Protected Mobility

Recent figures show that billions of text messages traverse our mobile carrier networks on a daily basis and the trend isn’t showing any signs of slowing. When we consider the amont of private business, personal, and intimate information flowing through the ether, one would think there’d be concerns for privacy. While nearly all surveyed consider privacy of their messaging extremely important, few believe or even understand that the vulnerabilities exist. This is indeed the great divide regarding privacy concerns and general use of SMS (Short Message Service) text messaging.

We’re beginning to see a number of products enter the market place with one exciting newcomer: Protected Mobility and their flagship product protectedSMS. ProptectedSMS is now available for mobile devices such as Blackberry, Android, and soon adding the iPhone and iPad to the product lineup. You can read further information about protectedSMS at the following link: http://protectedmobility.com

protectedSMS Chat

ProtectedSMS is the first product that not only makes your sms messages secure, it does so without feeling like you’re using a security/encryption product. If you ask the Protected Mobility staff, they’ll tell you “we want a product that even a teenager or grandma would use”. While most security products (PGP mail, etc.) use common public-key exchanges, they often leave a cumbersome -and often impractical-  user experience not lending itself to adoption by the user. ProtectedSMS is like many other simple messaging products such as Microsoft’s IM, Skype, AOL Messenger, and so on. You simply select/add a contact to your secure list and the rest is all done behind the scenes. As you add new contacts, a request is sent to the recipient asking for a confirmation. Once accepted, the secure bond is complete. It’s that simple! Of course, both mobile handsets must be equipped with protectedSMS. Note that protectedSMS requires no infrastructure or changes to your mobile phone’s plan -and- can be used to communicate with both secure and non-secure contacts, so all of your text messaging is done from one application.

The protectedSMS product team seems to have taken the best of what cryptographic technologies have to offer and created an application that is very similar in user experience and features as the native mobile handset text messaging applications. Using the product leaves one wondering if you’re really using a security product at all. When asked, Protected Mobility claims the AES-256 bit encryption with ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography) engine offers military grade encryption at blazing speeds. One staff member states “we’ve just made it that simple to use”.

Then… just to take things up a notch, the word is that a new service is being launched known as etherSMS! etherSMS is a SMS text messaging service that will allow text messaging on even devices like your iPad. What’s that? You don’t have a phone number? No problem with etherSMS, you’ll be able to select a phone number (hopefully in your favorite area code) and sign up for a pay-as-you-go text plan @ 2c per message. No monthly minimums, you simply pay for what you use. When this service is released, we’ll be sure to post up another blog entry here, so stay tuned.

etherFAX is a hosted fax carrier service based on cloud computing, designed and developed by InStep.

Glowpoint’s ScheduleSync product is a .NET web based video scheduling system for Microsoft Exchange, designed and developed by InStep.

FaxCore’s telephony foundation is built on .NET, designed and developed by InStep.

See patent details: http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/7574047.html

Unique image recognition systems developed for the detection of markups on a test sheet, designed and created by InStep. Patent assigned to Educational Testing Service.