I would like to introduce you to Paul Martini, CEO of Phantom Technologies and creator of the iPhantom. Mr. Martini has agreed to sit down and talk about his new product.
Here is a little about the iPhantom product
iPhantom is a Internet security device for your PC that is portable and easy to use. iPhantom promises 100% anonymous and secure web access, allowing users to use p2p, ftp, newsgroups and email without the preying eye of certain individuals. The iPhantom uses strong 128-bit and 256-bit AES encryption to protect data on the Internet and is compatible with all P2P (Peer to Peer) file sharing applications.
The iPhantom is the first of its kind to make enterprise network security available for your PC at the hardware level. The iPhantom incorporates a state of the art hardware architecture that provides high-end security effectively without compromising your Internet speed. With hardware accelerated encryption and Freescale Coldfire Architecture, the iPhantom is unparalleled in the industry.
and now, the interview…
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First, tell us a little about the iPhantom? What makes the iPhantom product and service worth buying?
There has been a lot of confusion and questions about this. We are in the process of adding much more technical detail to our website describing the processes I will talk about here.
The iPhantom is a small hardware device that sits between your computer and the Internet. When the iPhantom is connected, it will establish a secure session with one of our gateways using strong AES encryption. Each iPhantom is programmed uniquely with its own private 256-bit key. During session establishment, the iPhantom works with our gateways to establish an IP address on our protected network. The IP Address associated with the iPhantom remains valid until a new session is established. New sessions are established when the iPhantom is powered on or when renegotiation with the gateway is necessary for security reasons (which only occurs after being connected for a very long period of time).
The iPhantom is in a sense a VPN tunnel. It can be configured to allow local traffic to pass without encryption, or to block all local traffic and allow traffic only coming from the secure network. The network provides a very high level of security with equipment that is typically only used by high-end commercial companies.
You can think of the network line coming into your network as being protected and “clean”. All data sent using protocols such as HTTP, SMTP, and FTP are scanned for viruses before entering your network or leaving your network. Also, the connection is firewalled with high-end protection against common network attacks.. Most importantly, your privacy is completely protected. Every IP packet that leaves your network will travel through the secure connection to our gateways. These gateways will use a Virtual IP address that was assigned during session establishment to route your request to and from the Internet. You can think of our systems as your gatekeeper, protecting your online identity and keeping your computer secure from viruses, spyware, intrusions, and other Internet threats.
With the iPhantom, you are not only getting the value of complete identity protection (which is very important), you are getting high-end firewall protection, network intrusion detection and protection, gateway antivirus protection, gateway spyware/adware blocking, and a lot more. This is a complete security hardware device with more than just the standard “anonymous” protection of traditional proxy programs.
What protocols does the iPhantom run on?
The iPhantom uses a custom protocol on top of UDP to tunnel your requests to our gateways. This protocol is designed to allow bidirectional network communication, which is required by many software applications.
A lot of people believe that iPhantom is just another proxy device, can you bust that myth? If not, explain for our readers how the process works and what makes the technology so great. Do you have patents on the technology? How long have you been developing the technology?
The gateways do by definition act as a proxy since they are your gatekeeper. However, in the Internet community when people talk about proxies they think of the traditional proxy server or socks proxy server. Our gateways ARE NOT proxy servers in this sense. They are custom designed hardware appliances running a custom protocol that allows for fully bidirectional Internet communication. Data leaving the iPhantom is processed at the IP packet level, so all protocols supported under the IP layer are secured. .
All encryption is done in hardware on both ends, which accelerates performance tremendously. The technology used with the iPhantom and the secure gateways is custom and patent pending, however the encryption and authentication algorithms used in the encryption engine are standardized 128-bit and 256-bit AES. These encryption engines have been FIPS 140-2 (Federal Information Processing Standard) certified to verify the “correctness” of the AES implementation.
The system was designed from the ground up. The iPhantom secures all IP packets leaving your network. This includes DNS queries that are traditionally not protected through anonymous proxy type services. When connected with the iPhantom, DNS queries are routed internally through the secure connection and presented back to your network. If you run a wireless bridge or access point, you can use the iPhantom on the remote location to secure all traffic and the network from the wireless environment. All of the features were designed to be plug and play with minimal user setup.
What about tracking or logging internet traffic through servers, do you temporarily log users activity?
Because privacy is a big part of our business, our gateways do not log any traffic data. The only thing stored in our databases that the gateways use is relevant data for session establishment and subscription status.
What are the major points of iPhantom security? Can the iPhantom encryption be hacked? What type of hardware does the iPhantom run on?
