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When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn
- craftyguy 8y ago> Mr. Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are not secure, and they have told him that Russian spies are routinely eavesdropping on the calls, as well. But aides say the voluble president, who has been pressured into using his secure White House landline more often these days, has still refused to give up his iPhones. How is blatant disregard for communication security not an impeachable offense? This behavior is not only destructive for himself, but destructive for the nation. Does he have to send nuclear launch codes over SMS before he gets in any sort of trouble?
- Mononokay 8y ago> How is blatant disregard for communication security not an impeachable offense? Political apathy and cowardice. > Does he have to send nuclear launch codes over SMS before he gets in any sort of trouble? As long as Congress decides who gets impeached, even that might not knock him out.
- sgjohnson 8y agoAnd who should decide who gets impeached? The New York Times?
- deathhand 8y agohttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/19/hillary-clinton-wiping-email-server-cloth-or-somet/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/19/hillary-cli... It's all a joke
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- tomohawk 8y agoThe president can declassify anything he wants to, merely by speaking it to someone else. He's the only person in or out of the government who can do this. So, not impeachable. Impeachable would be when the former Secretary of State did not exercise care when handling classified information. The relevant statute does not require intent - only lack of care. It is interesting that all the push back by governments to keep phones from being secure has resulted in no phones being available that are secure - at least not any that people want to use.
- craftyguy 8y agoInteresting. So does the president have a free ticket to declassify anything, even if it puts the nation at risk (e.g. during a time of war)? For example, if trump posted the location of a surprise invasion force on twitter, can the rest of the government just "lol, trump on twitter again" and move on?
- s_m_t 8y agoThe president is the commander in chief of the armed forces so pretty much anything the military does is under the presidents authority or by authority delegated down the chain of command from him/her. The president could personally lead troops into battle if he wanted to. I think the only president to have served as an actual general during their time as president was George Washington during the whiskey rebellion.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoPresident Lincoln wasn't leading troops into battle, but he was (briefly) under fire in 1864, during Early's raid on Washington.
- wahern 8y agoThis is why we have impeachment and removal. "High crimes and misdemeanors" doesn't require breaking an actual criminal statute. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors and my reply to tomohawk.
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- dboreham 8y agoHmm...why don't they force Wifi calling? Should be more secure than GSM, no?
- aetherson 8y agoDoes the white house have wifi? Serious question.
- deadalus 8y agoYes, but it's spotty. http://fortune.com/2016/02/08/white-house-bad-wifi-obama/ http://fortune.com/2016/02/08/white-house-bad-wifi-obama/
- lintroller 8y agoYes it does, Obama directly addresses the topic in this interview: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/president-barack-obama-and-mrs-michelle-obama-on-last-super-bowl-in-white-house/ https://www.cbsnews.com/video/president-barack-obama-and-mrs... > King asked, "Is the water pressure good? Is there Wi-Fi? Does the toilet run in the Lincoln bedroom." > "You know that whole tech thing, we've been trying to get that straight for the next group of folks," President Obama replied. "This is an old building so there's a lot of dead spots where the WiFi doesn't work...no, actually it's an issue."
- jacobsheehy 8y agoI don't think the technology of choice here is the problem. It's that the President doesn't care if he is compromised, but that he sold the nation on how unsafe Hillary would be with communications. Pick any tech you like for the President's* phone calls, foreign governments will still listen because he simply doesn't care. Edit: Also, why was Russia, the country that is actively attacking the US and has been for years, removed from the headline? Seems the most important part. (and don't tell me it doesn't fit, there's plenty of room).
- saagarjha 8y agoIt would be interesting if phone calls ended up becoming end-to-end encrypted because of something like this.
- tareqak 8y agoI think that it is more likely that the president and certain other VIPs would get end-to-end encryption. Remember, law enforcement agencies still paint the picture that only drug dealers, terrorists, and other criminals need end-to-end encryption.
