we now know that Apple's encryption isn't one way and that they can open any phone if they choose to give in to the FBI's demands. Leo suspects that Apple will eventually give in and when they do, there are encryption programs in 70 different nations that are uncrackable.

Kevin is worried that the government is pushing to weaken encryption and that will make it far less secure. Leo agrees. He understands why the government is worried about encryption, but at the same time, weakening it helps nobody. Is it too easy to get encryption and use it? Leo says that's an interesting point. Especially since all mobile phone communications are encrypted now. Leo says that maybe the solution is that companies should hold the keys and have the power to decrypt if the law enforcement provides a warrant.

Rob wants to know if he should use a VPN when he pairs his smartphone to his laptop. Leo says no. Modern digital cell phones are encrypted and no one has yet hacked their way into that signal. It wasn't like the analog days when you could listen in to cell phone calls with the right software. That can't happen with digitally encrypted mobile phones.

Juan is looking to use Tor for encrypted security. Leo says that Tor was invented by the US Navy and it works by making your traffic obscure. Tor is used for anonymity, and it's a bit difficult to set up, but using a Tor browser makes it a lot easier. If Juan is concerned about privacy online, Tor is a good option to look into.