Russia's New Secure Android Tablet Keeps Data From Google 127
wiredmikey writes "It seems Russia's defense ministry doesn't trust Google's tablet computers: a new Android device presented to a top Russian government official boasts encryption and works with software and a global positioning system made in Russia, the AFP reports. The OS has all the functional capabilities of an Android operating system but none of its hidden features that send users' private data to Google, addressing concerns that data stored by Google could slip into the hands of the US government and expose some of their most secret and sensitive communications. Two versions of the tablet will supposedly be made — one for consumers and one for defense needs."
Re:As bad as Google may be (Score:4, Informative)
Because your vendors are Google or the Kremlin. I didn't create the choices.
Re:Source code ? (Score:5, Informative)
Will they honour their GPL obligations and make the source code available ?
Android is licensed with Apache 2.0 mostly, so they'd only be obliged to release the source code for any kernel modifications they might have made.
Re:So do it (Score:5, Informative)
If you do it well, fame will be yours. If you sell it well, fortune too. Unless there is no demand for this feature.
Oh no, there is a demand for this feature. There are even a few Android ROMs that have this feature. Personally, I had such a ROM installed for about a week, before I gave up on it and reverted to a different ROM. As it turns out, the Googe Maps/Navigation auto-complete feature is much easier and more convenient to use if your phone doesn't have short-term amnesia between uses. And yes, I admit it. I am trading privacy for convenience and ease of use. Thought, I don't mind it.
If you just browse the xda forums a little bit, you'll see that there are many people that care about privacy, and are willing to pay the price of privacy in terms of ease of use and convenience, much more than I do. So do not take my example as proof that there is no demand, there is actually a demand. It's just that there is already plenty of existing grassroots competition for that kind of feature in the rooted custom-ROM Android ecosystem.
Re:Can we get the same? (Score:5, Informative)
Switzerland is not the EU. He's talking about the other EU countries among which The Netherlands which got most of the banking data handed over to the US.
So yeah, your BS is BS.
Baidu = Bing = Microsoft (Score:2, Informative)
Except that Baidu is Bing for their English language search result. Microsoft paid them to use Bing, probably just to give Ballmer a 'market share boost' in something so he can keep his job, but maybe for something more sinister.
So you may think you're avoiding the US corporate Mafia, but actually you're not.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/04/microsoft-bing-baidu-china-english_n_889829.html
Re:Tipical russian (Score:4, Informative)
They did not choose their own alphabet, their choice of church did it for them centuries ago, and it is actually a lot closer to the greek alphabet than the latin one ( which was, if I remember right, an offshoot of a western greek variant.) So if you want a reason for all that, blame Greece! :)
The fact is though, that at least objectively, the cyrillic alphabet is better than the latin one, having much less ambiguity and more letters for things such as 'sh 'kh' 'ch' etc. The only failing it has is that it uses letters similair to latin letters to mean completely different things, which leads to an inevitable amount of brain bonk when you are trying to learn it.
Privacy - that's what we expect in Russia (and US) (Score:5, Informative)
The first thing we learn in security training is that if you don't want your data found,
make sure there's no such data to begin with. If you read nothing else, read the paragraph
following this one, and the last one.
People's personal devices are being used to spy on them on a regular basis. In the US it
was recently rules your smartphone CAN and WILL be used against you without a warrant.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/federal-court-rules-cops-can-warantlessly-track-suspects-via-cellphone/ [arstechnica.com]
In Russia it was recently rules you don't need a smartphone to go to jail for "free expression"
only in a church.
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-08-17/world/world_europe_russia-pussy-riot-trial_1_band-members-nadezhda-tolokonnikova-russian-court [cnn.com]
Now that we've covered the facts, more facts are that your smartphone DOES send information
about you SOMEWHERE. Be it google (standard US Android device, data sending enabled) or
Mother Russia (Russian version of Android device) if you have GPS enabled and outbound data
sending enabled... someone out there has access to the data, whether or not they keep it,
catalog it, database[ify] it, store it, or analyze it [later].
If you want your information to be kept private... KEEP IT PRIVATE. That means don't use a device that
sends that information ANYWHERE ELSE. Even if you think it "shouldn't" send it somewhere it MAY.
MAY is a percentage between 0 and 100% that if you can't afford it should be ALWAYS zero.
GPS -there are plenty of devices that will plot your location, show you a route to a destination, and have
no capability for transmission.
PHONE -there are plenty of phones that WILL GIVE YOUR LOCATION TO CELL COMPANIES WHICH
IN THE USE WILL GIVE THEM to law enforcement without a warrant.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/warrantless-gps-phone-tracking/ [wired.com]
Feel free to have your phone either OFF or covered in a Faraday cage (aluminum foil works) until you must use it.
DATA -there is no way you can use data [which requires bidirectional packet flow] without giving away your
location unless you are using a local WiFi hotspot.
In short... in summary... put your smartphone into airplane-mode. Turn on wifi-only (android phones will allow ...and welcome to the 21st Century.
you to enable WiFi in airplane-mode but will leave other radios disabled). Use local hotspots. Don't install
applications that require "access to the physical device such as speaker or microphone or location-based information"...
E
Re:What about FSB? (Score:3, Informative)
Probably none [wikipedia.org]. In fact, it seems to be doing pretty good for a standard from 1989. There are criticisms, but this - "There is not much published cryptanalysis of GOST, but a cursory glance says that it seems secure (Schneier, 1996; Vitaly V. Shorin, Vadim V. Jelezniakov and Ernst M. Gabidulin, 2001)" - pretty much contradicts his "it's obvious that this is the case".
Nevertheless, he's modded up - no need for prooflinks when it's about government conspiracies, right?