For crying out loud! He cant have a computer either?

[Clio the Leo]

I'm watching the interview Barack did last week with CNBC. He said (in response to a question about his Blackberry) "I think I've found a way to have a computer, somewhere, if not in the Oval Office."

What's wrong with a computer? The most powerful man in the universe and they cant come up with a way to save his email and make his connection secure?

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. I don't understand why he can't have his Blackberry

I am addicted to my iPhone. I read the news all day long on it. Don't we want our president to be up on what's going on?

[mucifer]

2. Then he might need to subscribe to as many newspapers as sarah palin.

[Clio the Leo]

3. What I understand is....

..... they have to be able to back up any communication he does with anyone in case anyone wants to investigate it later.

And it's currently impossible for him to communicate via his phone in a manner that is secure. For example, he cant send a text to Joe that says "I've decided we're invading Canada tomorrow" because someone could intercept it, tell the Canadians and they beat us to the punch.

Something like that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. So how about the Blackberry without the email feature?

[Occam Bandage]

8. They use them almost entirely for the email feature.

As for the news? If everything's running smoothly, he usually gets it before the news does.

[DBoon]

12. true, especially the RIM is a Canadian company

RIM being the company that provides the Blackberry

It would be naive to think that Blackberry messages are not monitored in *some* way by Canadian intelligence.

If so, then Obama's order to invade Canada would definitely come to the attention of the Canadian government very quickly, if he used his Blackberry to send such a message

Being a paranoid information security type, Obama's use of a Blackberry would cause some concern to me.

[whistler162]

19. True, and there is also the fact we have never won

a war against Canada.

[Rebubula]

18. Phone security

Cellphone and landline encryption IS currently possible and deployed in many parts of the world. Blackberry is not currently able to be encrypted, but you can bet that many companies are working on it.

Encrypted texting is still a few months off, but will be live by Summer's end.

[Recursion]

28. When you use a cell phone the phone company knows where you are

At least roughly.

The Secret Service doesn't like arbitrary people knowing (even roughly) where the President is at arbitrary times.

[Occam Bandage]

7. It's weakly encrypted and doesn't leave a trail of backup copies.

Bad for security, and bad for transparency.

[SoCalDem]

16. GPS..and the possibility of zeroing in on his location?

and of course since watergate, all presidents are scxared to write anything down:(

Think of what we would know about jefferson or Washington or Lincoln if they had not written things down..

I think it should be mandatory for them to keep a diary

[scheming daemons]

26. It's an electronic bullseye.

[ddeclue]

4. SUBPOENA...

Unfortunately politicians are having to act like mafia dons these days and not leave any unnecessary paper (digital) trail that can be subpoenaed. Everything gets done verbally so that there is no record to subpoena. Can't write it down, can't type it on a computer or a blackberry lest it become the subject of a court battle.

It's amazing how far we've come from the point where Richard Nixon actually had the stupidity to record himself breaking the law in the Oval Office to the point where now that a President who actually isn't going to do anything wrong has to be afraid of his Blackberry and PC..

Doug D.

[backscatter712]

22. Exactly.

Even his web surfing counts as communications, so if he sat in front of a laptop and surfed the web, that could be subpoenaed, and the sites he visits could be leaked to the media. Even if he does nothing but reading news sites, the right-wingers in the media could pontificate for hours on how it fucks with his decision-making, or how his news sources are biased, or that he spends too much time surfing & so on.

[Crabby Appleton]

24. Correct. nt

[davidpdx]

5. It is kind of sad

The more technology a president has, the more possible things need to be backed up and archieved in case of possible investigations in the future.

[zulchzulu]

9. We are f&cked as a country if we can't have a President be able to use his mobile in 21st century

Hooking up a Blackberry server that syncs up the Blackberry and saves all documents to the server is fairly easy lifting.

You can use Microsoft Exchange or better yet, use an Open Source blackberry server solution (http://www.funambol.com/) where you can encrypt the crap out of the signal, make it encrypted dynamic IP addresses that are useless using once...

[lurky]

11. I can't imagine the NSA and other spooky agencies haven't come up

with a secure wireless protocol for their executives, operatives, people in the diplomatic corps, etc.

If I had to guess, what they are worried about is not interception of the signal, but what happens if the device is stolen. If the president were to misplace his Blackberry full of sensitive emails, call records, notes, documents, etc, it would be really hard to prevent someone from getting to them. If somebody has physical access to a device, they can pretty much have their way with it, especially if they have the full technological resources of a foreign government behind them.

[backscatter712]

23. I'd imagine that any Blackberry or Blackberry-like device the POTUS uses would have to be custom.

Encrypting everything that goes to and from the Blackberry isn't that hard. I'd also imagine that it wouldn't be hard to rig Obama's Blackberry to self-destruct. No, not burst into flames, but upon remote command, wipe its memory, and also have a password on it, with the Blackberry wiping itself if the user doesn't enter the correct password.

I'd also think that Obama at least is smart enough to not use a Blackberry for classified things like nuclear codes.

Personally, I think the biggest problem is emails and similar communications being subpoenaed

[lurky]

27. The self-destruct thing is a lot easier said than done.

Any serious adversary would take apart the device and remove all the flash memory, to be read by another computer. That way, they would be able to bypass any OS-level protections.

I'm sure he wouldn't be saving the nuclear codes in a memo on his Blackberry, but I'm also sure other countries could learn a lot from who he is talking to and what they are discussing.

[ddeclue]

14. Hey..the whole point is that they do NOT want to have it "backed up" or even exist in the 1st place.

If a paper trail doesn't exist it can't be subpoenaed.

It is NOT a technological issue it is a a legal one.

[lurky]

10. It would really suck if someone subpoenaed his websurfing history.

I can't imagine living under that kind of scrutiny: "I clicked that link by mistake! I didn't mean to go to bigbootybimbos.com!"
:rofl:

[cliffordu]

13. He's going to resign over this I can just feel it.

I would. No blackberry?

No commander in chief.

[ddeclue]

15. I already wrote that post a few days ago..

:rofl:

[boppers]

17. It's not that he "can't".

It's just treacherous territory.

If it's a Windows box, how will it look when it gets a virus?

(Full disclosure: I've worked on National Security level threat management)

Oh, and imagine this headline:
"Obama tells wife he's going to get 'busy on her booty'"

All presidential communications are recorded.

[Clio the Leo]

20. Given the infidelity issues we've had with politicians in the past...

.... a little dirty talk between and husband and wife who are madly in love with one another really IS change we can believe in. ;)

[Jennicut]

21. That made me spit my coffee out! That is too funny. Poor Barack.

He is going to start going crazy, its an addiction, just like my visiting DU everyday.

[backscatter712]

25. The laws on Presidential records may have to be updated.

I think that everything that the President communicates should be archived and such, but maybe there should be broad privacy-protection laws in place, so Obama doesn't have to worry so much about everything from web-browsing history to emails to IMs to text-messages being scrutinized by the Kenneth Starrs of the world.

Granted, the laws should ideally make it possible for a good President like Obama to communicate effectively without worrying so much about Kenneth Starrs, but at the same time, make it possible for the Bush's of the world to be subject to necessary scrutiny if they're breaking the law - in other words, no "lost" emails, no emailing on gwb43.com instead of whitehouse.gov, and so on.