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Boeing Preparing an Ultra-Secure Smartphone
bobwrit writes in with a story about Boeing's new secure government phones project. "Earlier this week, it was revealed that aerospace firm Boeing was working on a high security mobile device for the various intelligence departments. This device will most likely be released later this year, and at a lower price point than other mobile phones targeted at the same communities. Typically, phones in this range cost about 15,000-20,000 per phone, and use custom hardware and software to get the job done. This phone will most likely use Android as it's main operating system of choice, which lowers the cost per phone, since Boeing's developers don't have to write their own operating system from scratch."
How secure is the data at the tower?
Thanks to declassified files and leaked files from the former Soviets, it is possible to figure exactly how the Soviets usually stole their secrets.
It would be very interesting to analyze how often they stole information via technical means (tapping phones, intercepting transmissions, etc) vs. human intel means (sending Anna Chapmen to coach you into giving it all up)
I have a sneaky suspicion that more than 90% of the time, the Russians/Soviets succeed with human intel. Heck, if I knew top secret information, and Anna Chapman came after me with the goal of convincing me to give it all up, I'm not sure how long I could hold out under her interrogation...
So if I take an existing OS (Android in this case) under GPL and I alter for greater security, does that have to be release too if all I'm doing is some sort of internal release? I'm sure this has been answered to death with Linux but just curious.
...in bed
without Windows?
Ha! Impossible Mission!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
imagine if you get stopped while driving and the cop wants to take a browse thru your phone, for his usual fishing-for-crimes spree.
it would probably be impossible, by design, for him to invade your privacy with a phone like this.
finally, one that is safe to carry around outside.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Read out loud: ''there's an 'as' too many in this fragment.''
Or is that 'ass'?
Excuse me for any spelling errors -- which after all are less grave than grammatical errors.
basically sucks. See, for example: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/dod-cancels-jtrs-gmr-long-live-jtrs-gmr/2011-10-17
No, the Russians used to get most aerospace intelligence from the magazine 'Aviation Week and Space Technology' (usually referred to as 'Aviation Leak').
And there reporters weren't even remotely good looking.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
err. there, their - what the hell. This time it's my brain's fault.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Will the bootloader be locked or unlocked? It would be nice to have a secure variant of CM7 or CM9 on this device.
And they still won't allow you to use it on a fucking plane.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
So the people who feel entitled to intercept everybody else's emails, text messages, instant messaging, social media usage, phonecalls, internet browsing, credit card usage, GPS driving data and much more, preferably without any legal warrants of any sort being required, feel entitled to having "highly secure means of communicating" when it comes to themselves? Doesn't this create a strange division in society, where a small, select group of individuals enjoys complete communication privacy/security in their day to day dealings, while everybody else's supposedly "private" data is one easy keypress or mouseclick away from being fully searchable/viewable? How can there be any "accountability", "fairness" or "balance of power" in a society where a few select people enjoy "total communication privacy" and are completely "untransparent" and "invisible" as a result, while Joe Ordinary, who pays for all of this to happen with his taxes, has his own right to "personal privacy" completely annulled, and is forced to become completely "fully transparent" to the system at press of a key? I don't see how this kind of starkly assymetric "privacy rights inequality" can be good for a society, and least of all for a supposed "free & fair" Western democracy where people are - in theory - supposed to enjoy equal rights, as well as "basic rights", like the simple right to personal privacy.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/03/01/2246232/nsa-publishes-blueprint-for-top-secret-android-phone
hope they (Boeing) will implement those recommendations....
Will the software be written in ADA and the hardware cost 1000x more?
Improved secure smartphones sound like a good thing, but I would be interested to know how Boeing plans to handle the application installation issues associated with a secure platform. If the platform really is to be secure, you probably don't want the end user to just install any random applications on the phone. So you'll need to have a management process to either: develop in-house applications that duplicate existing functionality; or a mechanism of approving outside applications for use in the secure environment (or both).
Developing in-house applications is expensive, and everyone complains about how the government is wasting money duplicating existing capabilities. And since there's only a limited number of approved developers, it takes a long time to get new and improved applications to the end user.
Approving outside applications for use on the phone is expensive and takes a lot of time. You have to fully audit the application looking for "bad stuff", and then you've only approved that specific version of the application. If a new version comes out in a month, you have to start all over. And since there is only a limited number of code-auditors, it takes a long time to get new and improved applications to the end user.
Phone should have a "plausible deniability" mode where it appears like a regular, non-secure phone, easily giving up lots of details to any browsing / scanning attempt, while hiding all secure content.
15,000 to 20,000 dollars? If so, seriously? Does that just factor in R&D to develop the software for a very small number of phones, or is there some other reason why they should be so expensive?
n/t
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
hackity hack hack
wait till you lose one on the tarmack.....
I think most people would twig that something was up if a hottie like Anna Chapman paid attention to you. I would have have probably contacted Thames House to see if they wanted to run a sting on the KGB - of course to keep up the pretense of a besotted nerd under her thumb id need an expense account to keep up the pretense I am embezzling from the MO'ds secret paperclip replacement project.
