Pentagon starts to open network to iPhones, Androids

Michael October 29th, 2012 at 4:11 pm

I don’t think they are any concrete needs to get their phone network compatible with everything, unless they plan to have a better control of security on all contractors phone. If I was the DoD I would pounds all alternatives and took the single most suited phones for their needs; I believe that by choosing three variants they multiply the risk by more than three, although they are a lot of goods reason for not relying exclusively on blackberry. While they are still considered to be the #1 in security, in the future they might take some shortcut or simply not have the required resources to maintain a stable, secure and convenient platform.

Blackberry was the most convenient and efficient phone in 2006, and the only one that took care of security. But they failed to adapt to new technologies, when a 180$ sony ericsson not-a-smartphone implement 3g connectivity along with more powerful processor than a 400+$ blackberry. It took them 3–4 years before getting touchscreen properly implemented (i.e. touchscreen + bbm keyboard + optical trackpad) as their latest models do. With everyone jumping out of the bbm boat, and that mean apps that sucks. I mean just for a calculator, a more adapted clock, etc..

They are so many security and confidentiality problems that I am scared. Making sure that nothing can escape is going to be a nightmare when the manufacturer doesn’t put their needs in the first plan. Ex: Some or all of Apple voice recognition work in the cloud, someone having access to that system –either a cyber attack or the good old corruption– could know where and when meeting take place, thanks to the very convenient voice recognition from your lovely iphone.

These network has to put security and confidentiality at the expense as not being as convenient as what the market has to offer. More than the 3/4 of the security hole in the internet come from “cool” feature like flash that are a delight for hacker. Yet instead of correcting those flaw they put a new layer of “more cool”, even more insecure. That exactly the kind of model to avoid here!

blight_ October 29th, 2012 at 4:49 pm

Letting people bring in outside phones might not be a smart idea. All it takes is slipping the wrong app through the App Store or Google Play and some guy installing it, then bringing it into the DoD network.

If what is needed is some kind of smartphone-type platform, why not just use iPhone touches issued by the DoD that can connect through a VPN if necessary, and ideally shouldn’t be able to install apps from the public Apple App Store? (and since Apple prods are “protected” from installing random apps on the web unless jailbroken…)

Michael October 29th, 2012 at 6:00 pm

By going android, they could design their own SoC, fabbed in USA. By implementing thing like a hardware hypervisor, specifically designed to contain cyber attack and avoid data breaches, they will have a much, much more secure platform than blackberry will never have.

torquewrench October 30th, 2012 at 5:38 pm

Military iPhones! What could go wrong?

Hey, Siri, I’m in lower Manhattan and I’ve heard a lot about Hurricane Sandy coming here. Should I be worried?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/files/2012/10/Screen-shot-2012–10-29-at-14.55.24.png

The reality is that Apple build fragile and glossy yuppie fashion accessories, not militarily useful computing devices.

Have the Panasonic Toughbook engineering team build ruggedized smartphone hardware, and then put an NSA hardened build of the Android kernel on top of that. Then lock that sucker down tight. No user installed apps!

Scottinkga October 31st, 2012 at 6:41 pm

Some of you act like DoD is the only player that needs a secure, reliable smartphone. There are plenty of users throughout the world who have these same requirements and use these devices every day. DoD needs to stop acting like they have special needs and get with the program. We stopped driving the technology bus a long time ago.

David October 31st, 2012 at 10:52 pm

The application of each soldier or Marine having the ability to be in direct contact is step forward in battlefield tactics . I think this may be a step in eliminating friendly fire deaths.

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Its really good to know that Pentagon has finally started opening their network for smartphones.

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