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Obama Keeps His Blackberry (And Gets a Sectera)
InternetVoting writes "After all the controversy surrounding Obama's Blackberry, word has come that he will get to keep it. Few details are available and neither the National Security Agency nor the White House are talking. The current rumor is that the Blackberry will be used exclusively for personal use and a Sectera Edge will be used for official communications."
Kinda like rnc.org for personal use and whitehouse.gov for official communications?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
The main reason for the President himself to not to have something like a personal BlackBerry or other personal communications devices -- ones which is he is publicly known to have, anyway -- is simply the high-profile nature and symbolism of the target. It doesn't matter that other federal agencies and the military use them for one purpose or another.
This is the case even with all the compelling "finger on the pulse of [insert subject du jour here]" and Information Age tempo arguments. The fact is that the President will have an army of aides who can all have their fingers directly on the multitude of things that the President cares about and needs to know about.
And in the event that a case is made, internal to the administration, that the President -- now or in the future -- really needs to have his own personal communications device(s), that fact in itself -- not to mention the specific equipment and carriers -- doesn't need to be, and, frankly, shouldn't be, publicly disclosed.
Also, from the article:
This is for a variety of reasons, but security is not necessarily one of them. For example, an IM service offered by the DNI's Intelligence Community Enterprise Solutions group does provide instant messaging services using the open Jabber protocol up to the TOP SECRET/SCI level.
Yay another trump for technology to be controlled by intelligence rather then greed and marketing :) hopefully he will make some progress on switching to FOSS within the federal gov this year..
Since Obama is commander in chief of the military shouldn't he be able to use the same technology (Blackberry) they use? If our national defense is entrusted to a product why would that not be good enough for the boss?
It turns out, that, after trashing Bush and Cheney for eight years for not making all of their communications public, the first thing the new Democratic President does is get for himself a means of making private communications based on his word that it will be for personal use only.
Frankly, I don't dispute the right of any President to have secret communications. He needs to be judged by his work product and not be constantly subject to the Congress. It was wrong for Republicans to harrass Clinton during his Presidency and it was wrong for Bush to be harrassed as well. IT's not because, ideally, the President is above the law, but it is because, he (or she!), is not subjugated to the Congress. They are equal branches of government.
This is my sig.
RIM gets an unlimited amount of free advertising over this being headline news for a month!
So was I. It's a "Secure Mobile Environment Portable Electronic Device", it's made by General Dynamics, and you can read more about it here.
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
The Washington Post had a truly idiotic story today entitled: "Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages" that seemed (to me) silly. Among the statements: " The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software." seemed the silliest in that it implies that six-year old software (WinXP?) is "old". The author needs to be told that just because newer is available doesn't mean there is a business sense to use it! From the article: "What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking." The young'uns should learn there are reasons to make those things unavailable. Like, uhhh, security? Think back to when Clinton took office and his minions were saying the same kinds of things about the WH phone system left by Bush 1...that is used "dial phones" (for christ's sake!)...and everything had to go through the WH switchboard. There was a reason for that as the Clintonites found when they "modernized". Suddenly the WH began leaking info like a sieve when the "new technology" was adopted. Watch for the same thing to happen here! For the record: I didn't vote for Obama or McCain but it seems like this article was another kick at GWB.
To put my comments in their proper context, it's a good idea to disclose that I'm Canadian.
Having said that, I understand the national security concerns with Obama using a Blackberry. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't all Blackberry traffic pass through RIM's servers in Waterloo, Ontario. Given the fact that such information can be intercepted on foreign soil should be worrisome to a U.S. security agency such as the NSA.
Other smartphones don't appear to have that problem. Perhaps the NSA can persuade Obama to get an iPhone instead? :D
This space left intentionally blank.
One for "personal" use and one for secure stuff? Bad idea!
We all know that secure stuff will accidentally done on the personal device. It's just too hard and inconvenient to try to manually control these types of problems.
Pick one device, make sure it is secure by default and you're much better off.
... so it's no different than owning an iPod. Official email will still be made a matter of public record, and he's going to be the first president to use email at all, largely because the former chiefs didn't want it on file.
