Obama may have to face BlackBerry withdrawal
Toby Harnden, National Post
Published: Monday, November 17, 2008

• WASHINGTON - Presidentelect Barack Obama, the first truly computer-literate U. S. leader, might have to give up his BlackBerry over concerns about e-mail security and the Presidential Records Act, which requires all his correspondence to be put on the official record.
  
  During his campaign, Mr. Obama made unprecedented use of the Internet to organize his network of grassroots supporters, raise money and communicate with his staff. He was seldom without his BlackBerry -- often strapped to his waist -- which he would tap away on in his limousine or at the front of his plane.
  
  Advisors are afraid the handheld device could be compromised by hackers and will also put Mr. Obama at the mercy of public scrutiny rules. Similar concerns forced George W. Bush to stop e-mailing.
  
  According to The New York Times, Mr. Obama has not changed his e-mail address in years. On election night, he replied to a friend's congratulatory e-mail with: "How about that?" On other occasions he would send messages like "Sox!" when the Chicago White Sox won. His e-mails were generally brief, correctly spelt and punctuated and unadorned by such abbreviations as "LOL" or smiley-faced emoticons.
  
  Mr. Obama has made it clear that he intends to be the first president to have a laptop on his desk, currently the Resolute desk presented by Queen Victoria in 1880. One possibility is that he could keep in touch by receiving read-only e-mails, to which he could respond by phone.
  
  Yesterday, Mr. Obama resigned his seat in the Senate to focus on his transition to the White House, appointing new staff and thanking his home state of Illinois for launching his political career.
  
  "Today, I am ending one journey to begin another," he said.
  
  He announced three more additions to his White House team, making his top aide from the Senate a senior advisor and naming two deputies to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
  
  Mr. Obama's transition office said in a statement that Pete Rouse, who led Mr. Obama's staff as an Illinois Senator, would join the White House as a senior advisor.
  
  Mr. Rouse worked for former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle for 19 years. Mr. Daschle, a former South Dakota senator, advised Mr. Obama during his presidential campaign and is thought to be in contention for a top post in the new administration.
  
  Mr. Obama's office also said Mona Sutphen, a longtime foreign service officer who worked in Mr. Clinton's White House on the National Security Council, and Jim Messina, a former top aide to two U. S. senators, would both serve as deputy chief of staff. Also this weekend, it was reported that Valerie Jarrett, a senior Obama campaign advisor and former housing developer, will serve as senior White House advisor.

WTF? Why not just put a key-catcher on it? Then everything is recorded.

Maybe they're concerned about someone getting access to the keylogger -- all they need to do is figure out the key combination and password, and the rest of the work's been done for 'em.

Hacking into his Blackberry to spy on the Prez-to-be is a bit too obvious, in my opinion.

A truly enterprising (or entertaining) spy would do something else, such as figure out a way to put a bug onto that dog Obama's getting for his girls. I'd find out which dog pound Obama plans to get the dog from and put implants into every dog there. If I had the time, I'd build a robotic duplicate of the dog that Obama chooses and replace the real dog with the lifelike fake at some point. I'd also speak with a strong, yet vague European or Middle Eastern accent and capture the best intelligence agents in the country, yet still get caught by Obama's kids in a hilarious, exciting, yet family-friendly holiday offering.

Clinton had a laptop on his desk. He called it Monica.



























I should probably stay out of topics like this.

A truly genius ploy....

technically, its a half blackberry

Wouldn't it be half black and half berry?

I hate myself for making that joke.

that was a joke?

More importantly, Rex didn't hate himself already?

CBS Interactive:

• One thing that security experts can agree on is that despite RIM's efforts, a BlackBerry probably isn't up to the security standards for a leader of the free (or even unfree) world.
  
  BlackBerrys can become infected with viruses that install spyware or turn the microphone on and record conversations, malware can be inadvertently downloaded, e-mail and text messages can be intercepted, and, of course, they can be lost or stolen, said Dan Hoffman, chief technology officer of SMobile Systems, which sells antivirus software for the devices.
  
  The National Vulnerability Database, which is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Division, lists 14 vulnerabilities for BlackBerrys. Those include ways that a malicious attacker can install malware, and perhaps crash the device through a so-called denial of service attack.
  
  It's not like snoopy computer utilities are difficult to find. Flexispy.com sells spyware that can be installed by someone with physical possession of a phone for 15 minutes. The creators boast that their software, once installed, can "bug a room or person" and "catch cheating husbands."
  
  The U.S. government uses special ciphers for secret information and they use different data networks from the public data networks, said Phil Dunkelberger, chief executive of encryption provider PGP Corp. "Unless you're using point-to-point encryption technology...or the mail itself is encrypted, you would have exposure to people administering the network." And, on a related note, we know that Obama's cell phone records through Verizon were improperly accessed last year.
  
  There's also the risk of someone tracking the coordinates of a BlackBerry through the device's built-in GPS or the carrier's ability to triangulate on the signal--something that police, for instance, claim they should be able to do without a search warrant or evidence of criminal activity. Bush White House aides say that security concerns prompted them to disable the GPS feature on their BlackBerrys.
  
  James Atkinson, president of Granite Island Group, an engineering firm that helps the government protect classified networks and equipment, pointed this out as a possible security vulnerability. "You can identify where a person is without gaining access to the cell phone network just by the timing of the signals, Atkinson said. "You can identify who is sitting in which seat in a conference room from a couple thousand feet away."

They think the President won't be using a Blackberry per se, but more likely a General Dynamics' Sectera Edge:

• ...a combination phone-PDA that's been certified by the National Security Agency as being acceptable for Top Secret voice communications and Secret e-mail and Web sites. Through three separate interchangeable modules, it works with Wi-Fi, GSM, or CDMA networks, and is dust-proof, waterproof, and rugged enough to survive repeated 4-foot drops onto concrete. Physically, it's a chunkier second cousin to the Palm Treo 750, though with an additional LCD display below the keyboard.

Hackers' Holy Grail: Everyone's trying to crack into Obama's super-secure BlackBerry — and a top hacker says he knows how

Spill your secrets, Pro!

I bet Pro could get Obama's berry!

Promod dreams of getting his hands on Obama's black berry.