re screw the people crypto is for hard core hackers spooks only pmetzger snark shearson com perry e metzger writes really none of this stuff is especially hard all you need for a true private phone is an isdn codec a vocoder either a chip or software an encryptor a chip is fine but software is more than fast enough a v or v bis modem module and maybe a microcontroller to run the whole thing its easy to do its cheap and any normal company trying to put one out will likely get a visit from the boys in the dark suits from washington just like qualcomm did have the feds shut down the people making sound blaster what about apple and next apple next sun and others make systems that can handle cd quality audio in and out and can perform arbitrary transformation on it in the process of transmitting it across a network or modem perhaps there s a market for a portable vocoder not a crypto device simply an rs voice converter make it capable of recording speech and playing it back simultaneously it has applications for multimedia computing for the handicapped internet talk radio irc etc etc etc it wouldn t be a cryptographic device at all but i suppose someone could have it hooked to a laptop with a v bis modem and some crypto software i d market the thing with an api for text to speech using simple phonemes and the ability to use speech samples and of course i d publish the interface to it so other folks could write any applications they wanted to talk to the thing mjr
