Russian Officials Dump iPads For Samsung Tablets Over Spy Fears

wiredmikey writes: "Russian government officials have swapped their iPads for Samsung tablets to ensure tighter security, the telecoms minister told news agencies on Wednesday. Journalists spotted that ministers at a cabinet meeting were no longer using Apple tablets, and minister Nikolai Nikiforov confirmed the changeover "took place not so long ago." He said the ministers' new Samsungs were "specially protected devices that can be used to work with confidential information." This isn't the first time Russian powers have had concerns over mobile. In August 2012, Russia unveiled a prototype tablet with its own "almost Android" mobile OS that has the remarkably familiar feel of an Android but with bolstered encryption. In an even more paranoid move, this past July a Russian state service in charge of safeguarding Kremlin communications was looking to purchase an array of old-fashioned typewriters to prevent leaks from computer hardware."

Someone will make money

[gnasher719]

What are the odds that someone high up has a company that offers expensive software to protect Android from spies and makes a ton from this?

Paranoia?

[FuegoFuerte]

Just because they're paranoid doesn't mean we aren't out to get them.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Someone will make money

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the same as the odds that their fears about their old tablets being exploitable were completely justified.

Globalization

[jellomizer]

The iPad: The OS Designed in America, Built in China shipped worldwide.
Samsung Tablet: The OS Designed in America, Built in China and shipped world wide.

The only difference is which CEO gets the Cut The one in America or the one in Korea.

NSA to Apple: Add spying to your OS or you will not be allowed to sell it world wide.
NSA to Google: Add spying to your OS or you will not be allowed to sell it world wide.
NSA to Samsung: Insure the spying features in your OS are not disabled unless you will not be allowed to sell in the US.

"Paranoid"

[pr0nbot]

In the post-Snowden world, I think we can replace most instances of the word "paranoid" with "reasonable".

Re:Paranoia?

[siddesu]

They aren't paranoid enough then. It is hard to see how using a Samsung device with Google instead of an Apple tablet and iOS is making them safer from spying.

Re:Globalization

[tlhIngan]

Android is open source.
Both countries have the resources to go through Android with a fine toothed comb.

And AOSP != Android. In fact, who knows what code that Samsung tablet is running. There can be plenty of proprietary code on Android that's binary only, and no amount of analysis of AOSP will find them because that's not the code running on the tablet.

Code for the GPU is often closed-source. As is camera code, DSP code (for audio), etc.

And hell, If it's Samsung, it probably ships with Google apps as well, powered by root-owned Google Services Framework.

They'd actually be better off dumping iPads for those chintzy $100 tablets - those tend to be practically pure Google and very little of it is proprietary.

Those proprietary blobs will will you.

Re:Someone will make money

[bberens]

They should use Windows 8 RT tablets. No one bothered to figure out how to hack both of the users of that platform.

Re:Paranoia?

[chihowa]

The software delivered on Samsung tablets isn't entirely open source, either. Anyway, iOS is built on Darwin (among many other open source components), which is open source, too.

None of Google's non-OS apps, including the Play Store, are open source. The words "open source" are not a complete explanation of this situation.

Re:Zero info in article

[LDAPMAN]

A $100 developer license is "impenetrable"? I can run anything I like on my iPad and I can deploy anything I like to the devices in my company.