John McAfee has made a name for himself in the cybersecurity arena but he’s being gaining popularity for his antics recently more than his work in this space. He appears to have been working silently on a new device which he claims is the “world’s first truly private smartphone.” McAfee claims that this smartphone will be the most hack-proof handset ever manufactured.
“Enormous investment in hardware costs have gone into this,” McAfee says, adding that the handset has a bank of switches on the back cover which enable the user to physically disconnect the battery, the antennas for Wi-Fi, geolocation, and Bluetooth.
The switches can also be used to disconnect the camera and microphone. “It also will not allow the phone to connect to a Stingray or any other IMSI catcher device. In addition, it contains a web search anonymizer,” he explains. McAfee is planning to release the John McAfee Privacy Phone later this year under the umbrella of MGT which is a cybersecurity firm that he heads.
This product isn’t geared towards the average consumer, seeing as how it costs $1,100, it will be marketed to enterprise customers.
McAfee adds that Version 2 of his Privacy Phone is going to be available in the summer of 2018 and that “it will be as hack proof as humanly possible.” Filed in Cellphones..