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Obama Finally Ditches BlackBerry, Switches To Samsung Galaxy S4 (arstechnica.com)
Obama has finally been able to ditch his BlackBerry handset, something which he was stuck with for more than six years. Mr. President appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and told the audience that it was only this year that he was able to get a real smartphone. There's one caveat, though. The Android smartphone Obama has gotten is a "hardened" version, with pretty much all the unrequired features removed from it. Laughing with the audience, Obama said, the phone feels like the fake toy handset kids play with. ArsTechnica, citing documentations, claim that Obama is using a Samsung Galaxy S4 (a phone that was released in 2013), as it is the only smartphone currently supported by the Defense Information Systems Agency. From the report: The S4 is currently the only device supported under DISA's DOD Mobility Classified Capability-Secret (DMCC-S) program. In 2014, a number of Samsung devices were the first to win approval from the National Security Agency under its National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) program -- largely because of Samsung's KNOX security technology. And the S4, layered with services managed by DISA, is the first commercial phone to get approval to connect to the Secret classified DOD SIPRNet network. DISA has been working with vendors and the National Security Agency's Information Assurance Directorate to develop a Top Secret-capable mobile device for use by the Defense Department and the national leadership both on the move and within secure facilities. But currently, the highest level of classification that can be handled by commercial devices under the DMCC program is at the Secret level. Secretary of State John Kerry was a DMCC-S early adopter, and he served as a beta tester of the hardened Galaxy S4.
I'm really surprised he didn't switch to an iPhone
Can change the battery and load custom roms unlike apple
I don't know if I'd trust foreign technology for devices handling such sensitive information.
So is there an Android app for ordering drone murder strikes?
Sounds like he has a better grasp of IT security than Hillary does.
How is this important to me? I can personally care less what kind of communication device is carried by the president. I only care that it's SECURE when it needs to be and RELIABLE when necessary. Apart from that, who cares? It can be a blackberry, I-phone, Android, Windows Phone, a blanket and a smoky fire as long as the thing is secure and always works.
The issue here is that a lot of what the president needs to communicate to/from his staff and advisers is highly sensitive. That stuff needs to be encrypted every which way from Sunday with keys that change often for the nations' security. I can pretty much tell you that the president DOESN'T won't have a cell phone on their person. Yea, it may *look* like a Samsung Galaxy 4 and may even share parts from the consumer device, but it's not the same phone.
But even with all that.. PLEASE tell me the president doesn't carry a cell phone of any kind in public.. For Pete's sake that would be a moronic thing to do and I'm sure the Secret Service would be having fits if they had to deal with stuff like that.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
From TFA: "Obama told Fallon that he can't place phone calls on it—the phone is likely restricted to secure VoIP functionality, with outside calls controlled from a secure switchboard."
I must admit I chuckled a little at the "secure Outlook Web Access" mention.
#DeleteChrome
I'm of a different political party, didn't vote for him, can't stand his politics and find him to be one of the most arrogant assholes that's every occupied the office. But he's still the duly-elected president, and should, out of respect for the office, be referred to as President Obama, rather than by his last name.
Thank you.
John Kerry was a perfect beta tester. No risk of intelligence being lost.
Hopefully, unlike MY Samsung S4 his doesn't have the dreaded ‘SIM card not inserted’ error.
With an Otterbox on it, the damn thing is bulletproof. I even had it pop out of my bike bag while I was doing about 20mph and it still didn't break. I'll never get to upgrade. :P
Can change the battery and load custom roms unlike apple
You can't load custom ROMs without losing the Knox features, I believe.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
You are correct. Anything involving rooting will trip the Knox chip
Yeah, Karl Rove proved that when he routed 22 million W Administration e-mails through a Republican Party server which was claimed to have no archiving or backup process.
sPh
The FBI is so embarrassed that they won't even confirm there's an investigation.
Never heard of negative numbers, eh?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And, most importantly, is unsupported.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Or imaginary...
Sounds too complex...
Ahh, so that's why there was no email scandal during Bush Jr's tenure.
30 minutes ago we successfully inserted a GPS enabled location tracker into the S4 bios. You, nor NSA can remove the location tracker from the bios because we have not been able to do that yet. So you have to live with it. If NSA gives you another S4, the GPS tracker will be inserted again into the S4 bios.
Tough cookie old boy! U R TAGGED!
Ha ha
But you have to become President of the US in order to get rid of all of the crap that Samsung and Google load onto the phone.
