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."

Comments

I'm a cell-phone-battery-in-kind-of guy

[messner_007]

I'm a cell-phone-battery-in-kind-of guy !!!

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/reiser-briefly.html

Re:turn it off?

[Shakrai]

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?

Single Prez ?

[DrYak]

And you have only 1 single Prez ?

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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.