Phonemakers cite Edward Snowden in high security product pitch

The long-running stream of revelations about American spy agencies’ snooping from Edward Snowden has been a drag on U.S. tech companies' sales in many parts of the world. But now some companies are trying to turn tales of the latest NSA spying ploys into a sales pitch.

At the Mobile World Congress this week in Barcelona, several small but growing phonemakers were touting spyproof devices, smartphones locked down with encryption and other high security techniques to block even the most sophisticated hackers. And the appeal wasn’t to tinfoil hat-wearing, paranoids, but more to major corporations leery of government-sponsored corporate espionage.

Secure phones drew big crowds at the conference, where the latest revelations from Snowden were a frequent topic of discussion. U.S. and British spies reportedly breached the security of Gemalto, which supplies billions of SIM cards at the heart of mobile phones around the world. The hack enabled the spy agencies to monitor mobile communications without the prior approval of courts and governments, according to documents leaked by Snowden to The Intercept, a news site born out of his NSA revelations.

Silent Circle, a company which boasts multiple pioneers of the most famous computer encryption techniques on staff, unveiled its BlackPhone 2 at the conference. Co-founders Phil Zimmermann, creator of the popular encrypted email program “Pretty Good Privacy” or PGP, and Jon Callas, who worked on PGP and Apple’s whole disk encryption, were on hand for the company’s press conference.

"Never before have private citizens been under barrage from world governments hacking, vacuuming and chipping away at our privacy,” Mike Janke, chairman of the company and a former Navy SEAL, told reporters.

The BlackPhone 2, with a high definition 5.5-inch screen and 64-bit processor, looks and feels just as snappy as any model from Apple (AAPL) or Samsung. But the phone runs a specially modified version of Google’s (GOOGL) Android software that encrypts its data and web browsing activities to block out snoops. The catch is that phone users won’t have access to Google’s massive Android app store. And secure text or voice communication requires that both parties use Silent Circle apps.

With highly secure communications apps -- but no Angry Birds, Candy Crush or Instagram -- the phone is meant to appeal to corporations. Already, 32 corporations in the Fortune 50 are customers, Silent Circle said.

Others at the mobile show displaying secure phones included Brazil-based Sikur, which makes the GranitePhone, a similarly-locked down device.

Israeli software firm Kaymera took a different approach, focusing only on apps. Its software runs on phones from Samsung and LG but, again, recipients must also install the same programs to keep communications secure. Users could still access the regular Google app store, however.

One of the distinctly weirder products on display was a pair of eyeglasses designed to thwart facial recognition programs. But the prototype glasses from antivirus maker AVG relied on bright LED lights around the frames, no doubt annoying friends and colleagues as well as any spies hoping to run a facial recognition program. But in the post-Snowden age, that may be just a minor inconvenience of thwarting the surveillance state.