And now we are told that Obama 'promises' to only use his blackberry for personal communications. I am sure he has every good intention to comply, but, as with Palin, we see that routine use of personal assets while in a government job can lead to a confusion and misuse between the personal asset and government property. One can imagine Palin logged onto her yahoo account simply writing a government note because it was more efficient that logging into the proper account, or thinking that since she was staying in her own home on government business, that the taxpayers should help her pay her mortgage.
Which is to say that we cannot trust that our officials are always doing the right thing, no matter how moral or trustworthy we think they are. If Obama uses the blackberry, then it still has to fall under the FOIA. If that means we get hundreds of pages of 'thinking of you dear', that is fine. At least we will know that he is not plotting to defraud the American consumers by colluding with oil company executives.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
They are equal branches of government.
The separation of powers defined in the Constitution do not make for an *equal* separation of powers. Congress has much more authority than the other two branches of federal government.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
So tell me - does the RNC still pay you even though they're not in power anymore, or are you just contracted through the end of the month?
Im not an expert of the Freedom of Information Act(FOIA), but govenment communications I believe are subject to the act, but I don't think that his personal Crackberry would be subject to it.
On Monday, a government agency that the Obama administration -- but that is probably the National Security Agency -- added to a standard blackberry a super-encryption package.... and Obama WILL be able to use it ... still for routine and personal messages.
Sentence goes -- but that isn't so... and someone WILL be -- understanding of this ... still better than me.
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
...it's running Windows - the most secure OS available.
The separation of powers defined in the Constitution do not make for an *equal* separation of powers. Congress has much more authority than the other two branches of federal government.
Hamilton would disagree with you. If anything, he says that the President should be MORE powerful than the Congress, the role of the Congress to be a check on him, not the other way around.
http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa70.htm
This is my sig.
I know its not popular here, but if you RTFA and pay attention to other news sources, you'll find out that the NSA has modified Obama's Blackberry to the point that they are satisfied with it. Good enough for me.
all his communication to us would come in the form of burning Bushes and stone tablets
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Seriously, does this matter? Because its not news for nerds. Unless they changed the definition of nerd to "trendy mental midget".
If your wife was shooting you a text on your personal phone about waiting for you naked when you got home would want that sent out to a company wide distribution list. Give the man his personal belongings let him worry about using it properly and trust him a bit. I didn't even vote for the guy but this has been one of the stupidest arguments since the initial debates. We deal with this everyday at work, not on a grand scale like the presidency but the same principal, maybe worse we are always so scared of HIPAA around here.
Great, now I can track him. Anyone know his number?
but you, and other voters, are truly not the people who got him into office, let alone will you get credit for it or any other sort of acknowledgment. If you haven't figured it out by now this is a political machine, almost all of the people surrounding him are old school, hell this could be Clinton Part ][ considering many of the appointments.
The one thing many voters (fanbois in this case) and even too many members of the press have wrong is that being there when it happened does not entitle one to be part of history or history making. Sorry, if any Republican or Democrat gets into power it is simply through the machine. I have quite a few Republican diehards as friends and they still can't figure out how McCain got to be their nominee, just like some of my HRC supporter friends who are still in shock.
The reason he cannot have what he wants is because the office is more important than he is. That is the major fact everyone seems to forget here
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
...the number one ObamaFanBoy site?
Second stupid article about his Blackberry. What's next?
More specifically, why the hell is this on slashdot? Personally a large portion of America could care freaking less what device Obama uses. Not to mention, I could care less what he DOES regardless. Unless, of course he swallowed his blackberry and choked to death. Then it might be news.
Pax Vobiscum
Just what we need! Another story about Obama's BlackBerry. No doubt I'll be modded Troll for stating that this topic has been covered to death. ENOUGH!
This link has a little fun at W's expense, but doesn't quite state that he didn't use email at all.
More interesting, and IMHO more realistic, is that the President really can't use e-mail for much at all. National security pretty much dictates that. Remember, there are few email clients that aren't easily compromised or subverted to deliver malware. The Pentagon can't keep the bad stuff out. The White House must adhere to an even higher standard of information security. Archiving is a somewhat different discussion.
