Blackberry One? Olbermann mentioned some details about Obama's new toy.

[backscatter712]

It looks like not only does Obama get to keep his Blackberry, but he gets a special Blackberry.

This one will have an extra layer of encryption on it, and Obama will only be able to use it to communicate with members of his staff, family and a few friends. It will be secured by the NSA.

Interesting. As far as the NSA, it is a quixotic organization in my view. Yes, it does terrible and unethical things like warrantless wiretaps and data-mining of our phone calls and emails, and I suspect Russell Tice's revelations are just a small piece of what they're up to. At the same time, speaking as a software engineer, they do have a great deal of knowledge, and have made quite a lot of genuine contributions to the computer security community. So it's hard to say whether the NSA will keep Obama's communications secure or whether they'll have their own little back door...

[ddeclue]

1. Ultimately it is a public record subject to legal discovery

so it really doesn't matter how encrypted they make it.

And as a software and RF engineer myself it is folly to think that any man made communications system can ultimately be made secure. Anything made by man can be broken by man.

Doug D.

[zulchzulu]

2. I got to use a very secure encrypted dynamic addressed cell phone with the Secret Service

I was a driver when Kerry worked on his first debate in Spring Green, WI and worked with the Secret Service as a screened citizen and had a cell phone that they gave me to use.

This isn't giving away any secrets... and it's fairly easy to do if you have good IT skills and understand the basics of encryption and secure protection.

Granted, you need the right equipment to get what I used.

Basically, when you open up your mobile device, it automatically encrypts your location so than only another device that has your address can figure it out. The cell phone number I used was an encrypted number that was dynamically made that would never work again after that phone call. I think it was a random 72 character phone number that included dashes, letter sensitive characters and numbers. That number was toast after I used it.

In order to trace the cell phone number or track my location, you would have to be able to decode a random IP address that would take years to figure out.

That was a device for a driver four years ago. Who knows what encrypted technology they have now. The NSA is pretty much bleeding edge technically.

The FBI and other intelligence forces use encrypted Blackberry-type technology. Anyone worried about Obama using a Blackberry have no clue about how secure such devices can be.

[ddeclue]

3. And that's nice but that's also why countries build huge farms

of massively parallelized distributed supercomputers to break this kind of encryption. Supercomputers used distributed architectures these days and can do a lot more than you imagine.

Doug D.

[backscatter712]

4. Depends on the crypto you use.

If you're using old crypto, like DES, yes, it can be cracked by brute force. Newer crypto algorithms with bigger keyspaces will take millions of years, even with all the computers on the planet.

Though I do wonder if the NSA has quantum computers somewhere in Fort Meade...