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The Real Risks of Obama's BlackBerry
An anonymous reader writes "When the mainstream media first announced Barack Obama's 'victory' in keeping his BlackBerry, the focus was on the security of the device, and keeping the US president's e-mail communications private from spies and hackers. The news coverage and analysis by armchair security experts thus far has failed to focus on the real threat: attacks against President Obama's location privacy, and the potential physical security risks that come with someone knowing the president's real-time physical location. In this article, a CNET blogger digs into the real risks associated with the President carrying around a tracking device at all times."
The Prez doesn't have a cellphone?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seems like using a portable femtocell and a private relay to some central government location would be enough to mitigate the problem. And besides, don't the secret service carry cell phones?/ If you can't track the prez, just track the people around him.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Don't worry - the feds will put out a nice cloud of decoy signals. Anyway, it's not as if you can't find out where the pres is generally going to be at any one time: the Whitehouse press office put out that info every day!
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Which is why he can be tracked any time. Otherwise, he could just turn it off.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
That may not be enough for most devices out there. You'll probably also have to take out the battery, and even then there could be an internal battery that keeps the tracking going. Your best bet, whenever you don't want people to track you through your cell phone, would be to smash it to bits, or coat it in honey and feed it to a bear.
the authors are trying to promote security through obscurity. enough said
I wouldn't worry too much about it. The #1 thing that is going to guarantee his security is this- if he dies, Biden becomes president. Just put a few adds on TV stating this and he'll be the safest man in the world.
Heaven forbid he actually get any work done. You can't imagine the guy to actually use a cell phone, can you? Or computers, or email.
There are always security concerns. At what point does security invade your ability to complete your job tasks? Six Inches of Air?
Uh, I guess we are talking about wireless phones.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Or leave it at home?
Let's remember how important it is to have a president who is not overly insulated by yes-men. He needs direct communication with the outside world. Sure we could lock him in a lead box under the Pentagon if our top priority was keeping him "safe" but what good is that?
The guy is a public figure with a public job. Give him a public cell phone.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
He doesn't even brush his own teeth anymore, there's a special secret service dental agent who sits in his bathroom all day.
You really think they'd let him have any kind of obvious security risk like this, at all, ever? Watching too much West Wing.
Critics saying he is racist for carrying a BlackBerry, but never a WhiteBerry. What? Too soon?
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
I'm a cell-phone-battery-in-kind-of guy !!!
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/reiser-briefly.html
POTUS: Hello?
Caller: Hi. Do you have...uh...like Prince Albert in a can?
POTUS: Excuse me?
Caller: Wait! I mean...is your refrigerator running? Could you like go and check it?
POTUS: How did you get this number? Who is this?
Caller: Uh...this is Haywood. Haywood Jablo-
Click.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
They don't think he's already got a tracking device on him at all times anyway? It's calls "several dozen Secret Service agents." Pretty hard to miss, honestly.
Don't you think they would be smart enough to give him a special unit with a dynamic IMEI, or a generic one like 123456789? I believe many engineering prototype phones have generic IMEI codes in them anyway, enough of them are floating around there. Obama's Blackberry is "special" and I'm sure the folks at RIM have accommodated his special needs.
coat it in honey and feed it to a bear.
No good, the bear will follow you around looking for more handouts. In the meantime operatives are tracking the bear.
Seriously, this is just another case of illogical fear of "new" technologies. It is already easy to track him: just look for the long motorcade.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
One cool scene of the 90s version of Vanishing Point, the driver simply turned on his cell phone and threw it in the luggage bin of a Greyhound bus. The cops were hundereds of miles off course by the time they found out.
He also has a private life, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with him having a private cell phone for that aspect of his life (as long as it stays confined to private use).
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
But then you have a bear to help you deal with the operatives
BlackBerrys suck. IMHO, all cell phones suck (RTFA if you don't know why).
I'm so sick of hearing about the man's blackberries already.
Are Slashdot users concerned more with technological fallibility or racially-charged homo-eroticism? You be the judge!
I don't think they ever could have sussed it out without the phone. It's not like the giant airplane, motorcades, helicopters, press pool, and army of Secret Service agents are a dead giveaway. The man can't even take a piss without a humorless man in black sunglasses whispering into his wrist.
If there are any vulnerabilities to be found here, no doubt there will be hackers looking into it and making it public knowledge for the notoriety, just like they do with Microsoft. The holes will be plugged, new research paid for, and I think we can all rest assured that wireless security will be all the more advanced from his eight years in office.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
The government certainly has many more sophisticated options available.
For example, I would bet that the blackberry messages actually end up going to one location and their proprietary network will do the actual communication to his device.
With an infinite budget, they could also pay RIM to make a device that switches ID's regularly among a pool of thousands of ID's. Considering the infinite P.R. they have already gained from his preference of their product, I'm sure they would be willing to do whatever he wants for free.
Also, it is not the BlackBerry itself that is important, it is the ability for him to correspond with his friends; there is a large number of ways he could do this.
Well then feed it to a rat and get your ass to Mars.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
... is much less important, from a personal security standpoint, than knowing where he's going to be.
#DeleteChrome
So let's imagine someone did actually manage to track the President using his Blackberry. Now that person could plan an assassination based on the Presiden't location? How is that more useful than knowing he'll be in location X at time Y based on a press release, or a public event?
