Secure Android and the Army Universal Remote

U.S. Government & Military To Get Secret-Worthy Android Phones

from TechCrunch by Greg Kumparak

The amount of stuff we trust to fly in and out of our smartphones is astounding. Just look at what happened when a couple of reporters got access to an unwitting (and rather unlucky)Apple employee’s iMessages alone — within days, they learned more about him than most people know about their closest friends.

Now, imagine all the stuff that could fly in and out of a government official’s phone, or that of a highly-ranked member of the military. Forget saucy texts and booty pictures — we’re talking about state secrets, here.

Looking to keep their secrets underwraps while on the go, the U.S government is working on a build of Android custom-tailored to meet their security requirements.

Word of the project comes from CNN, who notes that U.S. officials/soldiers aren’t currently allowed to send any classified data over their smartphones. If they need to transmit anything that might sink ships (so to speak), they currently need to find a secured (generally meaning hardwired) line hooked to an approved device.

Here’s the gist of the project:

• A limited number of soldiers will get the phones first, then federal agencies, then possibly contractors
• The U.S. won’t be building their own hardware — that’d be too expensive. Instead, they’ll be buying commercially available devices and reflashing them.
• They hoped to be able to offer iOS devices, but it’s not going to happen. CNN notes that federal officials met with Apple to request that they share their source — as you’d probably guess, Apple wasn’t too cool with that idea.
• Surprisingly, users of the handsets will be able to install new applications, though the handsets will put a specific emphasis on exactly what information the application can access and what it’s currently sending. Seems unlikely that they’d give these things full Android Market access, though — that’d be rather silly.
• The project is being funded by DARPA, with the NSA evaluating it as they go (while working on a version of their own, curiously.)

Most of the project’s details are still underwraps, but this is all still rather interesting. What hardware might they use? If DARPA makes any substantial security improvements to Android’s kernel, might that work make it back to the official branch? Might this work eventually be monetized (remember, Siri was born as a DARPA project) and offered to enterprises looking for a locked-down version of Android — and what does that mean for RIM/BlackBerry?

Army Tests ‘Universal Remote’ for Future Troopers

 from Danger Room by Nathan Hodge

On future battlefields, the Army wants to have an all-seeing array of drones, robots and sensors that will be tied together over a common network. But the real challenge will be bringing all that digital information down to the lowest level: The individual soldier.

That’s the idea behind a recent series of tests pairing Land Warrior, a controversial array of infantry gadgets the service has trialed in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the Common Controller device, a developmental system that functions something like a “universal remote” for different robotic devices.

The Common Controller controls the Class I Unmanned Aerial System (a.k.a. the “flying beer keg“), theMultifunctional Utility/Logistics Equipment vehicle (a robotic cart) and the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (a portable, tracked ‘bot). It can also connect to Urban Unattended Ground Sensors (U-UGS), which are a fancy, networked version of the intrusion detection sensors you might find in your household alarm system. Problem is, this networked central controller works only at the battalion level and above. 


This new experiment — called theCommon Controller & Man packable Network Interoperability and Network Evaluation Experiment — is supposed to bring sensor data from these unmanned systems to smaller units equipped with Land Warrior gear.


An example: In the experiment, a Common Controller operator sent out a robot to recce a building. The ‘bot spotted a someone exiting a vehicle that appeared to be loaded with explosives. The operator then snapped a pic of the suspect’s image and sent it — along with a text message — to a Land Warrior-equipped platoon. The digital grunts then set up a checkpoint and snared the bad guy.

In real life, things probably won’t be that simple. But the experiment did test the ability to pass information down to the individual soldier on the ground. Instead of just sucking up information from networked vehicles or robots into a tactical operations center, this kind of system has the potential to distribute it to individual troopers.


Lt. Col. James McNulty, product manager for the Common Controller team, said in an Army news release the experiment proved out three things. “First, we were able to push data and imagery collected by networked sensors down to small unit leaders at the company and below level,” he said. “Second, we connected platoons and companies together and finally we were able to send data and real time information up into the network.”