But the allegation that Obama will be the *first* President to make full use of Internet communication is a little bit of the general hysteria and history-bending that is going on, and predictably so. Let's just remember that despite our fondest wishes, the truth is what it is, not what we wanted it to be.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
canada is merely unincorporated usa territory
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Mr. President, you cannot carry that blackberry for security reasons."
"O RLY?!?"
"Mr. President, I'm afraid I must insist."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"You're fired."
"...You ca-"
"FIRED."
"Bu-"
"FIRED."
The Sectera Edge has numerous security bugs logged against it. I can't understand how the NSA can deem it MORE secure than BB.
Not having e-mail and telephone lines directly available seems pretty technological dark aged to me. Staff needing to use their own (or their foreign country cell phone) and setting up personal gmail accounts in order to do some work isn't helping white house procedures to keep work safe and according to some presidential's disclosure acts. I think the 6-year old O.S. is indeed a bit out-of-place and doesn't prove the point that is made, but relative seen, it's looks pretty dark.
Actually, it should be pretty transparent what devices the President uses for communication. The FOIA guarantees citizens the right to see what the government is talking about. This is why there have been so many stories about WH email follies.
Why would Barack be exempt from these rules? If he uses a smartphone we the people have the right to see what he sends on it. How do you determine what is 'personal use' for the POTUS? Arguably, nothing is personal as it's a 24x7 job.
Just ask Scooter Libby, and he was merely an assistant to the VPOTUS.
For a guy who promised to bring us a New Era of Transpancy and Openness, he's working very hard to keep us all guessing.
And of course "The One" can be trusted to keep official communications off his Blackberry. Yeah, sure. Imagine the kerfuffle were it revealed there were no recorded communications between Bush 43 and oh say Karl Rove on any known official e-mail system, the ACLU and the Dhimmicreeps would go berzerk.
is good news and we trak now this Obama. You capitalist dogs back to your gosip and rumeors.
Sectera, windows based, ie, give me a break, viruses, worms and trojans will be the norm. Obviously they are on the MS bandwagon with secure communications and battle ships running the os, but if ie really can be shored up to be really secure, why is it not by default. I say its just false security and more of that lobbying in action, yea buy our $3500 sectera even though its really not all that secure instead of getting a cheap blackberry and adding security to it and we will pad your pocket.
Anyone remember that book? Most of it was crap, but there was one point that has some validity: if you can intercept the signal, regardless of the medium, you can gain some information. What kind of information, and of what value? I'll leave that to your engineering imagination. I can see why the security folks would be howling over this, given all the possibilities.
visually, in terms of bulk and bells and whistles, they are kind of like the hummer version of military hardware compared to the jeep that is the blackberry
as an allegory to how the hummer gained popularity in the 1980s/ 1990s, perhaps the sectera will eventually be marketed to the public with the same cachet: overbearing quasimilitary american chic for the average suburbanite
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Your guys are chasing after Bush on a presumption of guilt of something,"
First, Bush Administration has de-facto admitted to both losing official communication, and claiming official communication is not required to be released contrary to well established law.
There is legitimate reason to question the Bush Admin's judgment on what is personal and what is not, on what is required to be released and what is not. At this juncture the Bush Admin should be required to open all communication to outside auditors. That is one of the many reasons a special prosecutor should be appointed by Obama to review actions of the Bush Admin and publicize findings where required by law or where illegal activities are discovered.
I agree that Congress has multiply failed the American people, both for the reasons you cite and more. But Bush has also failed his responsibility to the American people and the US Constitution. It is reasonable to hold Bush personally responsible for the actions of his Administration. Unfortunately it makes no sense to hold Congress responsible as an institution. Each citizen must hold their representative to Congress personally responsible.
Unfortunately there are only 2 ways I can think of to investigate improprieties of a Presidential Administration, through a special prosecutor appointed by that or a later Administration, or by Congress. And only Congress has the power within the US to hold that Administration accountable.
Ultimately this is where Congress failed the American people most miserably. They failed to investigate the egregiously illegal and immoral acts of the Bush Administration, largely because the Democrats were afraid of the same quagmire that befell the Reublicans after the Clinton impeachment hearings.