The last link supposedly discusses the "risks" of a "trackable" President by supposing some would-be assassin could tell if the President was in the White House, or which car he was in out of several choices. Wouldn't this assassin be better off waiting for a public rally where the President's attendance, location (and probably the time of his attendance) are public knowledge?
This just strikes me as wild speculation with a healty dose of paranoia. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'm sure a hundred people will now cite many examples of how this could lead to "another JFK". Fire away people...
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
U.S. Presidents have had subcutaneous tracking implants for some time now.
Given a bit of technical savvy, those are no different when it comes to anyone being able to locate the Pres.
In addition, you could strip him of tech hardware completely and the plethora of social indicators easily associated with his daily routine would still light him up like a Shenzhen cathouse.
i think he has a sectera edge, which is a sort of military grade blackberry. as such, you can bet he is immune from the kind of attack mentioned in the summary
slashdot noted this already, with the rumor that he has a blackberry and a sectera. this is absurd because:
1. the sectera has civilian and military network abilities, so it would be doubly redundant to have both a blackberry and sectera, since a sectera is pretty much already a blackberry+
2. since we are talking about top level extremely sensitive communications, rumors about the reality of his communication device is all any of us will hear about, as a rule. and probably with purposeful misdirection about what obama is actually using thrown in to boot: let the yokels believe what they want to believe about his communication device and the "stories" aka myths about him keeping his blackberry. uh huh. anyone, anywhere, writing about what obama is using is either guessing or lying. the more the certainty and conviction they have about what his communication device is, the sillier they are. the only people who know for sure what obama is communicating with on the go are probably a few tight-lipped spooks at the nsa. and if they talk, they are about to lose their job and are going to be heavily prosecuted about disclosing obviously extremely senstive national security details of obama's mobile communication situation. all obama cares about is the convenience of qwerty keyboard email on the go in a cellphone. switch a real blackberry with a sectera edge, he is happy. he's married to the convenience, not an actual brand of device
3. but i think most convincingly, when someone talks about obama keeping his "blackberry", i think they are using the word "blackberry" the way some people use "xerox": that is, like the word xerox has become a rough synonym for copying a piece of paper, i think blackberry is so ubiquitous now, any shiny brick with a full qwerty keyboard can be called a "blackberry" in common parlance, or soon will be. that's all the sectera edge is: a blackberry rip off with ultrahigh security. and that's most probably what obam is using
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Because its really hard to find a motorcade of black SUVs with a police escort.
No good, the bear will follow you around looking for more handouts. In the meantime operatives are tracking the bear.
.m_m. .o o.
L>>
/ \\
so having dealt successfully with Ursa Minor.....here comes Ursa Major....and she's pissed!
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
But then you have a bear to help you deal with the operatives
What if the operatives are from a country that the bear likes more than us?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
in which case, we need gorillas to take care of the snakes. and that's the beautiful part. when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
He most likely has both, as Obama has been seen using a blackberry while president: http://i.gizmodo.com/5144129/the-secrets-of-obamas-email
I mean, turn it off if you're trying to sneak around?
The article mentioned one 'threat': that the SS driving around a limo pretending to contain the president while he arrives quietly in a different car, saying that the GSM chip would give away the 'right' car.
Except that the ruse would work even better by putting the real phone in the fake car and driving that around. Do we believe the SS didn't already think of this?
The secret service probably loves that tracking feature. Makes it so much easier to find the president when he wants to play Hide-n-seek...
Oh wait, that was our last president.
... the driver simply turned on his cell phone and threw it in the luggage bin of a Greyhound bus. The cops were hundereds of miles off course by the time they found out.
I think that may be unrealistic. Last time I looked (a LONG time ago) the luggage bin of a greyhound bus appeared to be a pretty good Faraday cage.
Basic concept is good though. (Yes they can and do hunt down federal fugitives, serial killers, and the like by tracking the cellphone location when it's just turned on.) Just don't turn it on and throw it in a sealed metal box: They'll zero in on where you turned it on and go from there.
The trick was also used in The Da Vinci Code, where the lead finds the tracking device and drops it onto a passing garbage truck. This is followed by a Keystone Cops / O. J. Simpson style car chase of the truck.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
They're using Walmart's new Instore Cookie System.
Multiple Limos and multiple planes to diffuse the risk... why not multiple Blackberries? Strap a few to some stray dogs, and swap them out every now and then!
First of all, if he is smart enough to get elected as Prez of US i think he is resposable to let any major goverment secrets out to his friends and family. (like that area 51 is where they keep aliens) Second YOU CAN TURN THE TRACKING JUNK OFF. i have a phone serviced by verizon (same guys make the blackberry) and i can make the GPS thing only accessable to the 911 ppls. Third if the goverment is going to give him a super cool tricked out PDA/phone/internet/... i am sure that 1. they can keep track of it 2. it will not have anything important. like o lets say that big red button for the nukes
Its not my fault, someone put a wall in my way.
... emit recognizable signals. You can bet that the Secret Service (or their friends at the FCC) have equipment in the President's vicinity listening for such signatures.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
What strikes me about the article is that it for the most part deals only with solutions that the average geek could implement. This is the office of the President of the United States, with the resources and leverage of the US Government at disposal to solve the problem. Talking about "green" solutions, or speculating on whether RIM would sue the US Government if Obama was using a hacked Blackberry is nonsense. I suspect the US Government could go to RIM and get whatever custom firmware they needed, or just roll their own with RIM's blessing. RIM is a Canadian company, but they have to do business here too.
