Hey man,

I want to run something by you real quick.

Zero Trace has let me send out this email on their behalf, so that I can tell you a bit about how things work internally.

Yes, I am a Zero Trace affiliated guy, but I am not an employee.

You see, I am part of their “street team.” I am out and about handling my business, giving insight to Zero Trace on how they should approach their product launch and updates. Call me a “consultant ” of sorts.

It’s crucial for me to get their products right because I rely on them every day to keep my operations encrypted and secure.

For example, I use the Pidgin Messenger to handle all of my communications on Jabber & IRC. I don’t trust VPNs (and neither should you) to handle my chats, that’s why I use the Zero Trace Pen’s decentralized relay system to do the heavy lifting. And if you’re wondering if trusting them is the same as trusting a VPN provider, it’s not. The relays they use are part of the Tor network, and they make sure to blacklist any node they think is controlled by an adversary. You don’t have to do anything to get this protection, it’s done for you by default.

Don’t believe me? Check for yourself under the Onion Circuits app. You will see exactly how your traffic is being handled.

Now, messaging isn’t why I’ve decided to consult on this project. I actually decided to work with them because of their connections in my industry. The founder is legit, a real player in the game.

I actually first met one of the members of the team in 2014. She was part of the Miami crypto crowd, developing one of the first small mining rigs.

Over the years, I have seen them work religiously on their products and cybersecurity services. Their dedication to the craft is unparalleled with any other cybersecurity firm I’ve met before.

I once saw the founder (allegedly) sim swap one of his clients from the hotel lobby. When he was done doing the transfer, he went up to the client’s room and disclosed what he had done. The client was relieved because up until that moment he had no idea why his phone service no longer worked. That was just a red team exercise to prove to the client that he needed his services.

It’s all kind of a grey area, but he makes it work and his clients love him for it. You need someone who thinks outside the box for these types of things, not your regular college graduate who hasn’t hacked anything outside of his college campus.

Nowadays, our phones are what hold all of our precious data. Some people don’t have laptops, but they sure as hell have the latest iPhone. The thing is these iPhones aren’t as secure as they seem. It wasn’t until recently that they started asking for data permissions. What about in 2013, when the flashlight apps were remotely turning on our microphones and feeding everything to an unknown server in Seattle?

Or when Apple finally caved and started blocking Facebook’s tracking pixel?

What else are we missing here? What is next to come?

Zero Trace is preemptively solving this problem, one step at a time. They wanted to let you know that they have finally released a public version of the Zero Trace Phone. It is no longer invite only.

I have been using the Zero Trace Phone prototype since the day they sent me my invitation. Before you consider purchasing it, let me tell you the caveats:

One, they are using a Pixel phone (by Google) to ship the betas. If you didn’t already know, making a phone from scratch is a nightmare, you have to basically buy your own factory and equipment. So they decided to build this Beta on top of an existing phone. You see, they take apart this Pixel phone and replace some of its components with ones you’d find on an open source Raspberry PI, in order to make it more secure and compatible with their apps and security protocols.

Their reasoning behind using a Pixel phone is to play the game on “hard mode.” By being able to anonymize and encrypt all your data from a powerhouse like Google, they can safely say that no other 3rd party will be able to do so either. By starting with the big fish, they can work their way down to little ones – like your average teenage hacker who’s buying your passwords from a website like Paradshop.net.

On top of that, they are using Graphene OS as the underlying OS. Once they have exhausted every use case and placed the BETA in the hands of a few more thousand users, they will be able to get the final specs to develop the final release from scratch. Removing the Pixel Phone from the picture.

Now, in order to do this we need your help. We need to get the Beta into the hands of several others, so that we can get feedback on what features need to be expanded on. They need this so they can anticipate all of the components they need to include in the factory they are building. Once this factory is complete the phone will be able to go into its final production and we will exclusively sell the new device on the hidden internet only (Tor).

Everyone that buys a Zero Trace Phone today will be helping the project move forward. You will get exclusive access to the Tor site first, as well as a hefty discount because you are an early investor.

Keep in mind that they may go out of stock soon due to the demand that I’ve helped them garner. I am actually about to fly to Colombia this weekend with about 80 phones to hand off to my associates who need it now more than ever. Not to worry though, they will restock to the best of their abilities. Remember, they have to manually configure each one – the factory is still under construction.

If you buy a phone today, the team will reach out and make sure you get all the support you need. They are in the feature-building phase, so your feedback will inevitably change the outcome of the final version. This is a chance to be a part of something big. I know you can see that.

Anyways, that’s enough writing for me today. I’ve got to get back to work.

I wish you luck in your endeavors. Who knows, maybe one day we will meet “in the game.”

Best,
Leroy [SICATRIZ]