The spy in the pocket
Do you remember the political damage suffered by Hilary Clinton because she used a non-governmental email server while in office? The FBI concluded she had been careless but should not face criminal charges. "Lock her up!" chanted the Trump supporters.
It may come as a surprise then to hear reports that Donald Trump has continued to use his conventional Android smart phone to post to Twitter since moving into the White House. Upon being elected, Trump would have been given a phone by the NSA which is locked down against all manner of virus and hacking attempts, but it seems he has continued to use the Android for the late-night Twitter storms. Unlike the federal email servers, the president is not legally required to use the NSA-supplied security-hardened phone, but it is walking a politically dangerous line after the grief he gave Clinton over security during the campaigning.
Why is it a problem if the president of the United States uses a potentially insecure device, a Samsung Galaxy S3 model from 2012 which no longer receives security upgrades, provided it is only for Twitter? It is not as if his Tweets are a secret, and he doesn't (or shouldn't), have any state documents or classified material on that phone. What is the problem with having one phone for work and one for personal use? Security experts warn that the conventional mobile phone is open to all sorts of security attacks and compromises. The biggest danger is that if a foreign intelligence service can get a hook into that phone, they could install malware to turn it into a tracking device so that they know the movements of the president, and use the microphone and camera as surveillance devices, to eavesdrop on meetings between heads of state.
That may sound like the plot line from the over-active imagination of a Hollywood script writer, but remember that in 2013, Germany conducted its own investigation into espionage for this very scenario. German Chancellor Angela Merkel used one phone for state business and a second, private phone, for party business, a seemingly sensible arrangement at the time, but documents leaked by Edward Snowden suggested the second phone had been compromised by the NSA. Further investigations by the German Attorney General indicated that this was just one of a number of foreign agencies or groups who were routinely spying on Merkel's second phone, although it concluded the allegations could not be proved by "legally watertight means".
It may be that Trump is more tech savvy than most presidents though, but does that savviness also extend to his aides? The storm about Trump's use of his old Android came about after pictures circulated showing him appearing to use it during dinner with Shinzo Abe, prime minister of Japan. Those same pictures showed Mr Trump's aides using their camera-equipped smartphones as torches to illuminate sensitive documents in a discussion about North Korea's surprise missile test.
28th February 2017
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.