The Real Risks of Obama's BlackBerry 273
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."
Cellphones? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Prez doesn't have a cellphone?
Femto-cells (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like using a portable femtocell [wikipedia.org] 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.
Re:Obama's crackberry doesn't have a power button (Score:2, Insightful)
eeeevery device has an "off" ;)
Re:turn it off? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or leave it at home?
Risks of NOT using a BlackBerry (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exploding battery risks far higher (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Wow, they know where the president is (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think they ever could have sussed it out without the phone. It's not like the giant airplane, motorcades, helicopters, press pool, and army of Secret Service agents are a dead giveaway. The man can't even take a piss without a humorless man in black sunglasses whispering into his wrist.
If there are any vulnerabilities to be found here, no doubt there will be hackers looking into it and making it public knowledge for the notoriety, just like they do with Microsoft. The holes will be plugged, new research paid for, and I think we can all rest assured that wireless security will be all the more advanced from his eight years in office.
Knowing where the President is... (Score:5, Insightful)
... is much less important, from a personal security standpoint, than knowing where he's going to be.
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Cellphones? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oddly enough, that pretty much covers it. This article has nothing specifically to do with blackberrys, its about any kind of cell phone using a public GSM or CDMA network.
Re:i don't think obama has a blackberry (Score:3, Insightful)
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+
There is nothing absurd at all about the notion that the President would have one device for official government business and another for personal use. In fact, that's the easiest method to comply with the relevant laws.
anyone, anywhere, writing about what obama is using is either guessing or lying.
Ah. Well, you could have just said that first and saved a lot of typing.
Re:turn it off? (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, turn it off if you're trying to sneak around?
The article mentioned one 'threat': that the SS driving around a limo pretending to contain the president while he arrives quietly in a different car, saying that the GSM chip would give away the 'right' car.
Except that the ruse would work even better by putting the real phone in the fake car and driving that around. Do we believe the SS didn't already think of this?
when you are president of the united states (Score:3, Insightful)
there is no such thing as personal use
what i mean by that is, any communication of yours meant to be private that can be intercepted and used against you is a national security concern. there is a reason his daughters have secret service agents: someone could hurt his children, or threaten to hurt them, and by extension, influence national policy. his communication with them by extension is vulnerable to interception, manipulation, etc. all sorts of fascinating psychological data about the president can be gleaned form his "private" communications on a common network, no matter how "secure". if he really is still using a well-known network for private vulnerable communications, you bet your ass foreign espionage services are stumbling over themselves getting their hands on those messages to mine for intelligence and psychological angles to work on the president
i would be incredibly surprised if obama was allowed to use any common carrier or protocol, even the relatively secure blackberry, the keys to which are owned by a canadian, ie, foreign, company. you really think they would let him do that? you really think obama himself isn't mindful of this threat?
no. i really would be hard pressed to believe obama is using a plain old blackberry. and if not a sectera, then a modded and retooled blackberry on a completely different network using a completely different protocol. doesn't have to be james bond Q type gadgetry, just something unique to the federal government and guarded by nsa spooks. because ALL of his communications, including his "private" ones, are that vital to national security
bush was purposefully avoided data retention (Score:3, Insightful)
because he and his cohorts knew what they were talking about was a political liability. there's not protection from a president who is keeping secrets from his own people. that's an entirely different scenario than a president engaging in personal but politically harmless communications
"Your fantasies about foreign spies gaining "fascinating psychological data" from his email that isn't available from his books or non-scripted speaking events is fun, but simply that, fantasy."
so there's no dedicated teams in the cia right now gleaning every little snippet of information they can get their hands on any way possible about hu jintao? ahmadinejad? bin laden? putin?
and russia, or china: they'll just stick to watching c-span to find out about obama?
i wished i were that clueless and naive. the world would be such a cotton candy place
Re:Cellphones? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but why is a device that constantly can recieve and respond to a receive this email signal any safer than a device that does the same for a phone call?
Can't hide the president. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a silly discussion.
You can't hide the U.S. President in his daily business. It's just impossible. Motorcades, helicopters, public speeches, platoons of serious men in dark suits... the dude wins the prize for Most Obvious Man in America. forget about it.
Now, if the President *wants* to hide, he goes to a secure bunker somewhere where the radio waves don't shine, somewhere that even the sneakiest guy with an antenna can't get within ten miles of.
One (Score:4, Insightful)
"The big ass plane with the unique paint job, the helicopters with the presidential seal, the convoy of black Escalades, all those are kinda big giveaways."
Well... actually, there are TWO Air Force Ones. The Marine One HMX-1 squadron consists (IIRC) of 28 birds, and most POTUS transport missions fly three identical whitebacks in an aerial shell game. And there are often multiple convoys of Escalades and Cadilac limos.
So which plane? Which helicopter? Which convoy? Which limo? There's a difference between knowing where he is in a general sense, and in exactly which vehicle he's being transported.
Besides, all of those "kinda big giveaways" you mentioned also make kinda big decoys. Just because they're there doesn't mean HE'S there...
Re:Unrealistic because ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Well a Faraday cage blocks only certain frequencies. Test it, put a cell phone in a metal box, and it will still function. A microwave oven uses roughly the same frequency as an gsm phone, and to my big surprise my cell phone worked in the microwave! Faraday cage and cell phone is very easy to test so do it.
Re:Unrealistic because ... (Score:1, Insightful)
Pretty good but certainly not perfect. It's no better than a stainless steel box wrapped in a concrete building...commonly called an elevator.
Re:Cellphones? (Score:1, Insightful)
Oddly enough, all of the comments seem to be about location information.
How about considering the implications of the president carrying a not terribly secure device that contains a microphone and a radio?
Saves all that trouble of planting your own bug, if the president will provide one for you.
Where are the blackberries and the sectera manufactured?