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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.
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.
Sounds like he has a better grasp of IT security than Hillary does.
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
Yes, yes there is and it has been used to great effect to wipe out succeeding "leaders" within the Daesh terrorist organization.
It's been so effective Daesh is turning against itself in a frenzied attempt to find out if there are spies among their ranks because their people keep dying so frequently.
Desertions are up, territory keeps getting lost, and terrorists keep getting killed, all thanks to the Drone Strike app. Available now for Apple and Android devices.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
John Kerry was a perfect beta tester. No risk of intelligence being lost.
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.
Well, when push comes to shove . . . no one really cares about you either. Wrap up a hamster in duck tape, and shove it up your ass.
Please post GIFs, or it didn't happen.
I, for one, do care what the POTUS is using. Is it really secure? And audit able?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
no you still have to pick up the red phone and dial the air force.
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
It's an app called Angry Kurds.
Have gnu, will travel.
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.
That's alright, he is used the people's money to pay for the phone, and now people have access to the phone now too.
Place something witty here
Or imaginary...
With all of the Samsung critical security bugs ... I'm really surprised he didn't switch to an iPhone.
On the other hand, Samsung builds most of the supported platforms for Replicant, the open-code-only spinoff from cyannogen-mod (which discovered and fixed some of those Samsung bugs).
Replicant is only up to the S3. But it might be interesting to try to look into whether any of its work was incorporated into this platform.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
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.
Obviously there are spies in their ranks. How else are the good guys getting info on where the high-value targets are?
Let's not forget all of the people at universities who are protesting and trying to get the war on Daesh to stop. No more drones! No war!
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Apparently Americans struggle with proper English.
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 ?
Cruel and unusual punishment?
In general it is good form to stick to an American brand if possible.
But being the iPhones are made in China (Communist) vs South Korea(Democratic ) may propose less potential risk
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Step in the way back machine, read the snowden documents and interviews, find the spot where the NSA mentions any attack against an IOS device reaps rewards, then say that again. Every attack against an IOS device reaps rewards. But.... this isn't your S4, nor is it my S4, it's a hardened S4. In fact, I'd be surprised if any of us would recognize the phone from using it.
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
you cared enough to login and post a rant about it, after apparently reading it.
hardened and "hardened" are two different things. I think the one you are referring to is meant to say, this is a combat ready, can take a beating and still work, type of phone. Like those hardened laptops able to survive a nuclear strike or some crap. The hardened we are talking about here is of the software variety, it's a SECURE phone. It's still an s4 body, and will still shatter if you drop it. The SOFTWARE has been hardened. Isn't learning fun?
Did you think that with everything that happened late last year/early this year with the FBI and Apple that all would suddenly be forgiven?
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Can I FOIA the unlocked bootloader?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I think if they were ultra paranoid they'd get one of the new modular phones and switch out any pieces they weren't happy with. Then they'd run a custom build of Android on top which excluded anything they didn't want and ran everything else through multiple layers of encryption and authentication.
Hopefully, unlike MY Samsung S4 his doesn't have the dreaded ‘SIM card not inserted’ error.
I had this problem a month a go with my S4. After a trip to my carrier customer service to replace the SIM card, that problem no longer exist
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.
It was chosen for him
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?
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.
Just over 3 years. And these things take years to procure if run past the 3 letter agencies first.
According to Knox's wikipedia page the S5 is on the list if the next Prez wants a slightly newer model.
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.
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.
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.
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.