Fishbowl is a mobile phone architecture developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) to provide a secure Voice over IP (VoIP) capability using commercial grade products that can be approved to communicate classified information. It is the first phase of NSA's Enterprise Mobility Architecture. According to a presentation at the 2012 RSA Conference by Margaret Salter, a Technical Director in the Information Assurance Directorate, "The plan was to buy commercial components, layer them together and get a secure solution. It uses solely commercial infrastructure to protect classified data." Government employees were reportedly testing 100 of the phones as of the announcement. The initial version was implemented using Google's

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

operating system, modified to ensure central control of the phone's configuration at all times. To minimize the chance of compromise, the phones use two layers of

encryption protocols A security protocol (cryptographic protocol or encryption protocol) is an abstract or concrete protocol that performs a security-related function and applies cryptographic methods, often as sequences of cryptographic primitives. A protocol describe ...

, IPsec and Secure Real-time Transport Protocol (SRTP), and employ NSA's Suite B encryption and authentication algorithms.

USMobile USMobile, Inc. is an Irvine, California-based corporation that developed the commercial enterprise version Scrambl3 of NSA's Fishbowl (secure phone) techniques. The Scrambl3 apps runs both on Android and iOS platforms. History Cyvergence Corporat ...

has implemented commercial enterprise version of Fishbowl technology via the

Scrambl3 Scrambl3 is a secure communication mobile app developed by USMobile. Scrambl3 implements NSA's Fishbowl (secure phone) techniques and runs both on Android and iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by ...

mobile apps that run on both Android and iOS platforms. The phones are locked down in many ways. While they use commercial

wireless channels Wireless LAN (WLAN) channels are frequently accessed using IEEE 802.11 protocols, and equipment that does so is sold mostly under the trademark Wi-Fi. Other equipment also accesses the same channels, such as Bluetooth. The radio frequency (RF) spec ...

, all communications must be sent through an enterprise-managed server. No direct voice calls are allowed, except for

9-1-1 , usually written 911, is an emergency telephone number for the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Palau, Argentina, Philippines, Jordan, as well as the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), one of eight N11 codes. Like other emergency nu ...

emergency calls. Only NSA approved applications from the NSA enterprise app store can be installed. NSA has published a 100-page overview specification for the Mobility Capability Package. In tandem with the Capability Package there are a series of Protection Profiles. These Protection Profiles list out the requirements a commercial product must meet to be used in the mobile phone architecture.

References

{{reflist Secure communication National Security Agency encryption devices Android (operating system) software Android (operating system) devices