We designed the iPhantom and the Gateway systems using known and tested security techniques. We use strong AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption, which was chosen by U.S. NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) as the new encryption algorithm standard. This algorithm is trusted and used by the US government and all across the world in highly sensitive applications that demand maximum security. The iPhantom uses 256-bit master keys, which are approved by NASA for protecting information classified at the TOP-SECRET level. According to NIST, the amount of time required to crack a 128-bit AES key is estimated to be around 149 trillion years, and the amount of time estimated to crack a 256-bit key is so astronomically large that it is said to be impossible. The iPhantom uses the latest in the Coldfire line of Freescale processors. This processor is a superscalar, superpipelined device capable of handling very high throughput and processing. Also, we employ hardware-based encryption, which greatly enhances performance and speed compared to software (or even firmware) processing.
What about the speed? Can I download or surf the Internet at a high rate of speed when using the iPhantom?
Because of the system design, the decrease in speed is very minor. During our extensive benchmark tests, the speed impact was very minimal.
Can P2P users share and download music or movies while running the iPhantom securely and anonymously? What type of users does your product typically sell to? What else can I do with the iPhantom?
The iPhantom works at the IP layer of the protocol stack. This makes it compatible with most P2P programs. The iPhantom not only makes the user anonymous, it also protects the user’s data from being viewed and analyzed by external packet sniffers.
The iPhantom appeals not only to consumers and households wanting secure and anonymous Internet access and high-end security, it also appeals to businesses wanting to protect their networks. This includes business travelers who use a variety of external networks like broadband that is offered at hotels or offsite on a customers’ network.
Wherever the iPhantom is connected, the identity protection, firewall protection, antivirus protection, network intrusion detection, and the data security all follow. It doesn’t matter which network you are plugging into.
Can I connect the iPhantom to my router? Meaning, I want an iPhantom but I want to protect all the computers on my small network at home. Is this possible or will this cause slowdowns on the network?
The iPhantom can protect an entire network. We are currently not providing technical support for this, however the setup is very easy. The iPhantom is capable of handling several Mbps; so smaller networks should not see much impact. We do offer more capable rack mount systems that can easily handle the bandwidth on much larger networks and provide the same level of protection for business applications. Our business service can take the burden and high cost of this type of Internet gateway protection away from businesses wanting this level of protection. All maintenance and updates are performed on our side further reducing the cost of the system and service.
Talk a little about the antivirus, spyware, adware and firewall protection you offer when purchasing a iPhantom.
When the iPhantom is connected with an open session to our network, it will not allow unsecured packets to enter the local network. On the gateway side, we employ very high-end equipment to protect any data reaching your iPhantom.
The gateway antivirus and spyware/adware blocking technology is relatively new, although Phantom Technologies did not invent it. The way this works is that traffic coming through protocols such as HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc are reconstructed in real-time as they are being transmitted to the computer using the iPhantom. When data containing malicious content is detected, the transmission is terminated and the infected data is discarded, preventing it from getting to the PC or network. When new viruses, spyware/adware, or other threats are discovered, the definitions are automatically pushed out to our system, guaranteeing that you will always have the highest and latest level of protection.
The firewall protection users receive when using the iPhantom is the same level of protection usually only available to high-end commercial and government establishments.
Are you concerned about p2p users on your systems? If 10,000 p2p users were using your technology, wouldn’t that run your bandwidth charges through the roof? Does more p2p’rs mean a higher subscription rate?
We have established an algorithm for loading the gateways evenly. When the iPhantom connects to the network, it will automatically be directed to the highest performance, most available gateway. There is a fixed metric that determines how many gateways are needed based on the number of iPhantoms out on the market. As we ship more units and deploy new systems, more gateways are also deployed to accommodate them. This allows us to grow our network in a modular approach, instead of a brute-force approach.
The subscription fee that we charge covers bandwidth, antivirus and spyware definitions, network intrusion detection updates, equipment maintenance and support. Bandwidth on the backbone of the Internet is not cheap, and we pay for data as it moves in and out of our systems. The idea behind the flat rate offered is that we wanted to avoid metering. As some users will transfer more data than the subscription fee can cover, others will not. But on average, the subscription balances out.
When we sat down for lunch, you mentioned a network card type of hardware that you are developing, can you tell us a little more about this?
A PCI card is currently in the works. This network card will work like a regular network card but will be enabled with our technology. Once activated, this card can get all of the security and identity protection offered by the mobile iPhantom.
Are you planning on embedding your product into manufactured computers like the ones they sell at Best Buy?
We have the intention of embedding our technology into an OEM computer, either through the use of the PCI card or on the motherboard itself, so that the computer will already have the hardware necessary to access our services. If the user decides to activate the service, they will benefit from all of the protection and security that our system has to offer.
What can we expect to see from Phantom technologies in the future? What’s going on in the Phantom lab?
There are a lot of exciting things happening in the Phantom lab. We are also working on porting our technology to secure local networks. There are also other custom applications of our technology being developed with specific customer requirements. We work closely with business customers and applications having specific requirements to meet their needs, such as for VOIP. We are focused on protecting and securing the networks and technologies of the future.
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If you want to learn more about the iPhantom, go here to read a previous article published on Zeropaid.com about iPhantom.
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