With money literally no object, Obama's team could carry their own short-range portable cell tower, using completely different frequencies and protocols, which patches into the existing network in a secure way from a location distant from the President.
I personally think they'll use decoys, as with the presidential limo. And I strongly suspect that the information that passes between the President's device and the White House blackberry server will be strongly encrypted.
We'll probably never know the actual details. At first I was hoping someone would write a white paper after Obama leaves office, but I don't expect that to happen, as the solution, whatever it is, would have future uses.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
But then the bad guys would be able to find the secret location of the White house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
coat it in honey and feed it to a bear.
No good, the bear will follow you around looking for more handouts. In the meantime operatives are tracking the bear.
All things considered, it isn't too hard to track a trail of empty picinic baskets.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Do people really think the Secret Service is completely clueless? They deal with secure communications every day of their lives. They are familiar with these tools, they use them and they have access to the most advanced military hardware available. I'm sure there are any number of things they can do to eliminate these threats, they just didn't want to because it's one (or several) more things they need to worry about.
there is no such thing as personal use
what i mean by that is, any communication of yours meant to be private that can be intercepted and used against you is a national security concern. there is a reason his daughters have secret service agents: someone could hurt his children, or threaten to hurt them, and by extension, influence national policy. his communication with them by extension is vulnerable to interception, manipulation, etc. all sorts of fascinating psychological data about the president can be gleaned form his "private" communications on a common network, no matter how "secure". if he really is still using a well-known network for private vulnerable communications, you bet your ass foreign espionage services are stumbling over themselves getting their hands on those messages to mine for intelligence and psychological angles to work on the president
i would be incredibly surprised if obama was allowed to use any common carrier or protocol, even the relatively secure blackberry, the keys to which are owned by a canadian, ie, foreign, company. you really think they would let him do that? you really think obama himself isn't mindful of this threat?
no. i really would be hard pressed to believe obama is using a plain old blackberry. and if not a sectera, then a modded and retooled blackberry on a completely different network using a completely different protocol. doesn't have to be james bond Q type gadgetry, just something unique to the federal government and guarded by nsa spooks. because ALL of his communications, including his "private" ones, are that vital to national security
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
An antire group of people devoted to tracking and reporting on the whereabouts of the president. They could hire pundits to theorize on why he is there, film him getting in the car, getting out of the car. They could even predict where he's going to be, like "The president will be in Miami next Tuesday to talk to the guy in that place". Now that would be really freaky.
You have been reported to the NSA
Given how ultra paranoid the Secret Service is, I'd be surprised if Obama hasn't been given a tracking device that he keeps on him. So the real question is whether the special Blackberry he's carrying is any more vulnerable than whatever tracking device he's using.
faraday cage motherfuckers!
It's not like it's hard to shield something small like a blackberry, you could even put it in your tinfoil hat.
I thought you people knew physics.
The article claims "they" could track him via a Triggerfish homing in on his IMEI. The question is, how would someone obtain his IMEI?
I hate to break it to you, but somebody knows where the president is at all times anyway. The big ass plane with the unique paint job, the helicopters with the presidential seal, the convoy of black Escalades, all those are kinda big giveaways. Also, his schedule is pretty much public.
A cellphone can't pinpoint you anyway, unless it has GPS and you're too dumb to figure out how to snip off the GPS antenna. And turning it off also solves the problem of being tracked. I'm sure the Secret Service knows how to make a cell phone switched off stop radiating.
And you can always do the old shell game - 100 phones linked to the same account and every day he gets handed one at random while the others are driven on alternate routes.
Hasn't every president for about a hundred years gone everywhere with a realtime tracking system?
Why should so much importance be given to a single person ? It is sad that so many people are looking to one man to solve all their problems. Consequently his 'importance' rises and makes him a target. All of this would simply be irrelevant if the President was regarded as a public servant and not a savior.
The security of a public servant should never be multiple orders of magnitude more important than a regular citizen.
I really do get tired of arguments that start from talking about "mainstream media". What you really mean is media that you see as having a liberal agenda. Conservatives are entitled to make an issue about the "liberal agenda" (they're full of shit, but they're still entitled to make an issue out of their shit) but they owe it to the rest of us to state the issue in clear language and not hide behind code words. "Mainstream media" is a particular dishonest codeword in a time when media with an avowed anti-liberal agenda has so much clout.
The blogger on the CNET site should do more research than some arm-chair what-if's and watching The Wire. The issues that he raises are nothing new, and they are relatively easy to address if you have the resources of the Presidency at your disposal. Plus with all the publicity I am guessing that RIM is quite willing to ship a crate of new Blackberries to the White House on a weekly basis! The most bone-headed assumption that the blogger makes is that the President always has the same cell phone or IMEI/IMED. My guess would be that these are swapped out regularly, perhaps multiple times per day. You and I can't do that, but we aren't the President. Even if people could identify the President's unit it would be a double edged sword. The President's daily schedule is published, so people already think they know where he is most of the time. But suppose the President wants to take an unannounced trip? Well, just give a staffer his phone and let the staffer walk through the President's published schedule while the President himself is off in Iraq or wherever he needs to be.
