Natasha Lomas:
“Imagine you go to an investment bank for a job interview — what will you think if the person who’s interviewing you knows that you also make the same interview at a competitors’ bank a few streets away?” he said.
“That’s a bit creepy and with this technology… developed [by Kismet creator Mike Kershaw] specially for the Blackphone it takes control of the Wi-Fi chip, it learns where your safe locations are — home and work normally — and when you leave your home.. if you’re not in a safe environment it will switch the Wi-Fi off.”
I’d love to get my hands on this phone to check it out. But the above strikes me as odd, why not automatically flip on the VPN that is bundled, once the phone detects it is not on a “trusted” network? That seems like the smarter move.
I also don’t like that the local data isn’t encrypted by default — yes it is nice to give users options, but why bother on a phone this privacy focused? That seems like an odd choice.