Unplugged, a company who is supported and supported by Eric Prince, the founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwatter, has just released a new version of his “privacy” phone that will be built at some point in the US.
The original up phone was described by the company as a “final privacy-centered smartphone” and was described as “a clear cut scam” by the privacy platform graphinos. (It was first announced in June 2022, although it did not reach customers until 2024; Unplugged won’t tell me how many units were sold, only that it was sold within three hours.) Now, Anplgged has launched the phone “major update”. Echoing the claims made by Trump Mobile about his T1 phone, Anuplagd says that the plan to create updated phones in the US later this year plans to manufacture “domestic jobs, improving quality control, and reducing dependence on foreign supply chains.”
The company describes it as the “Relvanch” of the phone, but the hardware appears that it appears: a four-year MediaTek Demensity 1200 chipset, 6.67-inch OLED display, 8 GB RAM, and a triple rear camera 108-megapixel lead lenses.
The price is also the same: $ 989Only an iPhone 16 Pro or Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus $ 10 cheaper. This includes the first year of the membership of the “Privacy Service” of Anplgged, then $ 12.99 per month or $ 129.99 per year, and includes a VPN, antivirus, encrypted messaging and cloud photo storage.
The phone runs on unplugged, an Android fork that does not include Google mobile services. It comes with a suit of a built-in firewall, a “no-logs” VPN-centered features, a dedicated privacy center app to manage your data, and,, the most interesting thing is that “a hardware switch is” physically disables the circuit “when this switch is closed to a completely cut to the phone strength. All these features were on the original phone, but Anplgged says that the OS, called Libertos, has been “refreshed” with “more comfortable UI, rapid performance and deep privacy adaptation.
When I asked for more information about manufacturing plans, I was told that the phones are currently made in Indonesia where the non-US model will continue to be constructed-although the phone is currently available only to buy only in the US and Canada. Unplugged says that it would eventually “gather” its American model domesticly, including testing and quality assurance, although it admits that the component will still be sour from abroad.
Privacy-centric phones are not new. John McFi announced his own “hack-proof” phone in 2017, The Like Freedom phone “Free Speech” phones, and /E /OS and US patriotism to sell and have imposed capital Graphinos There are open-sources options that emphasize efforts to keep your data out of technical giants like Google. There was a phone, anom, even an FBI sting operation, designed to survey users who claimed to preserve it.
Unplugged has returned the most obvious claims that it has been created in its early days, avoids the claim of being “impenetrable” MIT technology review An early pitch deck for the company was found in the deck, or its own promise of “government-grade encryption”. Christopof Hebison, director of Security Intelligence Research at the Mobile Security firm Lukout, described me as “certainly an overstatement” and “essentially meaningless”, so it is best that the current claims of unplugged are more modest. He still took care, though warned Any Independent phone company comes with risks.
“Small companies are unlikely to match the scale of development and security teams such as big players like Google or Samsung have them at their disposal, and thus, the discovery and fixing of weaknesses may be slow,” hebisen explains. “In addition, a purchase-out or other major changes of the company may change their attitude/approach towards privacy or security in future.”
It was a feeling that resonated by Nicolas Weaver, a networking researcher at the International Institute of Computer Sciences, who suggested that people concerned about privacy generally stick to prominent players. “If I need a really safe device, it is going to be an iphone, running signal, lockdown mode competent and all cloud synchronization is going to be disabled,” they say.
Up phone offers features that an iPhone will not give you, not at least out of the box. Hebisen admits that the Kill switch “is not relevant to most users”, but “highly exposed can be useful for users, whose potential adversities include nation state.” He also suggests that the underlying firewall provides “certain privacy and some safety benefits”, while centralized privacy settings may encourage users to become more privacy.
But there is also the reason for doubting yourself unplugged. Browse Reddit and you will find Very Of Posts Like anom, making up the phone of being “honey pot”. Meanwhile, the manufacturer of graphinos Took on his stage Earlier this year, “a clear cut scam to call the first recurrence of the phone.
“This is a group of basic hardware, firmware and software security facilities,” the arguments of the gods of graphine. “It is at least one year behind on Android release and is far behind the backported security patch. It will almost certainly start falling far ahead and will not get proper long -term support.”
“They are paying for partnership to promote their product, which is paying to promote their product with focus on marketing for conservative Americans on the basis of political relations and partnership with any substance behind it. This is a clear scam and they are completely ripping out of their equipment. We have asked unplugged to comment on graphine claims.
Anxiety about “political relations” indicates a problem that cannot move unplaced: Eric Prince. You will not find the name of Blackwatter founder and Trump Donor on the website, with unhappy to promote your new CEO, who was more keen to promote Vel, who first led a special project team in Apple.
But Kofounder Prince is not far away. He promotes up phone on every episode His podcast, Strap closed with Eric PrinceAnd discussed it Tucker Carlson Show And elsewhere. He also once claimed that the phone Hamas’s attack could be stopped On October 7, 2023. Correct or incorrectly, it is partly due to their participation that so many unplugged objectives doubt. Prince has been the face of unplugged since its launch, and how much you trust the company to preserve your privacy, how much you can trust the prince and his politics.
“Safety products depend on both engineering and the people behind them,” Weaver is argued. “I can’t evaluate their engineering, but, personally, I will not trust Eric Prince or anyone can rent to protect lemonade.”
