Support for LAist comes from
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Stay Connected
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Listen
Podcasts Take Two
What if the FBI tried to hack an Android phone instead?
solid orange rectangular banner
()
Feb 26, 2016
Listen 7:54
What if the FBI tried to hack an Android phone instead?
What if the San Bernardino shooters were like most Americans and had a phone with Google's Android – the most popular smartphone system in the U.S. and the world?
A Samsung phone using Google's Android operating system
()

What if the San Bernardino shooters were like most Americans and had a phone with Google's Android – the most popular smartphone system in the U.S. and the world?

The maker of the most popular smartphone system says it's against helping the FBI hacking into the iPhone of the San Bernardino shooters.

It's not Apple, though – it's Google.

Google's Android system operates on a majority of smartphones in the U.S. and the world, like Samsung Galaxies and Google's Nexus line.

But what if the San Bernardino shooters were like most Americans and had one of those phones in their hands? Would it be just as secure?

Mark Bergen from the technology site ReCode explains that the answer is complicated because different versions of Android run on different phones, and some are more tightly locked than others.