“‘If your cell phone is not an iPhone, Nexus or Pixel, it is unsafe … – Digital Look

No shortage of examples of security flaws in smartphones that enable the devices to be controlled by third parties. But according to Chris Soghoian, a technologist of the Union of Civil Liberties of the United States (ACLU acronym in English), this problem is even greater than we realize.

According to Soghoian, the only devices that are actually secure in the current market are the iPhones, Nexus devices, and the newly released Pixel, the Google. The iPhones because they incorporate trusted technologies of cryptography and security; the Nexus and the Pixel because they receive security updates in Google. All the others are susceptible to failures that compromise all of the data contained on the devices.

the Story of surveillance

The issue of security in smartphones has emerged as part of a speech Soghoian, during the Mozfest 2016, on the surveillance of the governments on the media. According to the activist, and technologist, “telecom companies have a history of more than a century of cooperation with the surveillance efforts of governments.” For this reason, “our communications systems were built with this surveillance in mind,” according to him.

There was, however, a positive change in this situation with the revelations made by Edward Snowden about the schema of mass surveillance of the government of the United States. Since then, Google has started to use the HTTPS secure protocol by default in your web browser, which initiated a process of strengthening the digital security.

Google has been followed by other tech giants, like Facebook and Apple, in their initiative to make HTTPS the default protocol. Currently, according to Soghoian, thanks to these attitudes, more than half of the traffic that circulates in the Firefox browser, from Mozilla, uses this protocol.

digital Security as a privilege

When smartphones started to become common items of communication, however, that safety culture was not yet so strong. For this reason, many users of these devices end up having an attitude little safe with the data that they share with technology companies.

The Apple is a positive example, since it has been incorporated-disk encryption by default on their iPhones. In addition, the company releases quickly security updates to their users. In this way, the majority of iPhone users have the latest version – and more secure – from your operating system. Android, on the other hand, “is a freak show with regards to security,” said Soghoian.

This, however, created a situation in which the digital security on smartphones has become a kind of privilege. “Yes, the iPhone is safe, but it costs$ 600. This generates the risk that the digital security is a luxury, something only accessible to those who can pay for it,” said the activist. This situation, in the opinion of Soghoian, threatens to deepen social inequalities that already exist in the world.