In his early weeks, Powell recalled, he’d “received several security briefings that restricted his ability to communicate.” He’d questioned the NSA and CIA on “

In his early weeks, Powell recalled, he’d “received several security briefings that restricted his ability to communicate.” He’d questioned the NSA and CIA on “why PDAs were anymore of a risk than the television remote controls.” He never got a convincing answer. Jaw. Drop. Seriously, I cannot believe nobody could convince him. I can believe he refused to accept the answers he received. I would have handed Powell his Blackberry and tell him to call me or send a text to me saying "This is not secure", then hand him a TV remote to him and tell him to do it again with the TV remote. If I really wanted to get him into serious trouble, I would ask him to send me the message "This is classified"[1] from a secure PC inside a SCIF[2] (e.g. the Department of State). He was a four star general which meant he spent years of his life (cumulative) inside a SCIF handling classified data that was sent and received only over approved, heavily encrypted channels. No Blackberries allowed (as pointed out in the story), but projector[3] remotes are allowed. [1] Even though the message would not be classified, because it asserts that it is, all hell would break loose when the firewall triggered on the message and security personnel reviewed it. The shitstorm would probably take around a month to die down. I kid you not. [2] Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF; pronounced "skiff") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_Compartmented_Information_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensitive_Compartmented_Inform... [3] TVs are useless inside a SCIF because SCIFs are thoroughly RF shielded and are disconnected from unclassified systems and communications (e.g. cable).