The company has partnered with top cryptography pioneer

Mar 8, 2018 22:20 GMT  ·  By

Purism announced today that it partnered with leading cryptography pioneer Werner Koch to integrate hardware encryption into its upcoming Librem 5 Linux phone and future laptops products.

Purism is a computer manufacturer known for its security-focused and privacy-oriented laptops powered by the PureOS Open Source Linux-based operating system based on Debian GNU/Linux. The company recently announced that it now has the most secure Linux laptops thanks to the implementation of Heads integrated TPM (Trusted Platform Module) chips in the coreboot firmware in its Librem 13 and Librem 15 laptops.

Now, the company says that it wants to push the industry forward and set unparalleled protection for end-user devices by planning to include hardware cryptography by default in its forthcoming Librem 5 Linux smartphone and all future revisions of the Librem 13 and Librem 15 laptops, as well as the yet-to-be-announced Librem 11 model. Purism will be able to achieve this goal by manufacturing hardware with its own software and services.

"We are very excited about the partnership between Purism and Werner Koch, especially being able to work closely with a foremost expert with regard to all things cryptography," said Todd Weaver, CEO of Purism. "We continue to advance solutions aligned with our goals of privacy and security for everyone and this union adds to our growing roster of partnerships that represent our ideal approach to protecting users by default, without sacrificing convenience or usability."

Purism to leverage the GnuPG (GPG) and SmartCard designs

The company said that it plans to leverage the designs of the GnuPG (GNU Privacy Guard) complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard, as well as that of the SmartCard integrated circuit card in its Librem laptops and upcoming Linux phone, along with Trammel Hudson’s Heads security firmware and Nextcloud's end-to-end encrypted storage solution to offer customers the highest possible encryption level by default in all of its products and services.

All of Purism upcoming Librem devices will ship with Werner Koch's GPG encryption used by ex-CIA employee Edward Snowden to communicate with journalists. This new level of encryption will be implemented via a recently developed Web Key Directory (WKD) process into all e-mail and messaging services offered on any of Purism's future laptops and smartphones. In addition, Purism plans to offer a secure storage solution with file and full-disk encryption where the customers is in control of the encryption keys.

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