Yawn, who gives a sh*t.
because he and his cohorts knew what they were talking about was a political liability. there's not protection from a president who is keeping secrets from his own people. that's an entirely different scenario than a president engaging in personal but politically harmless communications
"Your fantasies about foreign spies gaining "fascinating psychological data" from his email that isn't available from his books or non-scripted speaking events is fun, but simply that, fantasy."
so there's no dedicated teams in the cia right now gleaning every little snippet of information they can get their hands on any way possible about hu jintao? ahmadinejad? bin laden? putin?
and russia, or china: they'll just stick to watching c-span to find out about obama?
i wished i were that clueless and naive. the world would be such a cotton candy place
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This article assumes the Secret Service and our National Security guys don't know what they are doing. Even if it was possible to detect the Mobile Equipment ID, who's to say that his Sectera is always at his side. Maybe there are times he passes off his Sectera to his detail driving the fake car. Who knows if Obama carries the same Sectera all of the time. I can easily see his aids replacing his Sectera every day with a different one. Using this type of security would completely nullify the method to capture Obama's Sectera MEID, even if it was possible.
what?
Even for so-called non-secret (i.e., personal) communications, some will be of the type "be home late tonight, honey" or "see you for lunch at restaurant xyz this weekend" which is a major security risk of the type described here. knowing where the president will be and when sure could be dangerous information in the wrong hands.
so the issue is not just that he'll be sending strategic directives to the pentagon via a potentially insecure channel, but that all of the president's communication could be considered highly sensitive information.
That may not be enough for most devices out there. You'll probably also have to take out the battery, and even then there could be an internal battery that keeps the tracking going. Your best bet, whenever you don't want people to track you through your cell phone, would be to smash it to bits, or coat it in honey and feed it to a bear.
Take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
I am not a crackpot.
I've said it once if I've said it a thousand times...
If you're going to try to goatse us, at least try to hide the link somehow.
When I last worked in the White House in the '90s certain senior staff had a little device that constantly updated with the President's location from WHCA.
His Blackberry has a portable version of Duke Nukem Forever installed, so you understand he did not want to let the device go.
the guy put the tracking device up for auction on trademe. (local equivalent of Ebay) Much embarrassment for the fuzz, since they don't really have mandate to interfere with other peoples cars.
because he and his cohorts knew what they were talking about was a political liability. there's not protection from a president who is keeping secrets from his own people. that's an entirely different scenario than a president engaging in personal but politically harmless communications
You're kinda missing the important point: The fact that Bush and other White House staff used RNC mail servers at all was not considered a secret or problem. It was known before the scandal, by people in the government, that Bush used RNC mail for personal use. Which is just fine. It was only when he crossed the line to using it for Official Business that it mattered.
If your Baueresque fantasy had any reality to it, Bush never would have been allowed to use that mail service for anything. But he was.
Your view: Demonstrably wrong.
so there's no dedicated teams in the cia right now gleaning every little snippet of information they can get their hands on any way possible about hu jintao? ahmadinejad? bin laden? putin?
Not... really. You might think that the NSA and CIA have super-secret psychological powers that let them glean important character traits from simple emails, but... No, they don't. They're much more concerned with more practical matters like anything that might contain the location of a nuclear plant or something else that would fall under the category of "actionable intelligence" than whether Iran's President has sentimental thoughts about his grandmother. Do you have any reason, other than your quite active imagination, to think otherwise?
i wished i were that clueless and naive. the world would be such a cotton candy place
Lol, okay you call up the Secret Service and tell them how clueless and naive they are, since they have allowed in the past and will continue to allow Presidents to communicate through non-ultra-secured channels when regulations permit.
You're the clueless one. You don't know anything about the regulations regarding protecting government information, what degrees of secrecy require what level of security. Clue SMS received: Not everything a President does qualifies as Top Secret (those words mean something, and not whatever you imagine they do), and only things that are require something as secure as the Sectera.
But man, it must be nice being so clued in and worldly thanks to an education by 24 and Tom Clancy novels. I'll set my DVR so I can know about reality too.
Again, let me repeat: In actual reality Presidents have communicated through non secure channels on a regular basis. Actual reality says you don't know what you're talking about. You disagree with reality. Hmm... who should I believe?
The enemies of Democracy are
...keeping the US president's e-mail communications private from spies and hackers...
...the potential physical security risks that come with someone knowing the president's real-time physical location...
Just because he has a Blackberry doesn't mean he's actually using it for email. If he is, it might be personal email (not work-related) but I feel pretty safe assuming that he wouldn't be passing data sensitive to national security with it.
As for the GPS tracking, I believe that can easily be enabled/disabled in the settings of the device. Ignoring that, as many had mentioned above, it's not like his 24/7 location is a secret...
/* No Comment */
This is a silly discussion.
You can't hide the U.S. President in his daily business. It's just impossible. Motorcades, helicopters, public speeches, platoons of serious men in dark suits... the dude wins the prize for Most Obvious Man in America. forget about it.
Now, if the President *wants* to hide, he goes to a secure bunker somewhere where the radio waves don't shine, somewhere that even the sneakiest guy with an antenna can't get within ten miles of.
And you have only 1 single Prez ?
---
More seriously, currently the USA has only 1 single person as head of the executive branch of government.
This has the huge drawback of being a single point of failure and an easy target. (And has only 1 single backup : the vice president).
In addition of that this position gets highly coveted and thus the circus show that your politicians put out every 4 years.
Meanwhile, some other countries have a slightly more diluted top executive power.