Samsung can make an ROM / let the US gov make there own rom like the cell co's do.
The problem is that it needs it in the first place. We have a bunch of Samsung S6 that are a year old at work, all with dying batteries. Meanwhile, the iPhones are still working great... As for ROMs, my old Samsung (Crespo) needed a 3rd party ROM to not be crap, but then that also drained the battery lots... My new iPhone just works, and the battery lasts. I don't care if it was a few bucks more, it's just hassle-free.
Think he's rooted it yet?
They had pretty different roles. For example, he was not the secretary of state.
In any case, I doubt most people that want Hillary in jail would cry over Rove being tossed in with her.
His phone already has all the extra garbage that carriers put in removed, courtesy the Secret Service.
But come Jan 20th, he can get an iPhone 7 or any 'real' phone out there in the market
So thats a NSA NIAP CSfC DISA DOD DMCC-S certified S4 using KNOX for use with SPIRNet? Got it!
So Apple which off-shores billions to avoid taxes, uses a majority of Chinese made parts and assembles in Mexico is a US company. Not to mention runs a proprietary OS and won't share the code so it can be audited. There is a reason the NSA prefers BSD, and rightfully chooses android over a closed OS, they can and do compile it themselves and check every line of code. I would trust all South Korean made hardware long before I would trust a hodgepodge of Chinese manufactured parts gathered and assembled in a lowest bidder fashion in several untrusted and known corrupt marketplaces, China and Mexico for example.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
There is a hardened unit already available. Its make by a defense contractor though. It only has two "add on" apps, needs a backpack to carry, weights 35 pounds, comes in any color so long as its dull green, and has a telephone handset attachment. Oh, and it costs $9000.
Cruel and unusual punishment?
You can if you are the gov't.
Knox has changed, at one point there was a rom flash detection flag you had to fuck with if you flashed, as knox would throw a warning and say your warranty was void. Samsung said, officially, that the warrant would NOT be voided by flashing the rom. I think in later versions, activating knox stops you from being able to root the phone but can't confirm, I stopped trying with my s4 after a few bad flashes including several cyanogen builds.
What an utter load of crap you just spouted
This makes me wonder if the S4 pre-dates the phones that have backdoors built in to him. He is one of the few people who would be informed of which phones are actually safe to use. The fact the man has unlimited resources and chooses a phone that is 4 years old is interesting.
Can I FOIA the unlocked bootloader?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
South Korea is an ally.
Doesn't matter much. It's still a foreign country. We spy on our allies and our allies spy on us. When you are talking about the communications of the head of state, it's nuts to completely trust even a close ally. The US has proven that recently - just ask our allies in Europe.
Actually, I don't think people realize just how close the US Military and South Korea are. The DOD probably trusts devices made in South Korea far more than they would devices made in the US due to the massive influence they have in South Korea. Remember we still have US troops stationed in South Korea and South Korea (conceptually) relies on US support to keep North Korea from invading.
Again true but it doesn't matter. The US has close relationships with a number of countries but we still restrict sensitive equipment purchases and sales when they have national security implications. Obviously we would purchase equipment preferentially from a close ally like South Korea over a friendly rival like China but that doesn't mean South Korea gets a free pass no matter how much leverage we have over them.
Inherently it is also a betrayal of American technology manufacturers.
Please point out a single US based manufacturer of smartphones. There has to be one for us to buy one. And then it has to be able to actually do the job required. The US has a huge manufacturing base and makes a lot of things but there are some products which simply aren't made in the US.
The President of a country should be a walking billboard for that country. All clothing and carried items should be US made.
So the guy whose job is 2/3 foreign relations shouldn't buy anything made outside the US. Seems a bit simplistic to me. While I have no problem with the US president (and congress for that matter) favoring US made goods, there are times and places where that's not the best course of action.
No matter how shitty the phone is there only one acceptable excuse, the US does not make any.
Ok, done. There is, to my knowledge, no current US manufacturer of smartphones. The federal government could contract to have one made by a US based company (Apple, Google, etc) but it will be wastefully expensive to do so. So would you prefer the US government be wasteful with taxpayer dollars?
If you wanted the binary printed out on 12,000 pages of recycled paper.
I'm pretty sure there is a buy American made first law on the books which would have favored Apple.
Very little of what Apple sells is made in America. That is why they have the weasel words "Designed in California" on their products but they are made elsewhere, often in China. It makes it sound like it's an American product when in fact little to none of the material in the device actually came from America.
