“Samsung Electronics Co. is close to signing deals for its devices with two U.S. government agencies, according to people familiar with the matter, signs that the South Korean company’s push into the government sector traditionally dominated by BlackBerry Ltd. is gaining some traction,” Will Connors reports for The Wall Street Journal.
“The deals, one a large order with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the other a smaller order with the U.S. Navy, haven’t yet closed, according to these people,” Connors reports. “The Samsung devices aimed at the FBI and Navy will come preloaded with the company’s KNOX security offering, according to a person familiar with the deals, meant to add a layer of security to the standard Android operating system from Google Inc.”
Connors reports, “The FBI and Navy orders are expected to be relatively small, but they could be seen as an indicator to other government agencies and security-conscious companies that Samsung devices are ready to use.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: By SteveJack
Why would the U.S. government choose an insecure mobile operating system on devices from a South Korean convicted infringer of a U.S. company’s patented intellectual property over said U.S. company’s vastly more secure products?
Could it be due to the fact that Google has already inserted some U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) code into Android while Apple does not accept code from any government agencies for any of their operating systems or any other products?
Nah, couldn’t be. I must be craaazzzy!
I long for a simpler time. A saner time. A time when rewarding foreign companies that have been convicted of stealing intellectual property from U.S. companies with contracts financed with U.S. taxpayer money would be utterly unthinkable, not close at hand.
Along with U.S. taxpayers who value their hard-earned money, any U.S. representative worth his or her salt should be livid right about now. That only one or two might be (if we’re even that lucky), is a pitiful testament to the absolutely clueless, generally moronic, and largely worthless dreck that fouls the houses of the U.S. Congress today.
Will some U.S. Congressperson or Senator finally luck out and stumble into a clue, then stand up and ask WTF is really going on here?
If not, a plague on both your houses, you unpatriotic fools.
U.S. citizens, contact your U.S. congressperson here.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, former web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dominick P.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Google has already inserted some U.S. NSA code into Android – July 10, 2013
Snowden: Apple, Facebook, Google can resist U.S. NSA – June 17, 2013
Mobile Threats Report: Android accounts for 92% of all mobile malware – June 26, 2013
Latest self-replicating Android Trojan looks and acts just like Windows malware – June 7, 2013
99.9% of new mobile malware targets Android phones – May 30, 2013
Mobile malware exploding, but only for Android – May 14, 2013
Mobile malware: Android is a bad apple – April 15, 2013
F-Secure: Android accounted for 96% of all mobile malware in Q4 2012 – March 7, 2013
New malware attacks Android phones, Windows PCs to eavesdrop, steal data; iPhone, Mac users unaffected – February 4, 2013
FBI issues warning over Android malware attacks – October 15, 2012
Researchers discover serious flaw in Android app security, say HTC and Samsung ignore issue – September 28, 2012
Apple’s iPhone has passed a key security threshold – August 13, 2012
Android permissions flaw allows eavesdropping, data theft, location tracking – December 2, 2011
Massive HTC Android security flaw leaves security expert speechless – October 2, 2011
Apple’s iOS unaffected by malware as Android exploits surge 76% – August 24, 2011
Android malware records phone calls; iPhone users unaffected – August 2, 2011
Symantec: Apple iOS offers ‘full protection,’ Google Android ‘little protection’ vs. malware attacks – June 29, 2011
Malware apps spoof Android Market to infect Android phones – June 21, 2011
Google forced to pull several malware-infested apps from Android market – June 8, 2011
Android malware sees explosive growth; even faster than with PCs – April 27, 2011
Virus-laden apps infest Google’s ‘open’ Android platform; iPhone unaffected – March 3, 2011
Security firm warns of new Android trojan that can steal personal information; iPhone unaffected – December 30, 2010
Trojan infects Android smartphones; iPhone unaffected – August 10, 2010
Millions of Android phone users slammed by malicious data theft app – July 29, 2010
Unlike proactive Apple, reactive Google doesn’t block malware from Android app store – June 4, 2010
Malware designed to steal bank information pops up in Google’s Android app store – January 11, 2010
NOW we’re doomed.
MDN Take = wild unsupportable speculation, and yes, you are crazy.
NOW we’re doomed.
/s
Well I must admit I cant think of an alternative one at present so as Sherlock Holmes said…
Denial is like a low flame under a kettle. The lobster doesn’t know he’s getting cooked. That’s how the power establishment like it. You’re doing them a favor.
