The modified Android software will be installed on commercially available handsets and can be used to support top-secret dispatches; something that the government doesn’t yet allow for. In the future, soldiers could use the handsets to locate other troops or quickly communicate orders to a group securely.
Ironically, the government group formed to manage the Android software project has already made a bold claim that makes the carriers look silly from where I stand.
Information-security director at George Mason University, Angelos Stavrou, is a contractor on the project and said when Google updates its Android software, an update to the secure Android phones can be ready within two weeks. Given that carriers can take 6 months or more to provide Android updates on some handsets, one of them should hire Stavrou away from this project!
