> One is an effort by the White House Communications Office to move the executive branch from BlackBerry devices to Android-based phones. The reason is because Android devices with the new kernel can be secured at a higher clearance level than BlackBerry devices, McCarthy said.
I'm not convinced that people wandering around with Secret-level (or even Confidential/FOUO/LES/SBU) material on a smartphone is the best way to go...
It already happens, and in this era it's somewhat impossible for them not to.
One of the pressures here is RIM is Canadian and even so even if the DoS/DoD is running their own BIS servers, there is still some issue with this all running on Canadian software.
I'd actually welcome this work put back into the open source project - a) for peer review and transparency, and b) so that the corporate sector and pro-sumers can benefit from this too.
Its not so much that material is on the phone its how its handled as far as access.
Let me explain, you can already secure encrypt stuff with android 3.0. So in hardening the kernel they are shutting down avenues of attack to get at stuff that may be stored on the smart phone.
However, in this case its not Google who has the remote erase and lock commands but NSA/CIA/Military..so if phone goes missing its sent a remote erase and lock command..
Good security is done in the light. The NSA wrote SELinux, after all. It would make sense for them to encourage this hardened version get used outside of the government.
if it's used internally within an organization (ie not published or sold) then no. in any case, i expect they will release the source like they did for SELinux.
I'm not convinced that people wandering around with Secret-level (or even Confidential/FOUO/LES/SBU) material on a smartphone is the best way to go...