- eatbitseveryday 8y agoYou can do this with certain applications over a data connection, e.g., Signal, Wire, and others.
- Nrbelex 8y ago>Officials said the president has two official iPhones that have been altered by the National Security Agency to limit their capabilities — and vulnerabilities — and a third personal phone that is no different from hundreds of millions of iPhones in use around the world. Mr. Trump keeps the personal phone, White House officials said, because unlike his other two phones, he can store his contacts in it. If this is truly the root cause of the issue, it should be relatively simple to rectify. ETA: aside from the obvious solution of getting his contacts on the secure phones, is there any reason he couldn't use a satellite phone to bypass insecure cell networks altogether?
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- jacobsheehy 8y ago> If this is truly the root cause of the issue, it should be relatively simple to rectify. I think it's pretty clear, with the most charitable possible reading of this article and your comment, that the root cause is not an issue with contacts on his phone. The root cause is quite clearly a complete lack of respect that Trump has for the American people: He does. not. care. about the country's security or anybody in it. The root cause isn't some stupid argument about contacts in his phone. The root causes are arrogance [1], hate towards American people [2], and corrupted power [3]. I'll cite these. [1] He says he is the smartest person in the world and does not need to confer with experts about anything. Why would he need a secure phone then? [2] He has directly insulted American citizens who care about the national security risks he poses. He uses terrorist-like language to describe Americans. He doesn't care about his phone being hacked. [3] He acts like he thinks he is King. He acts like there are no rules for him, and the Republican Congress makes that fact true - for now. This has nothing to do with technology and the solution doesn't have anything to do with technology either.
- komali2 8y agoDo we actually trust the NSA to be better at security than Apple, especially if that "better security" comes in the form of "modifying the phone," whatever that means? Maybe they just set up a VPN or custom cell information on it? Can you do that on iPhone?
- sgjohnson 8y agoWhy is this #1 article of HN front page?
- gumby 8y agoSimilarly to how agreed-upon overflights increase security (as your opponent knows you're not preparing an attack and/or are keeping to treaty obligations) one could consider this a good thing. Of course China is not currently a military threat to the US, at least at the level deserving attention of a US president (e.g. random encounters in the Spratleys are jostling, not escalation). I certainly don't think this is a responsible practice but it's interesting to consider it in a game theoretic context.
- smt88 8y agoChina isn't a military threat, but Russia has proved that military power isn't necessary to sow chaos and destabilize the US. You don't even need military-grade hackers.
- downandout 8y agoRussia has "destabilized" the US? That is hyperbole at best, unless you know something I don't. What exactly are you referring to? They seem to have destabilized the US media, in the sense that they can't publish enough stories about Russia. But have they actually achieved anything in any real way?
- jacobsheehy 8y agoRussia actively attacks US election infrastructure. This is not an unknown thing, it is well-documented over the last few years and is happening right now. Yes, Russia has "destabilized" the US. Our elections were hacked with both real physical hacks and lies-at-scale through sophisticated propaganda. People are dying in the streets from the actions taken by violent right-wing people who are directly encouraged by language from RT and from the President. This is not some fantasy of fear, this is the real deal. The US has a major political stability problem, where the party in power has made it clear they do not respect elections, will not respect the outcome if they lose, constantly gather support to jail people who have committed no crimes, etc. Yes, Russia, through its hacking, violence, and other election fuckery, has destabilized the US. If you "don't know" this stuff, then you haven't been paying attention for the last few years. None of this is a disputable conspiracy, it's just facts. Sad facts. :(
- 21 8y agoWhy don't they have a mobile cell access point (like a Stingray) that they carry around with the president, for his off the shelf iPhone to connect to? And this access point would connect securely to a NSA proxy or whatever. Or is the problem further down the line, do the Chinese intercept the international carrier links between USA and Germany let's say?
- uxhack 8y agoOr why not use a VOIP like protocol with end to end encryption like WhatsApp or telegram ?
