Blackphone: privacy-obsessed smartphone aims to broaden its appeal

Privacy company Second Circle releases the second version of its phone, created by an encryption expert and a member of Navy Seal Team Six

Can you hear me now? Not if you're eavesdropping on a Blackphone. Privacy company Silent Circle has released a second version of its signature handheld, a smartphone designed to quell the data scraping and web tracking that's become such an integral part of the digital economy in the last few years (and whose results might well end up with the NSA, if the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act passes).

Silent Circle is the brainchild of the inventor of the modestly named "Pretty Good Privacy" (PGP) encryption, Phil Zimmermann, and former Navy Seal Team Six sniper Mike Janke. In the beginning, Janke said, the Blackphone project was just a way for people working for his security firm SOC, since sold, to call home without having their communications intercepted. With its newer and easier to use model, it's seeking industry clients in addition to individual security wonks.