Vodafone Offers Encrypted SIM Cards In Germany

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Drug dealers, pimps and other criminals should be getting excited right now, of they live in Germany at least – their burner phones are about to get a whole lot more secure.

Why? Vodafone Germany has announced an encrypted SIM that will secure your precious data as it leaves the phone. The “digital private key and corresponding certificates” are stored on the SIM itself so it should all work with just a PIN on the device.

The system uses public key encryption to secure “email and documents.” Currently S/MIME is used, but PGP will be an option in future, and the system can also be used to encrypt data on connected USB devices (the demo at CBIT in Germany will run on a Window 8 tablet).

I like the idea of better encryption, but even this still runs into the same problem as ever when it comes to securing your communications: the person on the receiving end also has to be wired for the same setup or they can’t read it.

I imagine, though, that this SIM will be aimed at corporate users, letting them bring any device they like to the office, and yet offering compatible encryption to all employees. It’s a clever solution.

Source: G&D
Via: Hacker News

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