Re:The Myth of Consumer-Grade Security
by cryptonector on Wednesday August 28, 2019 @05:53PM
(#20824411)
My guess is that besides whatever the microphone, camera, and radios on that device can capture, there's no classified information on it. The microphone and camera can be dealt with by keeping the phone in a somewhat sound-proofed box, or just powered off.
I would hope there's no classified data access via WiFi at the WH, so perhaps that device's radios are of little importance. I'm not going to address the possibility of the radios being used to gather emanations, but keeping it on for very limited time periods is a mitigation.
(Yes, even so, the radios and microphone could perhaps be used for clever side channels for exfiltrating data during the times when it's powered on, but I'm sure there's lots of those side channels. This is partly why we have SCIFs, so again, not an issue.)
In any case, provided all he does with that device is tweet, provided when he's not tweeting it's powered off and locked away, provided the device is never ever taken to a SCIF, and provided there's no access to classified data over WiFi at the WH, I'd tolerate the President (whoever it might be) tweeting from a consumer-grade mobile device. That said, my preference would be for the President use a room for the purpose, and wired devices maintained for the purpose of tweeting.
The twitter account itself is of relatively low value.
Of course, perhaps he and his staff are quite careless with that device. Perhaps that device has been the source of many leaks! I thought NSA wouldn't let the President conduct the nation's business on an unsecure device, so I assume he only uses for tweeting, thus carelessness would be about the microphone, camera, and radios.
I would hope there's no classified data access via WiFi at the WH, so perhaps that device's radios are of little importance. I'm not going to address the possibility of the radios being used to gather emanations, but keeping it on for very limited time periods is a mitigation.
(Yes, even so, the radios and microphone could perhaps be used for clever side channels for exfiltrating data during the times when it's powered on, but I'm sure there's lots of those side channels. This is partly why we have SCIFs, so again, not an issue.)
In any case, provided all he does with that device is tweet, provided when he's not tweeting it's powered off and locked away, provided the device is never ever taken to a SCIF, and provided there's no access to classified data over WiFi at the WH, I'd tolerate the President (whoever it might be) tweeting from a consumer-grade mobile device. That said, my preference would be for the President use a room for the purpose, and wired devices maintained for the purpose of tweeting.
The twitter account itself is of relatively low value.
Of course, perhaps he and his staff are quite careless with that device. Perhaps that device has been the source of many leaks! I thought NSA wouldn't let the President conduct the nation's business on an unsecure device, so I assume he only uses for tweeting, thus carelessness would be about the microphone, camera, and radios.