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Cellphones Google Security

Nexus One vs. Top 10 Phone Security Requirements 189

hiouridah writes "Consumer Grade or Enterprise Ready? The Nexus One is entering a smart phone market that is taking increasing heat from enterprises for their lack of robust security features. So how does the Nexus One stack up?"
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Nexus One vs. Top 10 Phone Security Requirements

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  • N1 vs Iphone (Score:5, Informative)

    by Karganeth ( 1017580 ) on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @12:49PM (#30671256)
    521MB RAM vs 256MB RAM
    800x480 vs 480x320
    1Ghz vs 600Mhz
    5MP vs 3MP
    AMOLED vs TFT

    To top it off the nexus one is a slimmer device. Need I say anymore? The iPhone is no longer king! Hoorah!
  • by DJRumpy ( 1345787 ) on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @01:21PM (#30671746)

    Screen Lock (including gestures to unlock in addition to alphanumeric codes)
    VPN support
    Standard Wireless Support (Wireless-N as well which is nice)
    Application Sandboxing
    Lacks Corporate Policy Enforcement (fail for enterprise)
    Application Signing - Doesn't require trusted signers which defeats the purpose
    No hardware encryption (fail for enterprise)
    No Remote Wipe (fail for enterprise)

    IMO, the phone definitely seems ready for the home user, but is very lacking for enterprise

  • by MediaStreams ( 1461187 ) on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @01:21PM (#30671756)

    http://www.intomobile.com/2009/11/12/apple-iphone-takes-third-place-in-q3-global-smartphone-sales.html [intomobile.com]

    Nokia is the king.
    RIM behind them.

    And finally Apple in third place. So, no, Apple and iPhone isn't the king of anything in the cellphone market.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @02:07PM (#30672474)

    Nice try.. As per this post, Blackberry backed-down and allowed Indian Government to snoop BB users.

    http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/22/rim-allows-indian-government-to-monitor-blackberry-network/

  • by Patch86 ( 1465427 ) on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @02:14PM (#30672560)

    And no consumers want choice, right? People much prefer to compromise on what they want from a product because of a limited product line, obviously!

    (Nokia sells a range of different devices filling a whole range of price and hardware niches. Seeing as their combined range outsells Apples combined range by a considerable amount, I'd guess it's a strategy which is serving them pretty well).

  • by Hurricane78 ( 562437 ) <deleted @ s l a s h dot.org> on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @02:16PM (#30672594)

    I’m sure if you ask the Japanese, they will laugh in your face. But a quick comparison:

    Nexus One vs iPhone vs. N900

    CPU: 1GHz Qualcomm SnapDragon | 600 Mhz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX | 600 MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX
    RAM: 512MB | 256MB | 1GB
    Display: 800x480 AMOLED | 480x320 TFT | 800x480 TFT
    Camera: 5 MP, LED flash | 3 MP, no flash | 5 MB + 0.3 MP (dual), LED flash | (All without optical zoom, which in this day and age, is pathetic.)
    Storage: 4 GB + unlimited | 16 GB (fixed) | 32 GB + unlimited
    Battery: 1400 mAh | 1219 mAh (non-removable) | 1320 mAh | (all 3.7 V li-ion)
    Input: capacitive touchscreen + trackball | multi-touch touchscreen | resistive touchscreen + 38-key backlit keyboard
    OS: Android | iPhone OS | Maemo Linux
    Dimensions: 119 * 59.8 * 11.5 mm | 115.5 * 62.1 * 12.3 mm | 110.9 * 59.8 * 18 mm
    Java support: yes | no | yes
    GPS: They all got A-GPS and Wi-Fi triangulation is possible with a software. Although from what I heard, the iPhone has that software built-in. (I bought it for 3€ for my Nokia, so not much trouble there.)
    Ability to put on it and do with it what you want: likely | locked down | absolutely
    FM radio: no | no | yes

    That’s about the differences I could make out. I hope this gives a better picture. I tried to stay unbiased. (And I’m sure I will draw hate for this. ;) As always: No guarantees.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @02:25PM (#30672734)

    I doubt its because of security soley. Its the BES management features that really sell it. Centralized policies, remote wipes, etc. Security is only part of that.

