FINALLY! we can buy Staria
Adam Shostack
adam at homeport.org
Thu Oct 25 08:13:27 PDT 2001
On Wed, Oct 24, 2001 at 04:27:25PM -0700, Lucky Green wrote:
| I don't understand why one would pay $1000 for a Starium device when
| comparable devices are available in the market place for less than half
| of that. The design goal for the new Starium boxes was sub-$100 retail.
| I doubt that design goal was met, but I would not pay a penny over $350
| for one device. Which will still leave the seller with a nice profit.
$249 is a magic price for consumer electronics, and I won't pay a
penny over that. Not because it makes a huge difference to me, but I
can't see them selling well enough to be widespread and have a network
effect at $350.
Adam
| > -----Original Message-----
| > From: owner-cypherpunks at lne.com
| > [mailto:owner-cypherpunks at lne.com] On Behalf Of Dr. Evil
| > Sent: Monday, October 22, 2001 8:06 PM
| > To: cypherpunks at lne.com
| > Subject: FINALLY! we can buy Staria
| >
| >
| > (is that the correct plural of Starium?)
| >
| > http://www.tactronix.com/s100.htm
| >
| > NOW TAKING PRE-ORDERS FOR DELIVERY IN DECEMBER 2001/JANUARY 2002
| >
| > Very Limited Quantity Available
| >
| > A 50% Deposit Will Reserve Your Units Today!!
| >
| > 1-10 Units $995 USD Each
| >
| > 11-20 Units $936 USD Each
| >
| > 21-50 Units $884 USD Each
| >
| > 51 Units+ Call For Price
| >
| > What do people here think of this? My initial thoughts are:
| >
| > Pros:
| >
| > 1. Voice encryption is great. It's the Last Great Encryption Taboo
| > (the other is file encryption, but that's not nearly as taboo as
| > voice). I'm glad to see something on the market which addresses
| > this. Obviously, all traffic, including saying hi to grandma,
| > should be encrypted.
| >
| > 2. The unit looks very easy to use. I could travel anywhere in the
| > world with it (well, anywhere that it's legal) and plug it in and
| > press one button and it works. That's great.
| >
| > Cons:
| >
| > 1. I would like to see an open source reference software
| > implementation, or some way to verify that there are no "naughty
| > bits" in this thing. I know, open source isn't much of a business
| > model, but with encryption products, it seems almost essential.
| >
| > 2. It's expensive. It costs more than a PC. However, $2k for two
| > units is small compared to the value of data it could be securing,
| > so for many users, the price will be fine.
| >
| > 3. A minor nitpick: It uses 3DES. What's wrong with AES?
| >
| > I think I would like to buy some of them, but I can't decide
| > if I want to be an early adopter, or wait for cheaper and
| > better versions to come out.
--
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
-Hume
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