Switzerland for example has a council of 7 persons at the head of the executive branch.
The system is thus more robust and redundant.
No single one of them could take down the executive power if harmed.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
no data would touch canada. it would have the https and the tripe DES and all the usual blackberry bells and whistles that your typical ceo knows and loves
and yet still, there you have it: the highest communications in the usa hopping around on a protocol canadians designed and the whole world understands
no, sorry, god bless canadians, i have nothing against canada. but if there is going to be info going out on the open airwaves from the highest levels of the american government, that network and that protocol will be nsa designed and nsa implemented and airtight and tightlipped
why?
because its the most secure communications of the usa. i would expect moscow and the kgb to have the same attitude. i would expect beijing and the peoples liberation army to have the same attitude too
on communications at that security level, no expense would be spared by a major world power
this isn't ceos babbling about sensitive r&d. this isn't ctos babbling about trading platforms. this is the goddamn government dealing with the most sensitive goddamn stuff you can imagine. it is deadly serious. you don't seem to get that
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you fear that he's going to call up your little honky bitches to ride a real dick. you ain't got shit between your legs, white fags.
she'll leave you in a second.
dude. go to wikipedia. type in "espionage". follow the pretty links. educate your ignorant self. here endeth the intellectual charity for you about spywork and communications
as for bush:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/26/rnc-emails-waxman/
it was never kosher, bush using these channels
when discovered that the bush white house was using these communication channels, it was shock and revulsion time
please, ramble on about jack bauer and demonstrable wrongness
zzz
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And risk the Wife/Children? Fuck no.
Throw that son of a bitch on moving garbage truck.
Obama uses the bathroom like the rest of us.. We'll have more on this startling discovery, Which was handed over to us by an anonymous source who apparently tracked him using his BB.
Once again Obama uses the bathroom..
oogly boogly!
he lives in the White House... his wife and children are already at risk by him being president and living with him...
antipaucity
I would have to agree. A couple layers of aluminum foil or even a fine metal mesh would stop the signal. You would have to remove the shield to use the thing but no one would be able to track you from it.
Tanto nomini nullum par elogium.
The tech behind this is missing from the article. I figure this audience would be interested, so I'll post it (but only as an AC) :-)
When a user requests a message (phone call, SMS, MMS, WAP Push, etc.) to a mobile subscriber number (your phone number), the carrier can pass this information in several ways. One of these ways is through the Signaling System 7 telco network, which is like a duplicate, not IP based, internet for telecom information.
A mobile phone's IMSI information can be requested from their home operator, which if allowed, will find the user if their are roaming on a network connected to the SS7 network (pretty much everybody, except a few in the middle east). IMSI information gives the requester the number of the tower closest to the phone. Operators that own these towers keep databases of the actual GPS locations of these towers. With a simple query, you can determine the physical location of a cell phone.
Here's the clincher.
This not just available to the FBI/CIA/MI5 types, but any company that has an operator license and a connection to the SS7 network anywhere in the world. This is a large number of people to keep from getting a single user's location, so I can understand the security concern.
What needs to be done to keep the pres. safe is duplicate the SIM in his phone Kevin Mitnik style and put it in 50 phones. Have people carry these phones all over the world (keeping several on the posted alternate routes when the pres is traveling). Hitting a single target when you know where it is can be hard. Hitting 50 at the same time (so you don't show your hand) would be damn near impossible.
I thought the real risk was he might be sent some information that hadn't passed through the military reality distortion field.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/11/binyam-mohamed-release-torture-letter
They might know where he is when he's home, but it's all about subtlety when he's out and about. What about when he sneaks out in a secret motorcade with only 923 vehicles with flashing lights followed by dozens of members of the press with cellphones up the wazoo who track his every move 24/7? Or when he sneaks out in a flight of several helicopters with highly obvious markings? Or a Boeing 747 with an obvious paint-job and "I'm the fucking president, feel my power bitches" written on the side? Nobody can track him then.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Perhaps its time to come up with a system of government that does not invest so much power and symbolism in a single person? The costs of securing a president are growing larger and larger - it's almost like having to put on a mini-Olympics for any anywhere that just invites him to visit. Eventually you have to reach a point (if it hasn't been reached already) where the cost of having a president outweighs any benefit of a super-powered executive.
(applies to the private sector leadership models too)
It's not a BlackBerry, it's an AfricanAmericanBerry.
"The big ass plane with the unique paint job, the helicopters with the presidential seal, the convoy of black Escalades, all those are kinda big giveaways."
Well... actually, there are TWO Air Force Ones. The Marine One HMX-1 squadron consists (IIRC) of 28 birds, and most POTUS transport missions fly three identical whitebacks in an aerial shell game. And there are often multiple convoys of Escalades and Cadilac limos.
So which plane? Which helicopter? Which convoy? Which limo? There's a difference between knowing where he is in a general sense, and in exactly which vehicle he's being transported.
Besides, all of those "kinda big giveaways" you mentioned also make kinda big decoys. Just because they're there doesn't mean HE'S there...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
It's been widely reported that the GPS functionality on his BlackBerry is disabled AND that the security settings are checked periodically.
Anyone that researched this article would know this. THE AUTHOR IS JUST MAKING SHIT UP TO GET HIS NAME NOTICED.
You are a smart cookie.
I would assume that anyone who queries this unit's specific location would get a quick visit from angry men with badges. The traditional media explanation is that logs couldn't be kept. This is silly, plenty of people have been sentenced based on Blackberry logs.