I recall that some on who knew her slightly in the Uk said he thought she was a high class call girl.
It's cool that this is public information. This of course is shocking but there are clearance reviews that are just boring paperwork with nothing exciting. The more open they are about it the better. I do however thing Shep should have had to do some hard time for failure to disclose. When I had a clearance if you screwed up you could lose your clearance but if you disclosed a mistake like this upfront it was much easier on you. With that information they can target the whore and feed her misinformation.
http://www.dod.mil/dodgc/doha/industrial/11-05079.h1.pdf
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
The GSA will be killing each other to get their hot little hands on these...
To the "conference" attendees with the secure line:
"Hey everybody! Appetizers in penthouse 1, open bar in penthouse 2 and pearl necklaces in penthouse 3! --- YeeHaaa!"
Everyone should have an ultra-secure smart phone. Get the costs down and make it a standard feature for smartphones. It shouldn't be something only for the gov.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
A key reference is this "http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2401074,00.asp"
Looks like an erector set phone based on other peoples work
Humor recognized, but the threat is no longer from guys with bad tech. There are several governments ferociously waging cyberwar against each other, intent that controlling the information is akin to controlling ground on a battlefield. The days of cursing "pesky moose and squirrel" are distant memories.
Is that in Turkish Lira? Bargain!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The replacement paperclip project is classified Secret. We don't want the Americans to know we are still using paperclips, and we don't want the Chinese to know where all those paperclips we import are going.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Have gnu, will travel.
Will it be branded and use Google apps?
I assume they are trusted.
for an ultra-secure implementation of "Angry JDAMs"
No, the Russians used to get most aerospace intelligence from the magazine 'Aviation Week and Space Technology' (usually referred to as 'Aviation Leak').
And there reporters weren't even remotely good looking.
Well, Aviation Week leaked at both ends: the west got intel on the Soviets with it too.
I heard a funny story once (perhaps apocryphal?) about someone working on photographs taken during the Mayday Parade of all the military hardware the Soviets were showing off. He was trying to figure out basic dimensions and capabilities, etc., by examining the hardware and comparing it to the size of other things in the photographs. Someone came up to him, looked over his shoulder, and said, "Oh hey, the Mayday Parade." The guy with the photographs covered them up along with his work, turned to his visitor, and hissed "You shouldn't be looking at this!" The other fellow sad, "whaddya mean, it's all here in Aviation Week." He opened the magazine to the exact same photograph, with an article containing all of the data the fellow was trying to gather.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
And condoms. Don't forget you'd need condoms. On your expense account.
This space available.
The Fishbowl project was covered in great detail at the RSA conference a month ago. NSA has already built it, certified it, and conducted trials. Unless Boeing is just replicating Fishbowl, they may find it a tough sell.
And is Apple now making air planes?
AccountKiller
Hey, it still works, you got lucky with this one :P
am I the only that saw the headline boeing making a phone and was like... ha, say what? :) yes, I am sure they got the competences for that but not their core business as far as I know
Never antropomorphize computers, they do not like that
See Boeing is Seattle Washington. Some super smart engineers were laid off by another tech company in town and Boeing scooped them up for a low price in the depths of the recession. They pitched this idea involving some, "protected audio path", "protected video path", "Signed drivers" etc that essentially guarantee uncrackable computing platform. One of the engineers "it is impossible to crack it because, even legitimate users can hardly use it, hackers? foggetabotit"
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Having worked with Boeing for a while now, I can safely say that it has nothing to do with cost, and everything to do with the fact that the engineers would still be sitting in meetings five years from now trying to figure out who needs to authorise cubicles and hardware for the project.
Boeing is the least efficient, least appealing company in the known universe.
20 kUSD seems awfully expensive for a device that will simply inherit any android security hole.
i would love to see something Like OpenWebos on these phones. software is open source and free as well as secure from the get go
This phone will most likely use Android as it's main operating system of choice
Yeah, yeah. I know.
I bet he wishes he got lucky with Anna Chapman instead...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
This was my thought too... I think this is just the follow on from that...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Well, if he'd reported right away (as in the moment he found it missing) I'm not even sure he would have committed a crime of any sort. Perhaps he should have locked the notebook in a safe before letting her in the room, but anyone can slip up and make a mistake (especially when thinking of getting some from a beautiful women).
However, his second huge mistake was admitting that she took it. It would have been simpler to maintain that he didn't know how he lost the notebook, and less likely to get him in trouble.
Oh, where is it made?
USA?
I'm sure I can get one from a safe(-er) location.
No sale.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Not reporting it and not freely admitting the one night stand should have been a fast way of jail time. I'm not sure if he was punished or not.
Losing the ability to get a clearance is a pretty stiff blow as there are few civilian jobs that require a clearance and pay as well.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
He wasn't, other than losing his clearance.
I'm saying that either he should have
1. done the right thing right away
or
2. Forget it ever happened, and never mention it to anyone
Taking option 3 just screwed himself and his family.