- thinkling 8y agoBecause that requires buy-in by the person you want to call. And Mr. Trump wants to call whomever he wants, whenever he wants; he's not going to wait for his staff to arrange for the other person to install WhatsApp.
- adventured 8y agoGiven the money the US military has (equal to 50% of the entire Russian economy), you'd sure think they could afford to throw whatever was necessary at improving security for Trump's iPhone situation. I suspect the point of an article like this, which is an off the record leak of internal information that wasn't authorized, is to get Trump to abandon the iPhone period. I don't think these insiders want to bother with trying to increase the security for how things are now (they may view it as very impractical), they're seeking to embarrass Trump into changing behavior (good luck).
- atom_enger 8y agoDo we know how the calls are being intercepted?
- 89vision 8y agoancient Chinese secret
- dang 8y agoCould you please not post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?
- brohoolio 8y agoThere are other articles talking about how many stingray devices there are in Washington DC owned by foreign governments.
- thinkling 8y agoOne would think that the President's team would travel with a known-good pico-cell device and let his phone only connect to that. Or force wi-fi calling and only let the phone connect to the wi-fi network they bring along everywhere.
- jacobsheehy 8y agoThere is a huge amount of unwarranted assumptions and misplaced trust in the President* to follow the advice of his team in this thread. He has made it very clear that he thinks he is the smartest person in the world and doesn't need to listen to experts. I don't think anyone can follow him with a known-good device and let him connect to that. The article describes his short-temper and complete unwillingness to sacrifice even a few minutes to take care of security issues. > Or force wi-fi calling and only let the phone connect to the wi-fi network they bring along everywhere. You cannot force this President* to do anything that he thinks inconveniences him. You can't "force WiFi calling" without being fired or at least being afraid of it. The solution here is not a technology fix for the phone of this President. The fix is a new Congress that cares about national security and a new President that cares about national security. Also, > One would think that the President's team would... No, one really wouldn't. The President's team is not concerned with actually fixing this problem. They have made it clear that national security concerns come second to the whims and desires of the President*.
- downandout 8y agoIt is relatively trivial to identify the friends of a famous person, such as any sitting President of the United States. Since the government doesn't go around paying for secure lines for all friends of all Presidents, it seems likely that all calls from all Presidents to all of their friends throughout modern history were subject to eavesdropping. This isn't a "Trump is an idiot" issue, as the article strives so diligently to imply. All Presidents have had this issue when speaking to friends who don't have secure lines at government expense.
- netsharc 8y agoWell, it's more like "Trump is an idiot, and this is another attack vector the Chinese are using to influence him.". Previous presidents read daily intelligence reports and probably paid attention to the warnings about what they can talk about with their friends over insecure lines, but this guy "knows best". IIRC Obama invited his high school friends a lot to hang in the White House, that's one way to avoid insecure phone networks.
- brohoolio 8y agoIt’s amazing that I know all this. Like that the president has multiple iphones, he likes to call multiple friends, that foreign governments listen in. If this was Hillary the republicans would impeach her right away for endangering the country. They should do the same to Trump.
- jacobsheehy 8y agoMods, can we get Russia added back to the headline? It has been removed and is causing confusion in the comments.
- dang 8y agoI assume it was the submitter's attempt to make the title less flamewar-prone, but that cause was clearly doomed, so sure.
- fspeech 8y agoIf you are wondering if other countries are intercepting calls by hacking the carriers, the article seems to mainly point the finger at malware. It said the protocol is to replace the phones with no backups every month or so. "Mr. Trump is supposed to swap out his two official phones every 30 days for new ones but rarely does, bristling at the inconvenience. White House staff members are supposed to set up the new phones exactly like the old ones, but the new iPhones cannot be restored from backups of his old phones because doing so would transfer over any malware."
- komali2 8y agoThey have those guys taping together all of Trump's ripped up papers, surely they can get someone to essentially do manual data entry from one phone to the other?