You are closer to the mark, but I think that in practical terms Mr. O should be able to carry any electronic device he chooses.
...is the Blackberry chained to him? What would prevent the Secret Service from taking B.O. to Michigan and his Blackberry to Hawaii? What makes you think he isn't going to have a new Blackberry every week or two? I'm sure RIM is happy enough about the publicity this is generating that they will give the White House a 500 for the price of 1 deal.
Err... Are we speaking of Balmer's assistants or were we to oppose that to "blogger" ?
You pretty much have to hook up anyone around the President, as well as probably 90% of the rest of Congress and probably the whole Supreme Court with ultra-secure BBs. Just recently, for example, several fool Representatives were twittering their entire flight and itinerary during a trip to the middle east. You can bet anyone who wants to send a big political message by killing a bunch of politicians knows all about that and is just waiting for someone to have the nerve to do it again. And anyone who talks with Obama is going to get his messages anyway, so anything THEY use has to be secure.
wouldn't have installed Google Latitude http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html/
I think Prince Albert in a can would be the butt of all jokes.
I don't know why this is true, but I'll take the interviewer's word on it.
Or have the NSA mod it for you! Did everyone suddenly forget that we're not talking about an off-the-shelf model here? Unless one of these "armchair security experts" has any real details on the mods the NSA has performed on this device, this entire topic is stupid.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Slashdot sucks at science. Its too into video games these days to be bothered with the fundamental forces of nature.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
How difficult is it for them to get a special made BlackBerry with custom security enhanced firmware?
Presidents get a round-the-clock 24/7 sizable security force, and various tactical protections (controlled facility).
Despite the fact it's public knowledge where the president's home is, the president is thousands of times safer than the average citizen, when at that location.
The risk to be concerned about is when the President is up and about and in public areas where less control is possible, and crazed political opponents may have access to.
A small increase in risk, the security force is still there.
Also, how will an unsophisticated attacker tell the difference between the president's blackberry, and the other thousands of blackberries all over the area?
Esp. when president's BB might have been specially modified to disguise itself in various ways, various measures might be taken by security forces to make the signal untrackable.
It's been month that I'm amazed to read/hear journalists talking about the fact that a blackberry held by the president would be a security threat. Yet NONE are highlighting the most important consequence. Hey! If it's unsecure for the president, it for sure also means that it's also unsecure for the general public? How come the Blackberry are sold on the market if that fact is widely admit? How come nobody complains about that fact? If I was a Blackberry user/owner, I'd be all but happy of my purchase...
A supposedly secure device, using Internet Explorer? ROTFL!
IMEI is equipment number. It is never transmitted in open text - NEVER! What the author meant probably was IMSI. IMSI is used when logging into a carriers network once! Usually when you first turn on your phone after you buy it, but also when you turn it of and then on again, but in a different city, state, country. After you transmit it once, you are given a TMSI which you then use, and which is given to you over an encrypted connection. A new TMSI is given to you by the network once in a while.
The author of the article clearly doesn't know a shit about GSM
The article mentioned one 'threat': that the SS driving around a limo pretending to contain the president while he arrives quietly in a different car, saying that the GSM chip would give away the 'right' car.
Suddenly I had this strange vision of elite Nazi troops guarding the president...
USA have hired nazi's in the past...
still, current secret service agents would be at least 2 generations removed...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
what about setting up 3-4 clone phones?
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
try that with an iPhone, they track you even when "off" :-)
Can I put a spell on those who can't spell?
Your wheels are loose and they're losing their grip, good you're there.
He hid a goatse behind those sacks of shit yonder. I knew a guy that complained about how Homo Depot and Lowe's sells fertilizer cheaper than it costs a man to throw it into a bag i.e. at a loss. Puting a goatse in a french domain is like smearing the wall of Jericho or Jerusalem with bull shit for the kikes to read while they dry hump at it. Only flies would decide what attracts them more, the .fr or goatse.
bye.
PS; i thought your username was clever. You from New Hoisey or Virgynia? Sex with a mare?
Take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
You can't
Can you swim?
It's the emergency eject .. have a nice flight! ;)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
And we could give them a cute name, like "media".
They need something more exciting, like "The Super Human Informers Team".
"He is so stupid. And now back to the wall!" Moe Szyslak
Yep, they only have one plane and one helicopter that looks like that. SO unique. No need to figure out which one he's on...
Those of us who live in the DC area know different, and in fact it's not unusual to see several presedential look-alike helicopters in the air at once.
"Air Force One" is not a particular plane, it's the plane the president is on. Same for the helicopter. The news made a big deal of this when Bush flew back to Texas and they called it something like Special Flight 7600 instead of Air Force One because he was no longer president.
Wow, you're so thick you can't even read your own links, can you? It's funny because of how it repeatedly harps on "the legal issues involved in conducting official government business using partisan email accounts," and how they had to make sure "no e-mails involving official White House business have been destroyed or altered". But those words just keep bouncing of your thick skull.
I'm sure it's too much to ask, but you could try reading and understanding the Presidential Records Act which Bush was running afoul of. Free clue for the clueless: "Personal records" are distinct from "Presidential records" and not subject to the requirements of the law.
The law itself says: You're ignorant and wrong.
But go on, thinking every Presidential communication is considered a national security risk no matter to who or on what subject.
