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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.
BUT HER EMAILS!!!
Trump calls Putin after finishing his KFC dinner to bitch about how everyone is mean to him?
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!"
Are you forgetting who it is we're discussing here? This is the guy that blathers all over Twitter constantly, in defiance of all logic and reason, contradicting official Policy, even contradicting himself, attacking friend and foe alike, and so on, and so on, and so on. How is it so far outside the realm of possibility that he's blathering about State Secrets and other classified subjects on an unsecured phone?
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?
If the president prefer his old phone because of his contact list... why can't he import it? I means that would be a good start?
When you discover a recording device or a phone tap, you don't necessarily want to simply disconnect or destroy it...
After all, someone has to *listen* to the results of that bug/tap. So instead of signaling that you've found and disabled their listening device, just flood it with misinformation. Tie up their resources, confuse their intelligence agencies, and so on....
Show me on the 1st Amendment bobblehead where the moderator touched you...
TFA is based on the assumption that any consumer grade cell phone can be monitored at will by the Chinese and Russians.
So the NSA and FBI can't crack your calls, but the Chinese can. Sure. Whatever.
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?
Does MAGA = My Attorney Got Arrested?
More FAKE news. Everybody knows he is not a moron, but a FUCKING moron.
"Trump - Whitehouse Apprentice" is now the top-rated reality comedy show in Russia.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
I would rather he use the hardened phone strictly for classified or official communications and his regular phone for casual stuff.
love is just extroverted narcissism
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
Did you actually read the article you posted? It kind of undermines your own argument. Some salient points, emphasis mine ** :
But critics would argue that’s not enough, pointing to his delays implementing congressional sanctions and frequent praise of Putin’s leadership, as well as the reluctance to act on Moscow’s cyber aggression. They’ve also cited U.S. intelligence conclusions that the Kremlin meddled in the U.S. election in favor of Trump.
In August 2017, Trump signed into law the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, or CAATSA, despite calling it “seriously flawed.” **He then bypassed a congressionally mandated deadline in January to act on the bill** and impose new sanctions on Russia for the election allegations.
Also in March, following the poisoning of former KGB agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the U.K., the Trump administration expelled 60 Russian diplomats from the U.S., **although reports indicated he was not happy with the move.**
In early July, Trump seemed to challenge the long-held U.S. policy of refusing to recognize Moscow’s Crimea annexation, saying only in response to questions on the issue: “We’ll see.” He also reportedly argued to officials at June’s G-7 summit that Crimea should belong to Russia because “everyone there speaks Russian.”
Washington's UN ambassador Nikki Haley promptly promised further sanctions against Russia for its refusal to condemn the chemical attack — only to be left hanging when Trump walked back his threat and no new sanctions were imposed.
He talks a big game sometimes but hasn't really done much, and in a few cases like the CAATSA act, signed it and then refused to implement it. Not so tough.
You don't remember that? I do. Anyway, maybe this is the reason the press didn't get all German over it, from the article you linked to:
"The president has a BlackBerry through a compromise that allows him to stay in touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends," said Robert Gibbs, his spokesman, "in a way that use will be limited and that the security is enhanced to ensure his ability to communicate."
First, only a select circle of people will have his address, creating a true hierarchy for who makes the cut and who does not.
Second, anyone placed on the A-list to receive his e-mail address must first receive a briefing from the White House counsel’s office.
Third, messages from the president will be designed so they cannot be forwarded.
There's also this:
Mr. Obama received his BlackBerry on Tuesday, but officials declined to specify what kind.
Imagine that, he was using a device that they gave him, not a consumer-grade device.
While lawyers and the Secret Service balked at Mr. Obama's initial requests to allow him to keep his BlackBerry, they acquiesced as long as the president - and those corresponding with him - agreed to strict rules. And he had to agree to use a specially made device, which must be approved by national security officials.
Let me know if you're still confused about the difference between that and Trump. You could also just actually read the articles that you link to. Or, if you just needed to get your what-about-ism out, hopefully you feel better now.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Hopefully they aren't reading his tweets. Thoses things are painfully humiliating for him.
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
FYI, this discussion made me curious to see if there are anything like 'rankings' for news sources, and I came upon this very interesting site:
https://www.adfontesmedia.com/
They do very detailed content-based analysis and are responsible for what is apparently a now very well cited graph. (https://www.adfontesmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Media-Bias-Chart_4.0_8_28_2018-min.jpg)
It's interesting cause they go into depth regarding their methodology and it seems pretty solid.
Incidentally, NYT is categorized as "slightly left leaning" and "factual".
Dumbest. Traitor. EVER.
Truly imagine the quality of person that Trump had to beat to make it into office. That's how low the bar was, and nothing indicates to me that it somehow has changed.
Stunningly, there are people on the left who say with a straight face that the same person/people should run again against Trump.