- jacobsheehy 8y agoMakes it clear that this is not a technology problem, like most of the commenters here are assuming. There is no technology fix for a President* who actively tries to get foreign countries to destabilize our democratic elections. If they don't hack his phone, he'll go on TV and ask Russia to start the hack already. Just like he did before.
- thinkling 8y ago> the article seems to mainly point the finger at malware Actually the article says: > "But the calls made from the phones are intercepted as they travel through the cell towers, cables and switches that make up national and international cellphone networks. Calls made from any cellphone — iPhone, Android, an old-school Samsung flip phone — are vulnerable."
- fspeech 8y agoThat is a good point. The paper didn't make it as black and white as I read. However in my mind intercepting calls without police power (thus carrier cooperation) is much harder to achieve.
- nostromo 8y agoI wonder why Apple doesn't encrypt calls between iPhones. And subsequently work on an open encryption standard with Google et al. It's strange that Facetime and Messages and Whatsapp and others are end-to-end encrypted, but voice is not.
- fspeech 8y agoEnd to end encryption would not prevent malware from having access to your microphone.
- supertrope 8y agoLack of support, the government is against popularization of encryption, and who would hold the keys?
- hohohogrengiant 8y agoFacetime Audio is encrypted, just use that.
- champagnepapi 8y agoOr Signal calling
- graeme 8y agoThis article mentions that restoring an iphone from backup also risks transferring any malware. What would be the way to restore an iphone: would restore data from icloud also risk malware infection if the phone had it? (E.g. syncing calendars, imessages, health data, etc, all of which can use icloud sync) Referring to regular iphones here, not the president's custom phone
- thinkling 8y agoFor backed up data to carry a piece of malware, they'd have to exploit a zero-day bug in iOS or in the associated app. That's possible in theory, but those have been rare, and once iOS or the app gets fixed, the exploit in the data is neutralized. Looking at a list of known iOS malware [1] I don't offhand see any tools that manage to install themselves through exploits in non-jailbroken iOS or exploits normal App Store apps. The closest thing I saw was an injection of malware into a pirated version of the Xcode developer tools, causing all apps compiled with that version to be infected. Those apps were then spread through a third-party app store--so again only loaded onto jailbroken iPhones. Perhaps the scariest thing is something like Wirelurker[2] that spreads over USB connections and can spread from iPhones to Macs and back to other iPhones. People don't plug into other Macs very much, but if this were modified to affect CarPlay, it could spread from iPhone to rental car to iPhone, to iPhone, to iPhone... [1] https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Malware_for_iOS https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Malware_for_iOS [2] http://time.com/3560875/iphone-malware-wirelurker/ http://time.com/3560875/iphone-malware-wirelurker/
- graeme 8y agoGreat summary, thanks! So basically, exploits are possible on extremely high value targets like the president, but apart from that there are basically no malware worried for updated, non-jailbroken iphones. I'd been curious about this since reading about NSO Pegasus and their SMS method. Is this likely in the "zero day, high value target category"? I've never properly seen an explanation of how it's supposed to work. https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/iphone-hacking-spyware.html?m=1 https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/iphone-hacking-spyware.htm...
- merpnderp 8y agoIf he used Facetime audio calls, not only would the calls be clearer, no one could listen in.
- latchkey 8y agoJust tap the people he calls on a regular basis.
- rv-de 8y ago> what arguments tend to sway him and to whom he is inclined to listen — to keep a trade war with the United States from escalating further. So, maybe it's a good thing he's using his iPhone. How difficult would it be to develop something like an iPhone One for the president and other high officials? > His Twitter phone can connect to the internet only over a Wi-Fi connection There was a lot of criticism regarding him using Twitter with regards to computer safety. I would think that the CIA or Secret Service approaches Twitter in such a case and tries to work out a custom solution to make extra sure the account isn't vulnerable to tampering. Like 2FA where he gets the pins from an assistant or something like that.
- singularity2001 8y agoGerman government has/had iPhone Ones. Didn't stop allies from eavesdropping.