Putin and pals dump Apple's iPads for Samsung slabs... over security concerns The Kremlin has ditched its iPads over fears that they would not withstand US snooping and replaced them with Samsung fondleslabs. Telecoms minister Nikolai Nikiforov said Sammy's gizmos were "specially protected devices that can be used to work with confidential information". "Some of the information at government meetings …
Most Samsung devices can be rooted and flashed. Russia could build a fork of Android without all the Google stuff in there if they so wished, or security harden it, or disable certain functionality like camera / microphone.
The biggest danger is some 3rd party builds still use binary driver blobs which could potentially contain exploits or backdoors. Supposedly some Samsung devices have suffered precisely that problem recently. They'd really want to build as much as possible from scratch.
Hmm.... Having read Robert Harris's excellent "crypto-documentary" Ghost about an ex PM (initials AB) maybe the spooks should be watching Cherie not St. Tony ( allegedly of course)..
BTW in post meltdown Russia I'm not sure the KGB could afford Tonys rates these days..
Several people posting here without bothering to think at all.
Believe it or not but you can make your own version of Android that doesn't report to Google.
Some people even buy a Chinese tablet and then do their best to get it to talk to google store etc.
Amazon also I believe sale tablets that have a modified Android OS that doesn't report to Google......
How hard would it be for the Russian government to write a version for use on government systems only.....
It was a reply to another post where Lost all faith... posted the below
Re: It really is sad......
yes, they will create a ultra secure version with no way of getting info back to Google, then they will download Facebook and twitter from the Play store.
No Joke Icon, well, just because.
The worst of the worst is Facebook, it spies more than the NSA GCHQ CIA or any other agency does and reports back to Facebook all this information and they have the FBI stalking the corridors of the Facebook Campus. ;) Why do you think Zuckerberg is so interested in flying drones to 'connect the world to the internet'? at the same time it is taking pictures and pulling information, posts and messages and anything else.
Never trust Facebook if you want your private information kept private!
Could it possibly be because of all the malware available for Android?
Even if the Russian governments own coders build their own Androidski, given the large number of excellent Russian programmers working for botnet purveyors, who _doesn't_ expect Kremlin mobe traffic to appear on the (BitCoin?) market for sale to the highest bidder?
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I guess nobody endorses Putin's actions as of late over here in the Western World [tm].
However, he's got a point. In all the NSA/MI5/GHCQ snooping conversations a couple of months ago, most of us were looking for non-American products to escape Big Bro. Apple is one of America's success stories. Getting there will include some lobbying/endorsement from the government etc.
We don't know for sure, because iPhones/iPads are more or less black boxes. Sure, not everything Android is open source, either, but it's more "accessible" than IOS.
Given the political and diplomatical situation Putin has got himself into, he cannot possibly have Apple in the Kremlin. Moving to Samsung makes a lot of sense. And I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of VERY good developers in Russia who can improve things (Androidski, as someone called it) for Russia's purpose. (Not all Russian developers are naughty boys who move on the dark side of [western] law)
Again, I'm in no way pro Putin. But this decision is sensible from his point of view. And unlike most western politicians, he at least has got balls. (I'm sure most western governments still use American products after complaining about them, e.g. Germany's Mrs Merkel and others)
Methinks the tech editor at the graunIad has been inspired by this.
No mention of IOS being abandoned over there, though maybe because with the Ipropaganda so heavy and dated, no comments are allowed on that latest iAd
I'm not linking but the title is "Which phones do world leaders use"
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