This is Zimmermann's third attempt at encrypted phone calls, at roughly 9 year intervals: PGPfone (1995) and Zfone (~2004/5).
I'll assume that this will be a lot easier to use than the earlier programs, and I'll also grant that smartphones are a much bigger market than VOIP software for desktops.
I want to see Zimmermann's product to succeed, and I'd love to see all phone calls have unbreakable end-to-end encryption by default.
However, as the article points out, it is difficult to persuade consumers to spend their own money on privacy.
The only way I can see consumers starting to care is if we get a massive wikileaks-style dump of millions of private phone calls that some malware or government has intercepted and recorded.
The transport is probably the easiest part of the whole system; the hardest part is convincing people of the need, followed by "we're the central point of secure to insecure" not itself being a massive monitoring target. UI/UX, key management (and directory management, kind of the same thing), and running the gateways themselves are kind of a problem too.
I hope they support multiple providers (including setting it up yourself) for Circle -> PSTN/SIP/etc., to avoid this problem. (I know Jon Callas, I guess I should ask him)
They could probably charge $500/mo for 10 users for secure email/voice/sms/etc. for groups, vs. $20/mo for individuals, if there was zero security exposure to the central servers for the groups, and if the groups could locally connect to their own/existing infrastructure. Add some trivial Mobile Device Management (MDM) functionality (forcing passcodes, remote wipe, etc. -- trivial stuff, not the huge monstrosity of corporate MDM products).
Basically, BES + VoIP for non-dead (iOS+Android, vs. BB) platforms.
I'll assume that this will be a lot easier to use than the earlier programs, and I'll also grant that smartphones are a much bigger market than VOIP software for desktops.
I want to see Zimmermann's product to succeed, and I'd love to see all phone calls have unbreakable end-to-end encryption by default.
However, as the article points out, it is difficult to persuade consumers to spend their own money on privacy.
The only way I can see consumers starting to care is if we get a massive wikileaks-style dump of millions of private phone calls that some malware or government has intercepted and recorded.