[SGVLUG] U.S. government, military to get secure Android phones

[matti]

Open Source WIN!  Wow, this is a big announcement:
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U.S. government, military to get secure Android phones
http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/tech/mobile/government-android-phones/index.html?hpt=hp_bn6

..
"the government chose to work on Android first because Google already allows people to tinker freely with its code, said those working on the project. Federal officials have met with Apple, but they were told they could not have access to the core of the company's mobile operating system, said Angelos Stavrou, an information-security director at George Mason University who is working on the government project as a contractor, in a phone interview.
"Android was more cooperative in supporting some of the capabilities that we wanted to support in the operating system, whereas Apple was more averse," Stavrou told CNN. "They're shifting the strategy now." "

...

"Also atypical is that the NSA published the source code for SE Android online. The same will be done with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-funded project. Standardization group OpenSSL Software Foundation is helping with security compliance, said Steve Marquess, a co-founder for the company.
The NSA's Smalley announced the first release of SE Android with a two-sentence message two-sentence message on January 6 to a developer mailing list. He concluded by saying, "Enjoy!"
"We had to go through many hoops for that to happen," Stavrou said of the plan to open-source the software. "By handing the source code out, other people will be able to take a look and tell us about bugs." "