It seems to me the real traitors here reside in the DNC.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Why wouldn't you rather he use a hardened phone at all times, so that it's not even a question/concern?
You want him connecting to Twitter with his NSA hardened phone? In 20 years of being a computer professional I haven't used my computer or work associated accounts for personal things, not even once. It's real easy to be confident I have never inadvertently leaked anything I shouldn't.
love is just extroverted narcissism
TFA is based on the assumption that any consumer grade cell phone can be monitored at will by the Chinese and Russians.
Did you RTFA? It's based on intelligence developed by US agencies:
Basically, the reporters talked to some sources in the NSA and CIA and they were told "The Chinese are totally listening in on Trump's cell phone calls, we hear them talking about it all the time when we're eavsdropping on them" and then they talked to some White House officials who said "We tried to take his phones but Trump doesn't like to be told what to do". The article didn't speculate about the method used to intercept the calls so what are you basing your above statement on?
Enigma
The linked article in the OP says 3 phones, not two, and his phones are unsecured, whereas obama’s Had all kinds of controls applied (e.g. removing the camera and microphone, etc.).
Quit spouting drivel.
Does Trump look like the kind of guy that goes into specifics ovethe phone?
So far as he knows them, sure. Practically the first thing he did was expose a bunch of Israeli intelligence assets to the Russian ambassador in an Oval Office meeting.
In fact what would be far more Trump-like is him knowing the Chinese were listening, and leading them on in some ways... you have to wonder what he's said about tariffs with others knowing the Chinese were listening in.
So you're theory is that Trump is a genius 11-dimensional chess player.
I'm not one of those people who think Trump is stupid. Penn Jilett, who actually knows the man, has an interesting take on Trump: Trump isn't stupid. He's stupid for a president. Take even George W. Bush, whose intelligence is often mocked, and put him in a room with a couple of dozen other random guys, and he's probably the smartest guy in the room.
Jilette, by the way, says he likes Donald Trump personally, because he likes people who don't have a filter. This fits my impression of the man, and what other expansive egotists I've known are like. They're domineering and crafty, yes, but they're also impulsive and needy. They tend to improvise, because making an impression on the person they're talking to right now takes precedence over the long term.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Really? You're going for the "but Obama ...!" defense? If you had read the article, you would know that they addressed that very subject and stated that Obama did not make calls on his cell phone when he was President:
So basically Obama had a email-reading device, not a cell phone.
Enigma
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.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
TFA is based on the assumption that any consumer grade cell phone can be monitored at will by the Chinese and Russians.
This strawman argument is completely made up. This assumption never appears in the article. Instead the article says, "American spy agencies, the officials said, had learned that China and Russia were eavesdropping on the president’s cellphone calls from human sources inside foreign governments and intercepting communications between foreign officials." Of course, each reader is free to discount the competence of American intelligence agencies, like our President does.
The Chinese strategy is not to learn nuggets of classified information. Instead, "the officials said they have also determined that China is seeking to use what it is learning from the calls — how Mr. Trump thinks, what arguments tend to sway him and to whom he is inclined to listen — to keep a trade war with the United States from escalating further. In what amounts to a marriage of lobbying and espionage, the Chinese have pieced together a list of the people with whom Mr. Trump regularly speaks in hopes of using them to influence the president, the officials said."
Perhaps the most interesting idea from the article is "Russia is not believed to be running as sophisticated an influence effort as China because of Mr. Trump’s apparent affinity for President Vladimir V. Putin, a former official said." That is, Mr. Xi can only dream of being like Putin. So, instead Xi needs spy tactics to learn which Americans to taint, but Putin can talk to his American friend directly.
> 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...
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
Perhaps the most interesting idea from the article is "Russia is not believed to be running as sophisticated an influence effort as China because of Mr. Trump’s apparent affinity for President Vladimir V. Putin, a former official said." That is, Mr. Xi can only dream of being like Putin. So, instead Xi needs spy tactics to learn which Americans to taint, but Putin can talk to his American friend directly.
I disagree with the article. I think the Russian influence is based in social media, and (IMHO) is a sophisticated influence effort that has been going on for years. The Chinese effort is a "top-down" approach: influence the few rich & powerful people that influence Trump. The Russians are using a bottom-up approach: influence the less astute but more numerous voters. Make up in shear numbers what you lack in precision. Kinda makes sense from the folks that gave us the RDS-220 Tsar Bomba.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Talk about refusing to see! Two Supreme Court justices in place, tax cuts passed, an economy doing quite well and soon overcoming Democrats in a non-presidential year that was supposed to be theirs.