    True.

    The BB system relies on your pumping your mail to Ontario and BB's getting it from Ontario.

    Not true. RIM does have NOCs around the world.

    Its not a direct connection to the BES server in your enterprise. So any outtage in Ontario means an outtage for you.

    Not everyone goes through the Ontario NOC, although North America does.

    Not sure how good of an idea that is, especially since Android and other Activesync phones connect straight to your mail server just like any email client, and not through BB's proxies, which can be compromised.

    The beauty of the Blackberry Enterprise Server platform is that it doesn't matter if RIM's infrastructure is compromised. The encryption keys are located in two places: on the blackberry, and on your Blackberry Enterprise Server, which runs on a server in your office. RIM does not have the keys to decrypt. The cell phone carrier does not have the keys to decrypt.

    That is part of the reason the Blackberry Enterprise Server platform has been audited & received so many security certifications: http://na.blackberry.com/eng/ataglance/security/certifications.jsp [blackberry.com]

    How many security certifications does the iphone have? Android? Nokia? I strongly suspect the answer is none.

    Not everyone needs the level of security offered by Blackberry, but some of us do.

    Sure they use end to end security but how feasible are MITM attacks?

    Once a blackberry is activated with a Blackberry Enterprise Server, not possible. You can even set up the key exchange between the Blackberry Enterprise Server & the blackberry over a usb cable - hard to spoof that.

  • by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @02:37PM (#30672900)

    Thanks, for some reason Google failed me. But it would probably be better to direct to the actual article rather than a tech blog about the article...

    http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/RIM_agrees_to_pass_BlackBerry_content_on_condition/rssarticleshow/3056271.cms [indiatimes.com]

    from the article:

    "The encrypted data packets sent through BlackBerry are password protected and could be deciphered only with the help of "Public Key" and "Private Key" together. The other provision is to build a super computer, which could take nearly three years and the results beyond a certain frequency were not guaranteed.

    So yeah they "helped" the Indian government snoop but hardly gave them a master key.

  • by jspenguin1 ( 883588 ) <jspenguin@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @02:38PM (#30672916) Homepage

    The N900 has 256MB actual RAM, plus 768MB swap on an internal MMC card. It has to have more memory because unlike the iPhone and Android, applications must be explicitly closed (by closing the window) before they are unloaded.

    The internal storage card is split into three partitions: 2GiB app storage, 768MiB swap, 25GiB user. The reason the app storage is separate is because it is formatted ext3, but the user storage must be formatted FAT for Windows hosts to access it through USB Mass Storage. Some applications (games, mostly) do install large data files there, though.

  • Re:4 real issues (Score:3, Informative)

    by Enderandrew ( 866215 ) <enderandrew&gmail,com> on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @02:38PM (#30672922) Homepage Journal

    If I recall (and I can be mistaken) the big issue is that the iPhone can only do encryption one-way when syncing. Apple was literally bidding on a government contract for iPhone usage in the military, and the bid got thrown out when that was uncovered.

    Oddly enough, Apple has still yet to fix the issue.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @05:08PM (#30674894)

    I hate to be a party pooper, but with respect to the N900:
    RAM: my N900 only has 256MB of RAM. The other 768 is swap!
    Camera: The front camera is disabled and should be discounted until such time as nokia actually releases firmware supporting it to the public.
    Storage: SDHC is not unlimited
    Software: The official Ovi store is not open yet, and maemo-extras is kinda slow on the community approval. Apps are supposed to install to /opt, but many forget or fail to optify everything so the tiny flash / slowly fills up. There's a large backlog of software from previous devices not yet ported to Maemo5, if ever.

    There are some unmentioned advantages; the n900 has tv out, and an IR emitter. And we get Fennec, so yay.

  • by indiechild ( 541156 ) on Wednesday January 06, 2010 @11:03PM (#30678448)

    The universe doesn't revolve around the US.

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. -- Frank Hubbard

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