When we reviewed the Blackphone 2 last September, the company behind the privacy-focused smartphone was in transition. Silent Circle had moved to bring the Blackphone joint venture with the Madrid-based Geeksphone back under its umbrella, hired a telecom industry veteran as CEO, and was fine-tuning its marketing to go after an enterprise audience. The phone’s Android-based operating system, rebranded as Silent OS, became simultaneously more user-friendly and more hardened, paving the way for features that would be incorporated into Android for Work.

Less than a year later, Silent Circle has substantially changed. For starters, that new CEO is gone. Bill Conner resigned June 27 after, as he put it, Silent Circle "extended its privacy leadership into the enterprise as a secure communications SAAS [Software as a Service] company." The company’s general counsel is now serving as interim CEO as it seeks new leadership.

Over the course of the last year, many more core security team members—including co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Jon Callas, Chief Architect Mike Kershaw (AKA "dragorn," creator of the Kismet wireless network security tool), and Chief Security Officer Dan Ford—left the company. Callas remains as an investor, but he now works for Apple. There have also been layoffs.

As if those departures weren't enough warning signs for Blackphone, Silent Circle is currently embroiled in a legal dispute with Geeksphone over the acquisition of the formerly joint venture. Geeksphone’s attorneys say Silent Circle never paid the $5 million owed for the takeover of the Blackphone joint venture. Forbes' Thomas Fox-Brewster detailed the business distress signals at Silent Circle last week.

By most reports, Silent Circle as a company is not in particular danger. Interim CEO Matt Neiderman told Ars that he couldn't discuss sales figures for the Blackphone 2 "due to the ongoing litigation," but he did say the company is planning a follow-on device. "We have plans for a Blackphone 3," he said. "The customer demand is there, and details will be forthcoming."

As for the security team, Neiderman said, "We have hired Keith Trotter, an 18-year industry veteran who has held roles at Entrust and Corel and brings a strong track record in security, IT, and support to replace Dan Ford. Ian Kanski, Deputy Security Officer, is overseeing our security architecture."

Full disclosure: I am not exactly an uninvolved bystander when it comes to the Blackphone. I have been using a Blackphone 2 as my primary mobile device since December, believing the best way to really see how well the phone lived up to its promise was to use it for a while. That experience has been… mixed. But things came to a head for me earlier this month when I applied the latest operating system update.

Amid all the other headaches, Silent Circle pushed out its recent major update to Silent OS. Based on Android 6.0.1 ("Marshmallow"), Silent OS 3.0 is a much more user-friendly and Google-friendly platform. It's well ahead of PrivOS, the now-retired operating system that shipped with the original Blackphone. With the latest tweaks, the number of things that distinguish Silent OS from standard Android have been significantly cut back.

Ars got a brief walk-through of the major changes in Silent OS 3.0 in early July, shortly after it was pushed out in an over-the-air (OTA) update to existing customers. That push did not go as smoothly as hoped, however. Adding that hiccup to the other significant questions hanging over the company's direction, the future of what was already a very niche mobile platform gets cloudier.

Marshmallow power









Before getting to the troubles, let's start with the Silent OS update itself. Security Center has been the one feature that really sets Silent OS above its competitors. In its latest incarnation, it provides a quick checkup of overall security and privacy posture, advising the user to make changes to settings that maximize privacy and minimize risk. The new Security Center now includes a "privacy meter" view, rating the riskiness of the phone's configuration. Some of the controls over application permissions have changed. "Ask by default" went away, for instance, primarily because that's now the default permission level for applications in Android 6, according to the Blackphone development team.

Connected to Security Center is another new feature that I asked about before the Blackphone 2 released—it's essentially a built-in "Cellular Intrusion Detection System" (CIDS). This component monitors the phone's cellular network connection and warns against a number of signs of potential cellular eavesdropping—including "silent" SMS messages used to track a device and unexpected network protocol downgrades (such as from 4G or 3G down to 2G) that reduce the strength of encryption around calls and data. While there are some Android applications that try to do this, having the capability built into the device is a significant plus. There's still no answer, however, to attacks that try to leverage the cellular baseband (other than using only encrypted voice and a VPN).

The other distinguishing feature of Silent OS is its "secure spaces"—virtual instances of the OS that can run with additional levels of security. This functionality allows you to wall off enterprise apps from personal apps completely while allowing some apps to be shared across those two silos. Finally, Silent OS 3.0 adds "hands off" secure spaces that can be completely managed by corporate IT without user involvement. That means that you can have a totally locked-down corporate phone running in isolation from personal or other private secure spaces and leverage Android for Work features in that space as well.