Comment by themartorana
9 years ago
What's the rationale for not giving everyone secure smartphones? And I mean high-ranking officials, SoS certainly ranks considering how much she/he is in foreign countries with foreign leaders. Can someone in the know explain why the NSA would deny such requests?
Difficult to know for sure. Obama had one, Rice previously used one, but:
The NSA refused to give Clinton a device similar to the one used by Obama: a modified BlackBerry 8830 World Edition with additional cryptography installed. And while Clinton's predecessor Condaleeza Rice had obtained waivers for herself and her staff to use BlackBerry devices, Clinton's staff was told that "use [of the BlackBerry] expanded to an unmanageable number of users from a security perspective, so those waivers were phased out and BlackBerry use was not allowed in her Suite,"[1]
This being Clinton there are probably conspiracy theories (the NSA is out to get her!) but I suspect they simply didn't want to have to deal with it, and had the ability to say no. So they did.
[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/nsa-re...
>Clinton's staff was told that "use [of the BlackBerry] expanded to an unmanageable number of users from a security perspective
if you don't provide a secure way to get shit done, motivated individuals will figure out how to get shit done, security be damned. happens every time. that's what happened here.
They offered her a non-blackberry alternative. That's not what happened here.
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They refused to give her a highly customized hardened BlackBerry. She could have used a laptop or other device. There is no way they don't have a standard secure remote email capability, she just wanted what Obama had, and they said no, we aren't supporting any more bespoke devices for individuals. Which is totally rational from a security standpoint.
Idunno, this might be a little spellOCD of me, but I find it hard to take an article seriously that not once, but at least twice -- judging just from the quote here plus the lede, not even having read the article yet -- misspells the name of a Secretary (albeit a former one) of State.
In all fairness, Obama's use of a smartphone was unprecedented. I read (but cannot find a reasonable source now) that Obama's Blackberry was tethered to a private base station, not any kind of public network, cellular or otherwise. So "secure smartphone" is a term that really means "secure infrastructure".
That infrastructure simply isn't scaleable.
[Edit: See this HN comment for sources. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11306380]
Supposedly his phone is also locked down to just ~10 other similarly secure numbers, while Clinton wanted to be able to use her secure phone to call her entire staff. That would've required dozens or hundreds more devices, which is a problem when every possible loss or compromise of any device is such a huge deal.
I liked where I _thought_ you were going with that. Why not give ALL OF US secure smartphones. Indeed. Indeed.
The NSA is already in my smartphone. If they gave me a secure smartphone, I'd still feel pretty much like I do now.
Probably because they know how to pwn all of them, and are certain they are insecure or an absolute nightmare to secure.
No doubt whatever mods they make for the POTUSberry are resource- and time-intensive.