Apple on the other hand, would likely see attempts at this as a means to backdoor their security and fight it like with the san Bernardino phone.
And Apple would probably be correct about that.
The warranty thing may have been a valid concern a few years ago, but this is 2016. The S4 was released in 2013. They're up to the S7 now; any S4 you buy now is used (I know--I've bought 3 of them in the last year, but all used of course), and is long out of warranty.
I agree with the other responder: you're spouting a load of crap.
I've bought 3 Samsung S4s in the past year on the used market, all with OEM batteries. None of the batteries are "dying", though a couple have noticeably lost capacity (but still not that bad). That's on a 3-year-old phone; it's normal for lithium batteries to have noticeable capacity loss after 3 years of constant use. On your shitty Apple, this would require paying $$$ for an Apple tech to replace the battery, or just buy a new phone for $$$$. On these S4s, it's no problem: I just buy a new OEM battery and pop it in and the phone is good as new, so I only have to spend about $120 for a great phone by not buying something that's brand new. Phones haven't noticeably improved in the last 3 years anyway, just like computers haven't improved noticeably in the last 6 or more.
For which one?
But yeah, I'm one of those people who'd like to see Hillary in jail. If they can throw Rove in there with her, so much the better. Toss Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld in while you're at it.
I thought the Blackberry was a child's toy when I first started looking at phones. Which is why I still use a Galaxy S4 any of the new "requires a purse to carry it" monster phones.
In my experience, Apple's devices hold a charge longer and use battery more frugally than Android. Leaving them idle is absolutely no contest - my Nexus 7 is dead in a week, my iPad mini still has power after a month (though we're talking 10% - my iPad 2 is still in the 40-50% when idle for a month). My usage of these devices tends to be in spurts as I jump between supporting different projects and platforms, so they may be idle a month or two and then be in extremely heavy use for a month or two.
This is like saying that if you install Linux over your desktop's preloaded Windows, your Windows password won't work anymore.
If you're loading custom ROMs, then why would you care about Knox?
Seems to me, based on known exploits, that pretty much anything Android is not securable and should not be used by the DoD. Based on the FBI's difficulties cracking an iPhone (and the final crack that worked doesn't work on newer models), that a "hardened" iPhone is the way to go. The only other device I would think should be considered would be a "hardened" version of this: https://www.silentcircle.com/products-and-solutions/devices/
i guess blackberry doesnt have a hold on him again.
Serena Williams Hot!! as she steps out In a White Crop Top and black Tight Leather Jeans|CREEBHILLS'
Now yes, BlackBerry is pretty much dead in the handset space, but if his phone has been disabled from running most publicly available apps... well BlackBerry always had superior email, typing, and productivity management capabilities, and the reason people stopped buying BB was exactly because they couldn't get the latest or hottest apps... so... aside from not looking cool, it seem his best move would have been to stay with a BlackBerry (which has, or a least had) thousands of US employees working on making phones back when you people were still buying them.
It's kind of unfair to call out just Apple here - name a single phone made in America.
How is it unfair to Apple to point out that they have their gear made in China? That's a fact. If they were proud of that fact they wouldn't bother putting "Designed in California" on their products to disguise that the product is made here. Pretty much everybody else doesn't bother trying to hide the fact that their stuff isn't made locally.
I've pointed out several times that pretty much no phone is actually made in the US. The components aren't made here, they aren't assembled here, and there is no likelihood that that will change anytime soon. I get why it's worked out that way but I don't have to be thrilled about it. Furthermore I know that some companies (including Apple) are in a position to do something about it but so far can't be bothered.
Can I FOIA the unlocked bootloader?
What makes you think the bootloader is unlocked? I would expect the exact opposite (locked to US Gov signed software).
You could try, they might mail you a CD.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Yup, no email scandal at all...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Also, the DNC forced them to run the server to separate the emails for the election process from the official emails.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It would really be something if this super secure phone is behind on patching and gets hit by stagefright.
You're talking about something entirely different: you're talking about average power consumption. The previous poster was talking about battery life. In my experience, he's full of crap because I have phones significantly older than the model he's talking about, still with original batteries, and they still work fine (albeit with somewhat reduced lifespan, as you'd expect from a 3-year-old battery). He's trying to claim that OEM batteries are dying within a year from normal usage, and that's complete garbage. The phones being power hogs really doesn't have anything to do with that.