Shouldn’t we have a say in this? :/
No, not doomed… The deal is so the FBI and NCIS can figure out how to break in, hack, and monitor all users of android phones.
Shouldn’t be too hard….
Incredulous! (not credulous; disinclined or indisposed to believe; skeptical.
indicating or showing unbelief: an incredulous smile.)
I’m gonna wait on this one. Dumbass Obama ordered a pile of Raspberry, oops I mean Blackberry slate things for his staff but relented, dumped them and got them iPads instead.
I’m hoping similar shaming will hit the FBI and Navy before they screw themselves over with Samsung dreck.
Here’s a little incentive to wake them the hell up:
Family of “BadNews” malware in Google Play downloaded up to 9 million times
http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/04/family-of-badnews-malware-in-google-play-downloaded-up-to-9-million-times/
Android malware cases to hit 1 million in 2013
Trend Micro annual threat report says Android malware follows in footsteps of Windows threats but at faster rate.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/012313-android-malware-266061.html
Oh and I forgot this gem!
254,158 Android apps are ‘malicious’ as mobile malware skyrockets 614%, Juniper says
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/26/254158-android-apps-are-malicious-as-mobile-malware-skyrockets-614/
This is complete insanity. Does Google own this administration, or what?
Why, yes. Yes, we do.
Yup. The U.S. government is a complete joke!
… Or a complete crime.
Why don’t we wait and see if this deal ever happens before going rabid…. I can place a story that the Navy and FBI are “planning” to buy my Grandma’s cookies…. It ain’t so till the orders are signed
When the orders are signed, it is too late.
Impeach, convict, hang. This is the responsibility of Congress.
It is inevitable than an American Nuremberg would lead to an American Renaissance. Without it, all is lost to another Dark Age of tyranny and ignorance.
correction: 11-22-63. You’re new on the planet.
True. Even without the forces pitilessly bearing down upon us, we are all dead in the long run, as economists humourlessly remind us.
Without it, all is lost to another Dark Age of tyranny and ignorance.
Too insightful botvinnik. Let’s wait until The Last Dark Age hits town before we start mourning its arrival. Look me up on that day.
okay, we can do wine and bread for supper. Please don’t bring that Magdalene bitch this time.
oh you heathen scum. 😉
heh.
It’s no more than another symptom of losing the moral high ground.
an astute comment. There is no high moral ground in the financial enrichment of defense contractors and international banking manipulating American patriotism to drone and napalm people who defend themselves with sticks that are absolutely no threat to our security. It is the policy of a Roman vomitorium whose imperialism has come home to roost.
Thank you for your feedback. Your point of napalm on the people defending themselves with sticks that are absolutely no threat to your security is indicative of something that I’ve felt for a number of years now unfortunately, that the US is a threat to global security.
That attitude certainly has consequences over the long run, with similarities to the Roman Empire no doubt.
There is no cure for human nature, any more than there is a remedy for hurricanes or plague. The only possible hope is for an enlightened government that can shine for a brief moment of global sanity, before reverting to another generation of darkness.
Time, then, to begin personal healing. You are not alone. We all face the darkness together, and together we provide the warmth and light that holds back the night. And, ideas are not insane—only people can be that. I doubt you are among them.
“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.”
you are not alone.
Sorry to hear this Armando. Despite the barrage of what I call ‘other people problems’ that hit us in our human world, there is always to choice to make a positive step forward, if only for ourselves. It’s always there, even at the moment just before they push that last big red button.
Seriously, isn’t Hannah kewl?
I don’t see human nature as something requiring a cure, any more than hurricanes or plagues. Humans have been around living harmonically with the dynamics of nature and they still are. That is the nature of living things.
“There is no cure for human nature.” A given, but among civilized people there is law. A great gift was given to Americans, a balance and a check. Constitutional law has been subverted and whored, we, and our children and grandchildren, during our “watch,” will pay for our apathy
.
“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”
I din’t think I would ever say this to you bot, you may want to iCal it.
I agree with this statement 100%. Astute and correct IMO.
perhaps “Truth” has seen the light.
whores are immune to embarrassment.
The US is lost. The Navy is already inviting the Chinese to participate in the largest Navy yearly tactical exercise in the Pacific. You are witnessing the fall of the USA.
