State Capture: Another SA Police Services sole supplier threatens to cut services, this time a mobile encryption service to Crime Intelligence
A Durban businessman who supplied R6.7-million worth of bulletproof vests to SAPS, without a tender, is now threatening to “collapse” a confidential mobile encryption service app he sold to Crime Intelligence by switching off the server, if he is not paid more than R5-million.
Inbanathan Kistiah, of I-View Integrated Systems, wrote his “top secret and confidential” letter of demand to former Divisional Commissioner Major-General King Ngcobo on 22 March. In his correspondence, Kistiah reminds Ngcobo that the Daedalus Mobile Encryption Service was implemented in 2016.
The system allowed users, about 200 Crime Intelligence officers, to communicate “via the Daedalus App without being intercepted” with 200 user licences allocated to “various law enforcement officers”.
But now we're being held ransom again by a private businessman. So why could be not just use some free end-to-end encryption phone service like Signal? Signal has a desktop app too and you can establish trust between the various endpoints. It's a lot cheaper than R5,7 million(US$480,000).
To answer my own question I suspect it is because governmnets often go out on a tender and only companies respond wanting to sell something. Signal themselves are not going to respond with a 80 page tender document saying "here have it for free". And it could also be that specifications are made to specific so as not to allow adpating to the use of a generally available solution.
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State Capture: Another SAPS sole supplier threatens to cut services, this time to Crime Intelligence | Daily Maverick A Durban businessman who supplied R6.7-million worth of bulletproof vests to SAPS, without a tender, is now threatening to “collapse” a confidential mobile encryption service app he sold to Crime Intelligence by switching off the server, if he is not paid more than R5-million. By MARIANNE THAMM. |