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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."
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.
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.
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.
Even if it happens to be in the form of a really big sledgehammer with the word "OFF" emblazoned on it?
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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.
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.
... 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...
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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
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
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.