Because obviously any time the President makes a phone call to a friend or relative, even if they are in Africa, just to say hi, the spooks deliver a special encrypted phone to that person prior to the call. Oh wait, no they don't. That's your imagination.
Also, Obama still has his Blackberry, an actual Blackberry.
You have no idea what you're talking about, and are filling in the gaps with an overactive imagination.
The enemies of Democracy are
No good, the bear will follow you around looking for more handouts.
Sounds about like the American voter. Or banking industry. Or auto industry. Or state & local governments.
Vote Quimby.
"even if they are in Africa, just to say hi, the spooks deliver a special encrypted phone to that person prior to the call. Oh wait, no they don't. That's your imagination"
you honestly don't believe russia or china engage in espionage?
and i'm the one with an overactice imagination and a thick skull
please, continue to lecture me on the lack of interest of foreign governments in obama's personal communications
oh, how i have been utterly defeated
lol
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Its mostly used for informal emails.
Now, if the President *wants* to hide, he goes to a secure bunker somewhere where the radio waves don't shine, somewhere that even the sneakiest guy with an antenna can't get within ten miles of.
The Raven Rock AJCC is a Terminator 3-eqsue hollow mountain complex about 60 miles north of DC outside of Emmitsburg, MD -- a little further up the Catoctins from Camp David. Cheney was moved there during the 9/11 attacks, and Bush II was routinely moved through there from time to time as well.
Which part of "flight of several helicopters" did you not understand? And there are two planes they use as Air Force One (plus an old one they keep as a spare) and they both have "I'm the fucking president, feel my power bitches" written on the side.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
There are no expectations low enough that I would not be dissapointed.
you honestly don't believe russia or china engage in espionage?
I do. Do you believe they give an encrypted phone to everyone Obama would ever call, even in Africa? Do you even realize that this would be necessary? Probably not. Anyway, no, they don't. They didn't for any of the Congressmen or potential cabinet appointees whom he called at their homes, either. Obviously the people in charge are not treating every Presidential communication as though it were Top Secret. Because not every Presidential communication is Top Secret, personal communication never is, and if you actually knew what any of those words meant you'd know that.
and i'm the one with an overactice imagination and a thick skull
When you deliberately ignore the actual facts and definitions and procedures used (since they prove you wrong -- I know you didn't read the link to the PRA), and replace it with "Do you honestly believe?!"s that spring from your knowledge-free vacuous pate, then yes, you're the clueless and imaginative one.
oh, how i have been utterly defeated
Yeah, pretty much. You don't have any of the facts on your side. Only your imagination. You are ignorant and wrong about the Presidential Records Act, about how unofficial communication by the President is handled, and about what Obama is actually using. All the facts are out, and you're wrong on everything and you know it, which is why you don't even try to argue the facts at this point. That's pretty much the definition of defeated.
The enemies of Democracy are
stubbornness and ignorant outrage are not valid replacements for intelligence
to argue anymore with you would be an exercise in intellectual charity i am not willing to engage in
i didn't even read your whole post, i got as far as "Do you believe they give an encrypted phone to everyone Obama would ever call, even in Africa?" and stopped reading
i would like to explain the stupidity of this remark to you, but, as i said, lack of intelligence is lack of intelligence
you represent the idea of giving encrypted phones to people as something i need to defend in order to make my point, which only means you don't even understand my point. so what more needs to be said to you really?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Okay, don't defend your stupid notions, they don't deserve it anyway. You're arguing all Presidential information must be and is treated as a security risk. But normal phone lines aren't secure*, and the Secret Service et. al. are okay with that as long as it is not sensitive information being discussed. So clearly they disagree with you.
I knew this concept was too hard for you.
Bottom line:
1) The President is not required to use secure communications or follow data retention rules for personal communications -- read the law, idiot.
2) In accordance with (1), the President can make insecure phone calls and use his Blackberry as long as it is for unofficial business.
* Do you grasp this? You do understand that making a phone call from a Sectera to a normal phone provides zero protection, right? No, of course not. Lack of intelligence is lack of intelligence. And ignorance is ignorance. You're an idiot by birth, and ignorant by design. You can't fix stupid, and you can't fix ignorance in someone who refuses to read things that would educate them. You're pathetic.
The enemies of Democracy are
your stubbornness
it's quite awesome really
to argue a moronic point beyond all semblance of common sense and intelligence, its quite the spectacle to behold
perhaps we can stick your stubborn blindness up to a generator, you can help us get off our reliance on foreign oil?
(snicker)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Bottom line facts:
1) Obama has a Blackberry for personal use, and a Sectera for official use. He's been seen with both.
2) This is because neither law nor agency treats every Presidential communication as a national security risk.
3) Obama has a Blackberry.
4) You are wrong and stupid.
Logic:
1) You argue all Presidential communications are a national security risk, and that gov. agencies agree.
2) Conversations which involve national security risks are not conducted through insecure channels.
3) Obama can and has communicated through insecure channels.
4) Therefore, not all Presidential communication is considered a national security risk.
5) Therefore, you are wrong and stupid.
Q.E.D.
It's funny how you'd try to take me to task for being stubbornly right in the face of your equally stubborn ignorance. But that's what this has all been. It's very fun pointing out how stupid and wrong you are, proving it, then watching you do backflips trying to avoid the inevitable.
