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China, Russia Are Listening To Trump's Phone Calls, Says NYT Report (thehill.com)
Rick Zeman writes: According to The New York Times, the Chinese are regularly listening to Donald Trump's cellphone calls (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). While he has two NSA-hardened iPhones, and a secure landline, he insists on using a consumer-grade iPhone -- even while knowing he's being eavesdropped upon -- because it has his contact list on it. "White House officials say they can only hope he refrains from discussing classified information when he is on them," reports the New York Times. But, officials were also confident that "he was not spilling secrets because he rarely digs into the details of the intelligence he is shown and is not well versed in the operational specifics of military or covert activities"; in other words, security through ignorance. The article mentions the rationale is to be able to listen to his calls to find out what and whom influences him, and that the Russians also listen in, albeit with less frequency because of his unique relationship with Vladimir Putin.
Dumbest. Traitor. EVER.
Rather than attack the messenger, please point to the evidence contradicting the story's evidence. Not everybody automatically responds positively to, "it's fake news!"
What makes you say that? Do you have specific evidence or is this one of those, "They don't say what I want to hear so they're not credible" things?
Not to mention President Trump has been a lot tougher on Russia than his predecessor, including military support for the Ukraine, military opposition in Syria, sanctions on individuals and the country, and more. But somehow I guess that's Putin being a 5D chess master to make Trump punish Putin just to put on a show?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Who made a claim that the FBI or NSA can't "crack your calls," and what exactly do you mean by that term? Do you think that it's not possible to eavesdrop on a cellular call to any arbitrary phone in the world anymore? If it's not possible, then why do there exist "hardened" devices?
Also, even if everyone in the White House is too dumb to use auto-sync, how hard would it be to have an intern type Donald's contact list into a secure phone?
Shouldn't be hard at all, so why isn't he using a hardened device?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
I don't remember all the sturm und drang from the NY Times when President Obama kept his Blackberry.
I'm not sure what your point is. I conjecture you're arguing this: "critique of Obama for using his blackberry came from Fox but not NYT; therefore Fox and not NYT should be the ones critiquing Trump for using his iPhone"? (in which case, are you berating Fox or NYT or both?)
Or are you saying that the NYT and Fox comments about Obama's blackberry touched only on hypothetical attack vectors conjectured by security experts, but this article is about reports of actual and present and successful attacks on Trump, and you're wondering why the difference?
How this got modded insightful I can't even guess. Of *course* it will let you in. So will *any* consumer grade phone. It's called "phone tapping". Whether it's on the phone itself, a hijack on the carrier's network, or using a picocell to perform a MITM attack, it's actually very easy for anyone who cares enough to do so.
Law enforcement do it all the time, for pete's sake.
I think the larger issue is that it was the unanimous opinion of the 16 agencies in the intelligence community that Russia was actively attacking US democratic processes, and Trump, in public, while standing right next to Putin, after a private meeting that no one else was allowed to attend, said "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be." So Trump chose to not believe his own intelligence agencies, all 16 of them, and instead side with the Russian dictator.
You might want to bring up the prepared statement that he later read when he said that he actually meant the exact opposite of what he said, but if you believe that prepared statement that he read on camera instead of the live answer he gave to the reporter who asked the question, then I think you're giving a pathological liar the benefit of the doubt. That's probably not the wisest thing to do.
Someone is actually keeping track of how many times Trump lies or makes misleading statements while he's been in office, and the total is over 5,000 so far. He has a documented history going back decades of not telling the truth. So, hopefully your counter-argument doesn't require people to believe him when he said, reading from a prepared statement, that he actually meant the exact opposite of what he previously said. Because, either way, whether it was the original answer or the follow-up statement, he said something that wasn't true. So hopefully you're not asking us to just take his word for it.
Also, in case you're getting the urge to bring up something that Obama did, this has nothing to do with Obama. Obama's actions do not excuse Trump's actions.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
"Trump - Whitehouse Apprentice" is now the top-rated reality comedy show in Russia.
Hillary was careless about email at a time when the threat environment was a fraction of what it is today. It was stupid to use a personal server, and if her opponent was a better person, say on the order of McCain or Romney, then I'd have even called it a fair reason not to vote for her.
Hillary was not president at the time. Donald Trump is, and he is after bitching about Hillary's emails for ages. Using a consumer device like this is just the email issue again, save ten times worse, made so by the times and the fact that Donald Trump has no excuse whatsoever, after all the talk about email security.
Let's put it this way, if the situation was reversed, they would be screaming from the mountains about how incompetent she is, and how she is definitely not keeping classified information secure, and, they would be right to do so. since if nothing else the collection of Donald Trump's phone calls would almost certainly be considered classified when taken as a collection, and that is to say nothing for the likely case that he simply isn't careful with what is classified.
Why is it okay if Donald Trump does it?
