Siemens SL74X $2,000 encrypted cordless phone
by Marc Perton 
posted Mar 10th 2006 at 8:51AM
Want
the convenience of a portable phone with the security of encrypted calls? You can have it, for a price. Siemens has
announced the Gigaset SL74X, a version of the company's Gigaset SL74 cameraphone/MMS cordless handset (pictured), which
will include AES-CBC 128-bit encryption for voice calls. Siemens is pitching the phone, which will
sell for $2,000 (or about $3,600 for a two-pack, since just one is kind of useless) to government officials and others
who might be concerned about bugs or eavesdropping. "With this phone, they can
step out, say, onto an outdoor balcony or even the street and make a call," says one Siemens exec. Of course, if
you're that worried that your home or office is bugged, we doubt this phone is going to do you a whole lot of good,
unless you're prepared to take all of your face-to-face meetings out into the street as well.
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Paulo @ Mar 10th 2006 9:08AM
Don't DECT phones have some kind of encryption anyway?
Josh @ Mar 10th 2006 9:15AM
Yes step out onto the street or a balcony where someone can point one of theose snazzy listening devices you see ont he sidelines fo the NFL at you and pick up the conversation.
Josh @ Mar 10th 2006 9:17AM
Converstations with my girlfriend and parents are ultra secret!
JB @ Mar 10th 2006 10:49AM
What I want to know is when is Siemens going to come out with a new 5.8 ghz cordless phone?
Are there any good forums for phones systems? Everything else electronic but not phones.
jared @ Mar 10th 2006 11:57AM
So basically it's a $2,000 modem, with a built-in key agreement protocol handler (that uses gross-overkill-length DH keys) that only works with other devices exactly like itself.
You know what else costs $2000, supports Diffie Hellman, has fast enough hardware to AES128 encrypt voice on the fly, and can be carried outside? A f#$%ing dual-core laptop, that's what.
Mike @ Mar 10th 2006 2:16PM
Yeah, get waste.... for FREE, and your set. Check it out on source forge, the original backers of the project had to drop it, because the government didn't want them working on it... Why? Well, it was too secure for their liking for one...