TLDR version: Obama has a blackberry. You're an ignoramus who should read something about the laws you're pretending you understand so you look like less of a tool. Or not, because it's FUNNY AS HELL to call you out. =D
The enemies of Democracy are
actually, i am wrong in my initial comment, about obama only carrying a blackberry. absolutely, 100% wrong. but that hasn't been the topic in the post in which i was arguing with you. and yet your prosecutorial glee hasn't missed a beat, even though the topic has completely changed, meaning the argument isn't even the point anymore, just some impoverished need on your part
read back on a few comments. you keep changing the subject. or rather, you keep embellishing the discussion with points that only exist in your mind, then attack those points, as if i were the one making them. for example: you refer to giving blackberries to relatives in africa. and you attack this absurdity. as well you should, it is absurd. however, you have to notice something: I NEVER FUCKING SAID ANYTHING REMOTELY LIKE THAT
i don't even need to be in the conversation anymore, you're arguing with topics and opinions that only exist in your mind. oh sure, you attribute them to me, but again, according to your own internal logic, not because of anything i ACTUALLY said. a concept appears in your mind, you attribute it to me, you notice how insane it is, this fills you with incredulity at how crazy someone is for thinking it, and then you attack
what keeps you going is your prosecutorial glee. its so important to you to keep arguing, you will exert energy retaining the contentious nature of the discussion, because being right isn't really the issue for you anymore. its the pressing need on your part to persecute me, to be masterfully right about how wrong i am. this is more important for you than keeping track of the fucking topic of discussion
so all we are really left with this sort of social retardation on your behalf. your social development has been cloistered in some way. people often project their problems on to others, its a way to work out their problems for themselves. how i react becomes an issue for your mind to explore about how you should react in the same scenario, perhaps where you were being mercilessly persecuted. this weighs heavily in your mind. you are recreating your victimhood by victimizing others in the same way, to see how they react. well, now you know: zzz
you've probablty been yelled at a lot. alienated from peers, due to bad social hygiene, or maybe through no fault of your own at all: you're not very paranoid, otherwise, i wouldn't have to explain the concept of espionage to you. so you are probably mentally sound. perhaps you are indeed some tragic victim of social isolation and commiserate poor social development
good luck kid. clean up your social interaction abilities, you'll go far in life. you're very tenacious, which is a good thing to be in life. but your social abilities lag behind, and so your tenaciousness becomes a warped benefit, like the fast sprinter who keeps launching himself into a wall
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wow you really are crap at following a discussion and understanding arguments, aren't you? Maybe you should try reading posts before hammering out your responses? Or at least pretend you read them rather than just admitting you don't, so it won't be so obvious who is responsible for the disconnect. LOL.
In your first reply to me, you said "when you are president of the united states there is no such thing as personal use", and "his communication with [his family] by extension is vulnerable to interception, manipulation, etc. all sorts of fascinating psychological data about the president can be gleaned form his "private" communication". With the practical upshot that: "i would be incredibly surprised if obama was allowed to use any common carrier or protocol... you really think they would let him do that? you really think obama himself isn't mindful of this threat?"
And THAT is what I'm arguing against. There is such a thing as personal use, both in law and in practical reality. Obama is allowed to use a common carrier for personal use, because his personal communications with family are not considered serious national security risks by government agencies. I was demonstrating this through simple counterexample, showing that he was allowed to use unsecured channels for personal use, which would not be the case if they were considered risky. The secure phone (not a blackberry, lol, i was thinking encrypted land line) given to relatives in Africa, or rather its absence, was an extreme example. Not something you were literally arguing for (lol), something whose non-existence demonstrates that the Secret Service et. al. does not consider phone calls to relatives to be security risks. Obama's use of a standard Blackberry is the most obvious counterexample, and something you obviously felt couldn't happen as a consequence of your way of thinking, since that is exactly why you were arguing Obama couldn't be using a Blackberry.
But you were wrong about that, and you're wrong that personal phone calls are national security risks -- if they were, the Secret Service would require Obama always uses secure channels. But they don't. It's not complicated logic. I spelled it out for you in simple logical steps, but, you know, that whole "not reading what other people post" thing gets you every time. Well that and idiocy.
So instead rather than read, comprehend, and then respond to arguments, you go on retarded rants about persecution and socialization? LOL, DUDE you have serious -- but hilarious -- issues. It's obvious who has the socialization issue. Your vehement -- but completely incoherent -- responses demonstrate you were at least as stubbornly clinging to your side, but so lacking in intellectual honesty that you don't even bother reading what you're responding to (ever click that PRA link, lol?). Don't try to attribute to me what is your basic mode of operation. You're projecting, and it's sad, but very very funny at the same time.
Anyway, since you've at least admitted you were utterly wrong about the Blackberry, and you will at least at some point come to understand the logic that means you were wrong about everything else too, and I highly doubt you could craft a more hilariously self-revealing screed than what you did here, I consider my job here done. Bye!
The enemies of Democracy are
the indignation, still the same
how's that work again dude?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm the one staying on subject, even lining it up in bullet points nice and simple for anyone to understand... if they could/would read.
You're the one with the spleen venting rant about your poor socialization and your persecution complex.
Arguing at your mirror image sounds like a good time... if you're a sociopath. Have fun with that, I'm out.
The enemies of Democracy are
i am a massive fount of rage
projecting dude
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
what about setting up 3-4 clone phones?
How would the cellphone tower know which one to send calls to?