New Zealand Frontline Police Get Apple Devices in Efficiency Measure

mask.of.sanity writes "Thousands of New Zealand frontline police will be armed with smartphones and tablets from this year in an efficiency initiative that the force hopes will save millions of dollars. NZ Police say the devices are Apple iPhones and iPads. These will be password protected and can be wiped remotely if lost. Police declined to say if the devices and their communications will be encrypted."

Comments

Re:Setting up for iFailure

[pushing-robot]

Nice troll.

First, the very tool you link says it can attack machines running Windows, OS X, or Linux.

Second, here's the "mitigation" section from your link:

Attack mitigation
To stay safe and protect against FireWire DMA attacks, here’s a couple of suggestions:

Windows
* Block the SBP-2 driver
* Remove FireWire drivers from your system if you don’t need to use FireWire
OS X
* Don’t panic – if you are using FileVault2 and OS X Lion (10.7.2) and higher, the OS will automatically turn off DMA when locked – you’re still vulnerable to attacks when unlocked, though
* Set a firmware password
Linux
* Disable DMA or remove the 1394 drivers (see the ‘Mitigation: Linux’ section)

On a Mac, the normal steps to protect your machine from unauthorized access (even just setting a firmware password) also blocks the attack vector.
And on Windows or Linux, you have to manually break Firewire and Thunderbolt entirely to work around the problem.

Macs do have security flaws, but this is about the worst example you could possibly give.

Better in no ways

[SuperKendall]

Better in most regards (all?),

It has much less software, and a worse screen.

NFC and a "barometer" are useless to police.

And what about support? Apple has extensive worldwide support. Can you honestly say the same for Google hardware (hint: NO).

You are just not thinking about the total package here.

Re:Setting up for iFailure

[neonv]

There's always malware on any operating system, including IOS. While Apple does a good job at preventing it, they can't prevent it 100% of the time. Here are a few articles talking about malware on iOS for those who think it doesn't exist.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2012/07/06/first-ios-malware-hits-app-store/
http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/08/29/finfisher-malware-goes-mobile-infects-android-iphone-blackberry/
http://www.redmondpie.com/another-malware-app-sneaks-into-ios-app-store/
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/238101/scitech/hacker-reveals-ios-malware-vulnerability-gets-punished
http://www.techpluto.com/ios-malware/

Re:Setting up for iFailure

[NatasRevol]

Number of malware that came through the App Store - ie non-jailbroken phones - One.

Charlie Fisher's proof of concept. Which wasn't actual malware.