If China AND Russia are listening to ALL calls that Trump makes on a private cell phone, that means that we are freely giving all domestic and international call streams to China AND Russia, we KNOW about it and we DON'T DO ANYTHING about it.
This doesn't pass the sniff test.
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> I think the larger issue is that it was the unanimous opinion of the 16 agencies in the intelligence community that Russia was actively attacking US democratic processes, and Trump, in public, while standing right next to Putin, after a private meeting that no one else was allowed to attend, said "President Putin says it's not Russia. I don't see any reason why it would be." So Trump chose to not believe his own intelligence agencies, all 16 of them, and instead side with the Russian dictator.
You mean 17 organizations. But that was the ODNI director, a political appointee, speaking for everyone and the report sorta handwaived about it being consistent with Russia's goals, without presenting any factual basis for said assessment or even making any sort of argument. Finally, I wonder what special expertise ODNI member organizations like the Coast Guard bring to that assessment. Maybe that's why you dropped one of the member organizations?
Sorry, I actually read the ODNI report and it didn't say anything remotely interesting, nor did it elaborate any sort of factual basis for those opinions. It's telling that the only thing most people remember about it is the number of organizations involved--assuming they even remember that part correctly, of course...
You seem to be suffering from cognitive dissonance. The obvious sign here is that you are unable to converge two seemingly contradictory ideas. Thus, you rationalize the contradiction by inventing an alternate reality, one where the NYT has somehow gotten it wrong. Without that alternative reading, your brain would simply melt.
The fact is, though, that the NYT, while not completely immune to mistakes, has gotten it right far more often than they'e gotten it wrong. That's not up for debate, no matter how much you want it to be, no matter how much your sanity depends on it. It's much more likely that your favored political figure is, in fact, a moron who is incapable of securing his own communications.
History will almost certainly reflect this, and in 10 or 20 years you can think back to what a complete idiot you were about it.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
The FBI and the NSA. They have repeatedly said they can't monitor phones, and need backdoors.
I believe you’re conflating two different things. The FBI has said they need back doors to get at the encrypted contents on the phones. But I’ve never heard any claim that cell phone calls are particularly secure, unless the person is using an encrypted technology (e.g. FaceTime).
Now as to why the President insists on using his personal phone instead of the two different hardened phones he’s been provided - God only knows.
#DeleteChrome
Sure! I'm glad you asked.
If you had bothered to read the article, you would have noticed that the allegation is that the communications are intercepted en route, not at the device itself. But since you were so eager to defend someone who is actually a chump, I guess we should expect some bias and dishonesty from you.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Sure! I'm glad you asked.
If you had bothered to read the article, you would have noticed that the allegation is that the communications are intercepted en route, not at the device itself. But since you were so eager to defend someone who is actually a chump, I guess we should expect some bias and dishonesty from you.
If it's being intercepted en route, then I doubt the NSA-hardened cell phones are going to do any better... After all, I doubt they're actually encrypting the calls--that doesn't seem likely to be technically feasible if these phones use the standard cell network.
However, there is no sane reason for not having gotten his contact list moved over onto one of them. Transferring contact lists between cell phones is a trivial thing to do. Even if you're scared of doing it by transferring the data for some absurd reason, or it can't be done because it's part of how vendor lock-in is managed, there is always the option of doing it by hand...which is still trivial, just tedious. (So, it's a job for the interns.)
Therefore: Why did the people responsible for ensuring that the POTUS has a secure cell phone decide to not move it over? Is there some (presumably utterly stupid) reason it's not standard operating procedure, given it's a reasonable and anticipatable desire?
Does anyone else feel sorry for the poor Chinese and Russian spies who have to listen to Trumpâ(TM)s phone calls all day?
Triggered eh?
It's Trump so the worst possible implications are obviously true to you, regardless of the evidence.
This story is a prime example of FAKE NEWS and I ask you to carefully think though why I say that. Confirmation bias is hard to overcome, but if you actually look at the verifiable facts being cited here, it's plain to see that the part of this that makes it a story is not actually in evidence but implied. This journalist crafted this story to imply things are happening but we don't actually have any evidence for it.
Now if you want to take your abrupt left turn in your analysis, realize you are being a partisan hack.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Where is anyone saying it is okay? I hear people screaming and crying Trump is an idiot. Okay, we know that. He wasn't elected so much as Hillary was voted against. It's that simple. Plus Obama didn't exactly bridge any gaps. He was very much a divisive figure.
So in short, no one thinks it is a good idea to let Trump use his personal consumer device just like no one thought Hillary should have a private email server for government work.
It would be nice to write them both off as idiots but they are actually both smart, ambition and dangerous people.
Mueller is impartial and is in no way seeking to influence the elections. He is not a Democrat he is a Republican. But first and foremost, he is an honest law man who has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution, and he takes that very, very seriously. He will not use what he knows to influence the election in any way, as that would make his investigation political.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton