In the wake of the revelation of wide-spread data surveillance on the part of the National Security Agency, Silent Circle has announced the availability of its Silent Text secure messaging and file transfer app for Android devices via Google Play. As with its other services, Silent Text is sold through its resellers and referral agents.
With the addition of Silent Text for Android, Silent Circle’s apps and services offer privacy protection by routing encrypted calls, messages and attachments exclusively between Silent Circle users’ iOS and Android devices, without logging metadata associated with subscribers’ communications.
Silent Text for Android’s features include a “Burn Notice” feature that allows users to have any messages that they send self-destruct after a time delay.
It also supports the ability to send map locations that are encrypted and controlled; peer-to-peer key management; and the ability to send any file up to 100MB.
“Relentless surveillance and espionage by state-sponsored, commercial, and criminal actors worldwide continues to demonstrate vulnerabilities in cellular calls and mobile communications that executives, government officials and others rely on everywhere they travel,” said Silent Circle CTO and co-founder Jon Callas. “At a time when large-scale network monitoring is making many cloud, telecommunications and other businesses’ privacy policies almost moot, our services give employees and individuals with sensitive information the confidence to communicate and collaborate anywhere.”
Silent Circle also offers Silent Phone for secure mobile voice and video calling, and encrypted voice and video communication on Windows PCs with Silent Circle Desktop for secure calls and conferencing.
“With our latest versions of Silent Phone and Silent Text, we give iOS and Android users a private, end-to-end encrypted platform for calling, messaging and sharing files designed to be inherently more secure than other mediums,” Callas continued. “Beyond strong encryption, our apps give users important, additional privacy controls, such as Silent Text’s ability to wipe messages and files from a recipient’s device with a ‘Burn Notice.’”