Next week the FOIA requests begin for official documents which mention "on my Blackberry instead".
To hear people on Slashdot talk positively about marketing / sales people. In any other case, you'd have a dozen posts about "those stupid sales weenies told some stupid president that we have to make this thing 'secure' and do it in 3 days with no extra help".
What those whining programmers sometimes fail to see is sometimes the sales/marketing staff know what they are doing. If I was RIM management, I sure as hell wouldn't want to loose the president as a client, bitching programmers be damned.
What I think Obama wants is to not loose contact to the people who got him into office in the first place.
...the word is "lose" not "loose" - somebody make a slash filter for this stupid yet common error!
And what's with the verbosity? Try this:
"I think Obama wants to maintain his connection with..."
I doubt that Blackberry / iPhone / Whatever would use the public cell network for any communications. And I could easily imagine RIM / Apple / Whoever making a one-off build of their product that uses the super-secret government spectrum instead.
"Bill Ayers please...... Bill? Barack. Here's my blackberry number and email; make sure you always use this one, not the official one. Ok? Great, be talking with you." click
"Mayor Daley please. Richard! Barack here! Great to talk to you. Listen, here's my blackberry number and email. Make sure you use this for, you know, private stuff. Like we used to. Just make sure Blago doesn't get it OK? Great! Let me know when you need anything. Oh, Fitzgerald being a pain? I'll see what I can do. Thanks! Talk to you later!" click
"Board president (heh!) Stroger please. Todd! Barack! Hows it hanging? No indictments you know of yet, heh, just kidding. Look, here's my blackberry number and email. Make sure you don't let any outsiders have them, right? Its just for the good old private stuff, you know? Don't tell Blago. Anyone stupid enough to get caught like that... well... anyway, keep in touch! Let me know if you need anything, like getting Fitzgerald reassigned to Podunk... Richard already brought that up. Later!" click
Expect to see this kind of thing for at least the next 100 days.
"Attention. Attention. Cold, hard reality will resume in T-minus 98 days, and counting...."
Regards;
Actually, I am happy he said it. It indicates that he hasn't realized that the ground beneath his feet has shifted. It indicates that he and others who think like him will continue down the path to political extinction.
Fromthis article comes a cute little tidbit.
""It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs."
Yeah. Not a good sign. If you were given a choice, which would you want your employees to be using, an Atari or an XBox?
Hint - what word processing software would you be running on the XBox?
I was expecting better mataphors from the Obama administration. Stick to the rotary-dial comparisons. They make more sense, even if they are still fairly out of touch with the reality.
Oh, and I want Facebook to be a prime app in the White House? NOT. Keep the network clean, guys. Update your Facebook pages on your iPhones. At least, try not to consort with known virus and malware sites, k?
We're gonna hear more of this, you bet.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Thanks
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
I can see where this is going! You want more porn!
Or does he have to carry at least three communications devices to qualify?
Obama will have no secrets or real privacy anyway. Every step, utterance or communication will be recorded. Even in the private residence he is still almost a prisoner. So if he gets a little joy thinking he's getting out of the maze (he won't) by using the Blackberry, more power to the poor sap.
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
Over the last 8 years, nothing has given the media more joy than kicking Bush around.
My observation is that the people kicking Bush around have been kindof cranky about it, and I'd bet most of the people who did it would have been happier to have a better president and less to talk about.
"What is Obama doing, or planning to do during his administration!"
The reason why these types of discussions tend to segue into the problems Bush presented is that at least one legitimate discussion tack is how Obama plans to try to undo some of what Bush did.
Bush is out of office, but his policies and the consequences are going to be relevant for a while yet, and for the moment, they're at least as relevant as Obama's potential choices.
Tweet, tweet.
I have a pimple on my ass. The question is: WHO THE HELL CARES?
Another day, another politician. If this has brought you hope of change you're a moron. If you think a newbee congress creature with more melanine than the last one will bring peace and joy you're not only a moron put a semi-retarded one.
Please get off the Obama kick. Don't we get enough of this crap from every other media outlet?
I think it's actually a very good idea for the President to have his personal and official communication devices completely separate. The last thing he needs is for his wife or kids to forward a funny video to him and get his official device infected by something.
