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Nicholas Merrill photo by Alexander Klink

cnet.com—Nicholas Merrill is planning to revolutionize online privacy with a concept as simple as it is ingenious: a telecommunications provider designed from its inception to shield its customers from surveillance.

Merrill, 39 told CNET that he’s raising funds to launch a national “non-profit telecommunications provider dedicated to privacy, using ubiquitous encryption” that will sell mobile phone service and, for as little as $20 a month, Internet connectivity.

The ISP would not merely employ every technological means at its disposal, including encryption and limited logging, to protect its customers. It would also—and in practice this is likely more important—challenge government surveillance demands of dubious legality or constitutionality.

Merrill says his ISP, to be run by a non-profit called the Calyx Institute with for-profit subsidiaries, will put customers first. “Calyx will use all legal and technical means available to protect the privacy and integrity of user data,” he says. Continue reading at cnet.com.