“yes, we can.”
I wont argue your time frame but I would say this: “for one brief, shining moment there was Camelot.”
http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/executiveorder11110.htm
true, but that is not the important thing. The important thing was his attempt to subvert the Federal Reserve with the United States Note. The Federal Reserve is the ultimate Ponzi scheme that engineers the fruit of American labor to borrow its own money and pay interest to international banks that have created nothing and unconstitutionally, control the printing of US currency.
Ironically, JFK’s executive order was never rescinded, it can be reinstated tomorrow morning.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] . . . will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered . . . The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
quote, Thomas Jefferson.
Let us ignore how close Kennedy came to starting World War III. Russia pulled the missiles out of Cuba instead of pressing the button. Kennedy did not remove their missiles from Turkey.
Kennedy was ridiculously ballsy but Khrushchev backed down. What if he didn’t back down?
“What if he didn’t back down?”
you’d be telling your ass “das vadanya” this morning.
No one trusts the US. Except the UK. You’ll always have the UK no matter what. That poodle is not for turning.
surely Politicians aren’t afraid of a company (Google) which are the greatest database experts in the world and the largest Advertising and PR company?
The company that can control the search results when politicians names are mentioned (like putting all the NEGATIVE press on the TOP? Google has already been charged numerous times for skewing search results… ) and which owns public sites like Youtube which might contain videos of them? Can it be that politicians whose lifeblood is public opinion cares about search results and videos of themselves ? Naw….
Surely they are not afraid of google which can track all the websites that politicians and their close associates look at or even their emails?
Of course politicians aren’t in awe of the company google whose one time leader Schmidt is credited with coordinating via database mining and directed targeting (i.e SPYING on hundreds of millions) that won the presidential election campaign? Something which was so successful in reaching voters (Politicians Golden Goose) that Schmidt was offered a cabinet post. Naw politicians aren’t afraid that this ability to reach and target specific groups will be used against them if they aren’t careful….
Surely they have not taken all the above into consideration when they decided not to attack the fact that a foreign company that already has been convicted (convicted not alleged) of stealing an american companies intellectual property is being offered contracts with the FBI and defence department? No I’m sure politicians aren’t afraid of Google and their friends….
Seek professional help.
enjoy your stay at FEMA camp, perhaps they will provide professional “help.”
Deary me, why do you come across as a rational human, then suddenl start talking like a complete fruitcake?
Forget to take your meds in the morning or something?
You’ve also left out the Queen of England being one of the Lizard People helping to control the world…
It is quite simple. The government Just wants to do what carriers have always insisted on doing…inserting their crap onto droid to give them a sense of ownership/power. The carriers want to spy on you and the government wants to spy on you. Simple.
Bingo
SteveJack said:
If not, a plague on both your houses, you unpatriotic fools.
Yeah, I noticed. Compliment accepted. 😉
Offensive AND funny.
But nothing is stopping Samsung from becoming a respectable company, except themselves.
Oh dear. I wanted to bonk you on the noggin again, but you had to bring up Detroit. What a catastrophic modern American failure. I mourn.
John, I think you know what the true topic of this discussion is.
Its Only NEAR DEAL and probably 100 units.
A really sound and reliable company for the US military to deal with:
Don’t do it. Samsung should not be trusted
So Google / Android / Samsung are now officially the Internet enablers of the NSA?
So now the Koreans will now be spying on the FBI & US Navy via Google/Android/Samsung devices with Samsung KNOX?
Being Australian, I’m not American (duh!) but would be hopping mad if I were. I thought this issue would come under the Buy American act or “The Berry Amendment (USC, Title 10, Section 2533a), requires the Department of Defense to give preference in procurement to domestically produced, manufactured, or home-grown products”.
Excellent MacDailyNews Take By SteveJack. As always, he’s dead on.
Speechless 🙁
I think that to watch this happen would be just like to watch Hitler seizing the power in early 30’s. No matter what you do, no matter what you find about it ugliness, utterly all efforts are useless cause someone else is making (lots) of money out of this evil. There is no other explanation…but we all know the end of this…
I have started a petition at the White House to request that companies that have been found to steal US IP are disqualified for 10 years from selling any products to the US government. Go sign it and pass it on. https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/user/reset/51496781/1374239393/_i6PCACW_fbomVJSzbYNQpilIJ1ZHGyBjhI5nqc6F24