

US Army picks Android to power its first smartphone - markkat
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/04/us-army-picks-android-to-power-its-first-smartphone.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

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TomOfTTB
My only problem with this article is it frames it in consumer terms which
obscures the point. The military would never use iOS because the Military
demands complete obedience from their contractors and Apple would never give
them that.

What's interesting is they aren't using proprietary software from Microsoft.
Microsoft has a history of bending over backwards for Military contracts and I
have no doubt they did everything in their power to get Windows Embedded on
these phones. So the fact that Android won out shows proprietary software
can't count on guaranteed government contracts like it used to.

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gte910h
The military loves using open source software.

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TomOfTTB
It depends what you mean by that. The military requires companies hand over
their source code for security reasons anyway.

So even Windows is open source to the Military (though in fairness it's also
available to other select partners).

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lucasjung
Not true.

 _Sometimes_ , contracts are written such that the contractor must provide all
of its source code to the military. In these cases, DoD pays a significant
premium. As budgets tighten, this practice has become less and less common.
Nowdays it's typically only done if there is an expectation that the code will
be used, built upon, and modified for a significant length of time, in which
case it would be cost-effective for the government to own the code so that
they can bid out future work competitively.

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TomOfTTB
I'm sorry but I just don't believe that. I'm not calling you a liar since you
(or I) could have heard wrong but the simple fact is there's too many ways for
a software program to mine data for the Military not to at least look at the
source code before deploying it. So I can't see them implementing closed
source software

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lucasjung
The military gets to conduct Information Assurance (IA) reviews. These are
tightly controlled so that only the IA reviewers get to look at the source
code, and they are bound by heavy-duty NDAs. This gives DoD the opportunity to
be sure that the code is safe, without giving them free reign to do as they
please with the code. This process most definitely does not give the
government the ability to treat the code as "open source," in the sense that
one can freely modify, reuse, or re-purposing open source code.

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eogas
It seems like this headline was crafted specifically to incite a mobile OS
flamewar. And yet, there is very little content in the article that explains
why or to what extent Android will be used.

Obviously they need an OS that is highly customizable, and I assume that's why
Android is an easy choice. But to me, it seems like the OS is fairly
unimportant on such a purpose-built device.

What I'm more interested is how they intend on setting up reliable
communications between the devices. Obviously they can't go into a warzone and
expect there to be Verizon cell towers every few miles. I assume there is
already a system in place, but the article doesn't explain any of this, or how
the hardware will have to adapt to the existing system. Or how the OS will
have to be modified to use the different hardware.

All around a pretty stupid article. I've seen much better from ars.

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ares2012
Anyone else wondering if they are going to disable the feature that records
the location of Android devices and sends it back to Google?

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yanw
I suppose it's this week's flavor of moral/techno panic so I won't dismiss
this question as stupid.

Android is opensource so they can use and modify it as they please, as for
sending location data, it's the maps app that sends triangulation data when
used to refine it's location capabilities, it's covered in the TOS and the
data is anonymous.

And since people evidentially don't like wardriving this method is a more
efficient and less costly alternative and the benefit to the user is obvious.

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ares2012
You have absolutely no sense of humor.

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yanw
Evidently :)

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simonsarris
Three thoughts immediately came to mind:

Doesn't the US spend enough on the military already?!

I wonder how much information an enemy could obtain if they got a hold of one
of these?

And then the realization that the answer is probably "not much" and that by an
enemy holding on to one, they are almost certainly giving away their position.
So I wonder if a lot of the utility in the long run will come from tracking
phones that get lost and stolen on a battlefield.

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TomOfTTB
First, No, we really don't spend enough on the Military. If you want to spend
less money on the Military try voting for Presidents who don't start wars
(though since you seem like a liberal you probably thought you were doing that
last time so joke's on you). Right now you have U.S. troops deployed in three
active military conflicts AND patrolling the entire world's oceans while their
budget is being cut. Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan don't have proper body
armor to this day!

(And for those who think we've handed Libya over to NATO I'd point out that
over 80% of NATO's military resources are U.S. Resources and the Supreme
European Commander of NATO is an American Admiral)

Second any communication device used by the military is both encrypted like
crazy and has remote wipe capabilities. Their walkie talkies use rotating,
encrypted digital channels these days. So I don't think a cell. phone is going
to be a gold mine of information. In fact, on the theory that smartphones
could give soldiers access to documents they'd normally have to carry physical
copies of the cell. phone actually increases security on the ground

Edit: To elaborate on the NATO point count the Aircraft Carriers. The U.S. has
12 in service. Every other country in NATO combined has 6.

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yequalsx
Are you saying that we don't spend enough on the military given the tasks that
our leaders have given the military? Or are you saying that as a general
principle the level of funding for the military is too small?

Personally I think the military budget should be drastically cut. This
includes cutting back on military commitments. I don't see how it is
efficacious for the U.S. to spend around 5% GDP on defense matters while
European countries spend much leas as a percent of GDP. It does not appear to
me that the average American benefits enough to justify this expense.

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TomOfTTB
I'm saying we don't spend enough given the tasks they have been assigned. If
the President (whoever he might be) wants to be the World's Police Man than we
need to spend accordingly and that's not what's happening now.

What's happening now is we're sending soldiers into harm's way with
insufficient protection because we can't afford enough body armor.

Think about this for a second. From Bush's first day in office to now the
National Debt increased from $5.73 Trillion to $14.3 Trillion dollars yet with
all that money our Soldiers are having to ask their families to buy them body
armor with personal funds because the Government won't. That's obscene.