Obama: "Why can't I keep my Blackberry? :'("
Jesse Jackson: "Because you're not REALLY black, your mother was white".
Obama: "What do I get then?"
Jesse Jackson: "A ZUNE!"
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
I hope that all the communications/data/etc on both devices are archived. This information belongs to the public, excluding the classified/sensitive items of course I hope he sticks to his transparency mantra. The previous administrations years of "losing" emails I hope doesn't return.
-- Hey, he can keep his blackberry, but only use it in the Oval office.
-- He keeps his blackberry, takes it with him, but it is open and public and well-maintained, and he shares it a lot with whoever he's with .. while also having his Sectera along for the ride, too.
Hey, come to think of it, he's the President now. Why doesn't he just get someone to **make** him the perfect wirehead rig, eh ..
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
As Schneier keeps telling us obscurity dosnt help!
The 'hardware' may well be pork, and needs looking at after 8 years. This is probably one of the things that the COS (Emmanuel) should look at, since there are lots of other vital bits of government communication that look very old, and at the very least should be looked at with "Think outside the box" mentality.
I would start with having Schneier and Ross Anderson, from Cambridge, shaddow Obama and start with mobile-phone, netbook and the nuclear code football which limits choice and cuffs the President.
"Chickenhead congressmen aren't really privy to the sort of information the president is. And securing a crackberry is like trying to secure a paper bag."
Well, not only do many congressioners have chickenheads, many have gullets, and narrow vision, to. But, that's beside the point. If somebody found a way to randomly slay 5% to 20% of chickens all around the country, it would be apparent that "continuity of business" is the problem, and not that "locating" the chickens is the problem.
If triangulation is the problem, mobile spread-spectrum nodes could be deployed at some technically feasible radius of the President. If data security is the problem, same thing. Just S/S it and encrypt it, and send chunks ONLY do devices that know the freqs, the crypto/keys, AND the time to expire or ignore content presentation. If anything, Palm could find a way to produce "Executive" PDAs that or UNI vs OMNI directional, and the user then becomes responsible for knowing the narrow conic direction of transmission based on pre-arranged messaging/movement plans. Limited mobility would be a problem, but then anyone trying to intercept weak-strength signals should have an even harder time if they don't know the direction the signal will be sent irrespective of the user's PIM (path of intended movement).
Just an off-the-cuff idea...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
a handset...
In a different scenario, the mark/target/suspect won't necessarily know of being targeted, and probably any would-be assassins may not know they are about to attack a spoof. But, anyone intent on murdering or assassinating would just field an acceptable-risk-number of assassins who might be responsible for their own target, and may not even know who it is who is their designated hit.
But, you might find these interesting.
Man Arrested for Rigging Top Actress' Phone
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/01/113_38309.html
Man Arrested for Rigging Top Actress' Phone
http://www.hancinema.net/man-arrested-for-rigging-top-actress-phone-17780.html
http://www.telecomskorea.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6853&Itemid=2
Agencies use "cloned phones" to hold celebs hostage
http://koreadispatch.com/2009/01/21/agencies-use-cloned-phones-to-hold-celebs-hostage/
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
How long until someone hacks Obama's blackberry, then puts a program on the device that turns it into a monitoring platform? Tempest is a stretch, given the hardware and antenna limitations, but there's quite a lot of mischief possible with access to the presidential blackberry's microphone and camera.
I hope the NSA has thought this through.
...the rest of us keep our underpants on.
Athy, athier, athiest.
It's understandable that he should want to have friends. So of course he will have some kinda phone.
However I think it would be a mistake to believe this technology can handle top secret information.
Obama needs more security than any President in the history of our country. He is the first black President, so he should always be on high alert in my opinion. He is not just an ordinary President, he is a big target and it makes sense that security should come before all.
Also a President's job is to lead the military in a time of war, he is not going to have an ordinary life for the next 8 years.
The technology used in most phones have always been difficult to secure and easily bugged. I've never seen a completely secure "digital" phone. Analog maybe could be made secure but digital? This phone is obviously digital. The greater the complexity the harder it is to secure.