Starium (was Re: article: german secure phone)

[Bram Cohen]

On Tue, 5 Jun 2001, Ryan Lackey wrote:

> Quoting Bram Cohen <bram at gawth.com>:
> 
> > I heard from an investor that they decided the first box was 'not secure
> > enough' and spent a bunch more time and money building the second mox,
> > which makes it harder to do physical snooping at either end, as a result
> > of which they haven't shipped a product and are now imploding.
> 
> I was told that the primary concern was lowering unit costs.  The original
> COMSEC 3-DES phone had a unit cost of approximately USD 1000.  Build cost was
> probably something like USD 300.

There are plenty enough executives who are legitimately worried about
corporate espionage and enjoy having all the latest expensive toys that
several thousand units could easily have been shipped at break-even at
that cost. Any sales at all could have made a decent media splash,
established a brand name, and gotten an experienced staff who were ready
to rule the market once the cost of production inevitably dropped like a
rock.

Business is more about common sense than technical savvy.

-Bram Cohen

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"
                                        -- John Maynard Keynes




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