Trump can be effective. The tax cuts are essentially for the rich and for businesses; his real base. The cuts for the middle class (his fake base) last long enough to get him re-elected. Part of the SCOTUS victories are due to Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee parking Merrick Garland's nomination up their ass. It would have happened no matter who got elected. As far as Blue or Red wave in Nov, who knows. Either way, I'll be voting illegally early and often, and there's nothing tweetie-pie can do about it. Thank god for mail-in ballots. I'm calling it a diarrhea wave.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
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?
Maybe it's the same reason Obama insisted on using his Blackberry?
Perhaps the NSA should focus on user convenience and accessibility, because people will subvert security to achieve them. Security basics, NSA, fucking learn your job.
What's good for the gander is good for the goose. The hypocrisy about using personal technology for government business has reached new levels.
Honestly though, President Trump likely uses the iPhone for his tweets which are intended to be public anyway. If some government want to commit an act of war to get their tweets the hard way, I can only shake my head.
Greed is the root of all evil.
I'm far more likely to believe a news source that can admit their mistakes than one that asserts they're right more than anyone. The link shared by the AC is nice, but let's link to the source instead, as they do explain the reasoning behind what goes where. NPR is probably the most reliable news source I can follow in these days, and they flat out tell you (or at least my local member station tells its listeners) to consume news from multiple outlets to get varying reads on the stories.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
Ask any European or Asian or Canadian what they think about him? Their answers will mirror the Democrats.
No, I've met some European leftists that like Trump, or are at least happy for his Presidency. They feel that he'll damage American credibility and mess up American power over Europe and the world irreparably, putting the US on a more even ground with everybody else, or at least Europe.
They have repeatedly said they can't monitor phones, and need backdoors.
No, they said they can't access the encrypted contents of the physical device without a backdoor. They didn't say shit about phone calls.
Installing encryption on an off-the-shelf phone is not difficult. There is no way that the POTUS lacks the resources to do that. Once an encryption app is installed, then yes, eavesdropping is highly implausible.
OK, great, so again: then why is he not using one of the 2 phones provided to him? Why is he still using his personal phone? They gave him 2 phones that he could use, so why not use them? You're just explaining why he should be using another phone.
Mostly because contractors make a lot of money off them, and they make the Secret Service guys feel they are doing something important.
OK, and where are you getting that information from? Let me guess, you have no clue and you're just making shit up because it sounds right.
This is just my opinion, but I think it is because he is an undisciplined egotistical moron.
He sure is, and you won't see me defending that kind of behavior in a discussion like this. To each their own though, I guess.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Go back and read the article again and notice how Obama did use the hardened device provided to him. Notice also how the people he was allowed to contact on that device also all received briefings from the White House counsel. Trump doesn't want the White House lawyers talking to his porn stars.
And, seriously, when has Trump ever tried to copy Obama? If you want Trump to be in favor of something, just tell him Obama hated it.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
At some point, maybe, but don't fucking pretend he didn't use a blackberry
Did you read that article at all? Like, any of it? Any part at all? Do you think it's evidence for your argument, and not mine? Because that's not the case.
Just so I don't have to repeat myself, let me just link you to the comment I posted yesterday, when someone else who apparently did not read that article linked to the same article and tried to act like it somehow supported their case that Obama was using a consumer-grade unhardened communication device. Here's your response:
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Giving him the ease of use, flexibility and other benefits he perceives from using a different device.
But they're giving him the device he wants to use, hardened. I mean, they're literally doing specifically what you're trying to suggest they're not doing. It feels like I'm arguing with an illiterate brick wall. They're giving him hardened iPhones and the only reason they're not completely worried is because he doesn't actually read the intelligence reports that he gets every day.
Unless you're trying to suggest that the ease of use, flexibility, and other benefits are the features that needed to be removed in order to harden the device. If you're saying that, then you're literally suggesting that the NSA is failing at its job by not giving the president a vulnerable device.
Whatever the case, we have a president who is known for not reading his daily intelligence briefings, uses a consumer-grade cell phone, and has been given 2 hardened devices by the NSA, and you're trying to actually argue that it is the NSA who is not doing their job. Uhhh, #MAGA?
I think you'll find it's the CIA or the NSA that wants Trump to be in favour of something. Perhaps you should share your wisdom with them.
Oh don't you worry, literally anyone who should know how to influence Trump knows exactly how to influence him. Putin knows, Saudi Arabia knows, China knows, and other US government officials know. Everyone knows. It's not a secret. Stroke his ego, talk about how great he would be if he did a certain thing and how everyone would love him, talk about how much you love him, etc. Really, it's not a secret. Supposedly the Russians, decades ago, rejected trying to recruit him as an unknowing agent because he was too easy to influence, he wasn't reliable.
I am finding it highly fucking amusing that I'm being modded 'troll' for highlighting a failure in the US security services.
It's because you're not. The NSA isn't at fault here, Trump is. That's how you're being a troll. You're trying to take a failure of Trump, and blame someone else for it. Which, incidentally, is very Trumpian of you.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black