Also, he DID swap out his phone for a secured one, and his staff instituted a number of security protocols to keep it secure.

Being elected president is not the time to learn a new technology suite. Hopefully most presidents have better things to do with their time than that.

At that level your people have people who have people to deal with that kind of minutiae.

At what level does this stop being a waste of time for the person?

I'm not suggesting Obama should have been forced to change, but every else in his administration was forced to change. There's some serious clashing between the need for secure devices and the reluctance to change from old technology.

My understanding is that internal hardware was removed/shielded, and I assume software modifications were made as well, like only connecting to specific cellular base stations (such as the one in his official vehicle).

http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/22/technology/security/nsa-obam...

The main scandal was her violating FOIA. There were some additional security concerns, but her running on a platform of undoing civil rights era legislation was the bigger issue.

I feel like this needs more explanation

https://www.businessinsider.de/hillary-clinton-email-server-...

Where would an average though maybe high priced attorney go to get advice other than “use signal & WhatsApp” if they knew they needed protection from a federal investigation?

I have more than a couple times witnessed and thought "are you actually exchanging highly sensitive information with your board while using an open wifi in the same room as 5 of your direct competitiors, their staff and 1k random guys like me?"

They can ask legal or IT but either way it will end up being a project relegated on a larger roadmap and will not be properly implemented in a timely manner.

I guess what I'm looking for is a piece written by a reputable source (from their POV) such as Bloomberg or the WSJ. Any ideas?

Edit: So are y'all dumping on me because my 20% estimate is too high, or too low?

Even I know the basic issues to address, even if I don't know all of the implementation specifics.

Now name one that an average attorney could find.

I’m not picking on you, I’m serious. I have a couple of people I might ask, but if expect most of them to say “no thanks”

No, "I'm doing sensitive work for a huge company and we fear that hackers are trying to penetrate our network and devices." How many would say yes now? Until the raid he was a big shot...and the personal "lawyer" to Trump.

Mine suggests that until very recently working as a personal lawyer for a reality star & planning for the “normal” security concerns therein wouldn’t be something high end firms would do (nor things lawyers would ask for) as a matter of course.

Remember by the time the feds come knocking it’s too late.

So is it any surprise that he'd be targeted?

If there aren't security firms that handle stuff like that, isn't that quite the market opportunity? From what I know, one would start with an iPhone. And then tweak for known fails. Buy the various hacking services/systems, and test against them. Not cheap, I know. And not easily doable without connections. But hey, better safe than sorry.

(Reading might do 99% of work though)

I disagree with the assertion that reading gets the job done. He was using signal. He read something about encrypted messaging.

When the feds came calling it wasn’t enough. You need highly specialized skills.

He's a braggart and not a great businessman considering the head-start he had, IMO, but that is irrelevant. Whether he has $3 billion or $10 Billion, he's still super rich, private jet rich for life. Even his children can sit by a beach house or two and live like kings for the rest of their lives.

>>I disagree with the assertion that reading gets the job done. He was using signal. He read something about encrypted messaging.

Signal message: "Joe, I'm sending a message so open Whatsapp and let me know when you're online...."

"OK, time to kill Jimmy. The rest of the money will be there tomorrow."

Delete it after it's read and...

Numerous people in that company outright went on the lamb. This happened extremely recently and the sinola cartel and Australian biker gangs were among their clients.

It was covered on risky.biz podcast

Edit: the Canadians actually did ask them about secure communication for cocaine smuggling

I think that he thought himself as untouchable and neglected it. Maybe dodged so many bullets over the years.

Question for HN: did the FBI break the Signal encryption or just managed to open his device to find all the messages there? Maybe sensitive messages need to be deleted.

I’m also interested in the answer to this question. From my layman’s understanding I see Signal as the most secure messaging solution out of the box, followed by WhatsApp but only if (and it’s a very big if) you don’t plan to do something that might raise the interest of a US 3-letter agency (i.e. you can use WhatsApp for random political corruption cases in European countries, like the politicians from my country do, but it’s not safe to use it if you plan to actively cross the interests of those 3-letter agencies). Telegram I also see as compromised by the Russian secret services, ignoring all the recent public brouhaha.

If anyone more knowledgeable has other views on this please feel free to correct me.

Cohen (and the whole Trump circle) went from operating at one level to a much higher level fairly quickly.

Also, there's a “you don't know what it is that you don't know” issue involved.

My point, I suppose, is that normally the associates of the president would be upstanding individuals who had achieved heights. In this case, as with many of DJTs associates, it is anything but that.