We actually have many private users, but I see your point, I thought the $20/mo was a bit steep when I first saw it as well. I think it needs to move a bit from "dissidents use this to avoid getting executed" to "the average person uses this to avoid governments maybe snooping in on them".
I'll suggest this issue to the higher-ups, thanks!
Exactly. I'm no tin-foil hat type, but I'm already transmitting my location every 6 minutes with my cellphone, this data, my calls, SMS and all my Internet- and mail activity is logged for several years in my country. One in every 1.000 phones is being monitored in Holland. Calls with lawyers, doctors... My cars license plate is photographed every 500 meters along every major road and there's talk to add a black box to log it even better. I can only travel with my RIFD-public transport card (that is linked with my banking card) and we even have camera's and microphones in our public transport for our own 'safety'. My fingerprints were added to my chip-loaded RIFD passport and I am not allowed to walk about without proper identification.
A pay-as-you-go Prepaid allows me the choice to opt out of at least the phone/text surveillance when I want to.
Another Silent Circle team member here (there are actually quite a few of us on HN).
How would you envision a prepaid model working? We intentionally don't track usage for 'in the circle' calling (if you're calling out on the PSTN we have to track usage, since we have a real per-minute cost, and need to make sure our bill matches what we think our users are using).
The amount and sort of data we would need to collect and store about our users would be increased if we offered a prepaid option. We could mitigate this a bit by reducing the resolution of that data (i.e. you have a prepaid bucket of 'days' rather than 'minutes'), which would be better, but it would still involve us knowing more about your usage patterns than we do currently... (and the more we know, the more we can be asked to provide to a law enforcement agency). Even with the logging implications, a prepaid option might be a net 'win' for some users, or it might not be...
I see your point. I don't know anything about the workings of Silent Circle' but if I may be so bold to do some suggestions: A user needs to purchase a certain amount of time (minutes or days) you say. But do they? How about a certain amount of 'connections' or calls? Does it matter how long the conncection lasts? All you log is 'user bought 100 connections' and it took 2 months to use them. Perhaps there is a way to log in the conncections inside the app, locally and not in a central database. You'd hold no information on your side (Missed your reply, HN really needs a notification system!)
These are my concerns exactly, which is why I wanted to work with SC. A prepaid option sounds very nice, actually, I'll suggest it today. Mass surveillance really is getting out of hand.
I'll suggest this issue to the higher-ups, thanks!