Punkt: A minimalist Android for the paranoid

Punkt: A minimalist Android for the paranoid

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Readers cry out for more diversity in the phone world, but few alternatives are as striking as Punkt’s take on Android.
Petter Neby, founder and CEO of the Swiss design-led company, told The Register Punkt’s second device is coming to market this year with an unusual USP – security hardening by BlackBerry.
The eye-catching MP02 closely resembles the first 2G device, designed by Jasper Morrison, whose work spans light rail vehicles to furniture. But it’s the first built on a Google-free AOSP Android code base to support 4G. Neither Punkt phone is cheap – the MP02 retails at $350.
And it resolutely won’t do WhatsApp.
To enterprise to C-suite types, Punkt opted to be the first non-BlackBerry-branded ODM to use the BlackBerry-hardened manufacturing process. BlackBerry Secure Integrated Manufacturing Service (BSIMS) involves injecting cryptographic keys at manufacturing, the process monitored remotely from BlackBerry HQ in Waterloo, Canada.
BlackBerry is well out of the phone handset business, but back in the day it gave each device a unique crypto identifier, and a few years ago acquired Certicom. BSIMS is an attempt to turn a process into a service for third parties.
In the three years since the Priv launched, BlackBerry has yet to see it rooted. BlackBerry wants IoT device manufacturers to adopt this as a quality mark. With so much insecure home tat flying in from China, consumers and industrial buyers need all the help they can get.

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/09/punkt_mp02/
Submitted by: Arnfried Walbrecht

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