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Obama Finally Ditches BlackBerry, Switches To Samsung Galaxy S4 (arstechnica.com)
Obama has finally been able to ditch his BlackBerry handset, something which he was stuck with for more than six years. Mr. President appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and told the audience that it was only this year that he was able to get a real smartphone. There's one caveat, though. The Android smartphone Obama has gotten is a "hardened" version, with pretty much all the unrequired features removed from it. Laughing with the audience, Obama said, the phone feels like the fake toy handset kids play with. ArsTechnica, citing documentations, claim that Obama is using a Samsung Galaxy S4 (a phone that was released in 2013), as it is the only smartphone currently supported by the Defense Information Systems Agency. From the report: The S4 is currently the only device supported under DISA's DOD Mobility Classified Capability-Secret (DMCC-S) program. In 2014, a number of Samsung devices were the first to win approval from the National Security Agency under its National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) program -- largely because of Samsung's KNOX security technology. And the S4, layered with services managed by DISA, is the first commercial phone to get approval to connect to the Secret classified DOD SIPRNet network. DISA has been working with vendors and the National Security Agency's Information Assurance Directorate to develop a Top Secret-capable mobile device for use by the Defense Department and the national leadership both on the move and within secure facilities. But currently, the highest level of classification that can be handled by commercial devices under the DMCC program is at the Secret level. Secretary of State John Kerry was a DMCC-S early adopter, and he served as a beta tester of the hardened Galaxy S4.
Can change the battery and load custom roms unlike apple
South Korea is an ally.
Actually, I don't think people realize just how close the US Military and South Korea are. The DOD probably trusts devices made in South Korea far more than they would devices made in the US due to the massive influence they have in South Korea. Remember we still have US troops stationed in South Korea and South Korea (conceptually) relies on US support to keep North Korea from invading.
Yes, yes there is and it has been used to great effect to wipe out succeeding "leaders" within the Daesh terrorist organization.
It's been so effective Daesh is turning against itself in a frenzied attempt to find out if there are spies among their ranks because their people keep dying so frequently.
Desertions are up, territory keeps getting lost, and terrorists keep getting killed, all thanks to the Drone Strike app. Available now for Apple and Android devices.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
John Kerry was a perfect beta tester. No risk of intelligence being lost.
Can change the battery and load custom roms unlike apple
You can't load custom ROMs without losing the Knox features, I believe.
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Yeah, Karl Rove proved that when he routed 22 million W Administration e-mails through a Republican Party server which was claimed to have no archiving or backup process.
sPh
South Korea is an ally.
Actually, I don't think people realize just how close the US Military and South Korea are.
Indeed, the airforces' latest advanced fighter trainer, the T-50 is a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and South Korea's KAI.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
It's an app called Angry Kurds.
Have gnu, will travel.
Never heard of negative numbers, eh?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
That's easy. For men, it's
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and for women, it's this fetching ensemble:
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You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm pretty sure there is a buy American made first law on the books which would have favored Apple.
However, in this particular instance I think the Samsung move was appropriate because they would allow a complete auditing of the device and software as well as control of the updates and such. Samsung will likely sign custum roms or even grant the secret service access to a key to sign themselves. Apple on the other hand, would likely see attempts at this as a means to backdoor their security and fight it like with the san Bernardino phone.
Just way more flexibility in the super secret security department i guess.
But you have to become President of the US in order to get rid of all of the crap that Samsung and Google load onto the phone.
Samsung can make an ROM / let the US gov make there own rom like the cell co's do.
For one just clusterfuck jet (F35), they could build the plant to make the phones needed for all government officials, just one less clusterfuck jet that will in the end be scrapped. So no excuse, they need smart phones, than build the infrastructure to make those phones. Than they could export, those security, milspec phones to the rest of the world, oh wait, no one trust the US government any more, well, that at least could provide it to all US agencies.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
So Apple which off-shores billions to avoid taxes, uses a majority of Chinese made parts and assembles in Mexico is a US company. Not to mention runs a proprietary OS and won't share the code so it can be audited. There is a reason the NSA prefers BSD, and rightfully chooses android over a closed OS, they can and do compile it themselves and check every line of code. I would trust all South Korean made hardware long before I would trust a hodgepodge of Chinese manufactured parts gathered and assembled in a lowest bidder fashion in several untrusted and known corrupt marketplaces, China and Mexico for example.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Who cares? Do you really want the US government building your phone instead of at minimum appearing to be trying to look out for the defense of the country?
What? Put down the crack pipe. The government appears to be funneling money to the already-rich. If it was looking out for the defense of the country, we already have superior planes.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The T-X program is a "competition" meaning that they have not selected a supplier. Last I heard there were four main suppliers, three of which have a US company partnered with a foreign company: Lockheed - KAI, Boeing Saab, Northrop - BAE, Raytheon - Alenia. So, your example is misleading.
What an utter load of crap you just spouted
You can't just build a phone factory. Not even Foxconn makes all the parts, not by a long way. Anyway, it would be pointless unless you also design and fabricate your own system-on-chip and modem. The amount of work to build a modem and write firmware for it and get it approved for world-wide use is pretty substantial, which is why there are so few people doing it. And then are you doing to audit every line of code in the OS too, or write that from scratch and hope you do a better job at securing it that companies who hire the best people in the industry?
It's easier to let someone else build a phone like the GS4, then take it apart and check for spyware and bugging, and then test its security features and install your own custom software on it. And in the end, it's just as secure as doing it yourself. If you can't find the Chinese government backdoor that they somehow slipped into a Korean phone, what makes you think you will be able to keep it out of a device you designed yourself from scratch?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC