NSA-approved smartphones leaves Obama with some ugly choices

Next week's US presidential inauguration of Barack Obama will have one sour note for the Illinois senator. Sure, he's gonna be the leader of the free world, but the notorious BlackBerry addict will have to give up his smartphone -- and frankly, if given the choice, we'd probably choose cellphone over country. There is hope, however, as CNET outlines two Windows Mobile devices that met the NSA's seal of approval for governmental use back in 2007: General Dynamics' Sectera Edge and L-3 Communications' Guardian. Unfortunately, both options look about as dated as the Treo 650, with exceptionally large antennas to boot. Hey NSA, any chance we can get something a bit sexier on the approval list?

[balls Posted Jan 14th 2009 12:28AM]

Yeah because Obama's first order of business is to take away your guns.

Sensationalism++

[Fred Posted Jan 14th 2009 2:08AM]

Obama doesn't want to take away your guns, but I do, you drunk idiot. The squirrels and beer cans will thank me.

[nastro Posted Jan 14th 2009 2:12AM]

Obama and Obey go hand in hand libtardicus

[Fred Posted Jan 14th 2009 2:18AM]

Thanks for making it even more clear that both sarcasm and nuance are abilities you lack, Hbishop. Do you miss your little police-state Bushie already? Don't get all Mavericky on me now!

[flatline Posted Jan 13th 2009 9:54PM]

Just so you guys know, these aren't just cell phones.
A) From what I understand they can be used with GSM, CDMA, or Satellite frequencies by changing a module on the back.
B) They have an integrated CAC reader for using DoD PKI
C) They provide classified voice AND data channels in addition to unclass.

That said, they still look like the blackberry that Zach Morris would carry. They also weigh half a ton, but they aren't meant to be a replacement cell phone. They are so you don't have to be tied to a STE/STUIII for a classified call, or locked in a secure space to check your SIPRNET email. If you don't know what that last sentence means you probably shouldn't be discussing these devices.

[Fred Posted Jan 14th 2009 2:13AM]

It sounds like you might know this: is some of that bulk for a Faraday Cage or some other Van Eck type protection? These things still have to use civie equipment to initiate connections, so how could they ever protect all injection vectors? I just can't imagine WinMo ever being secure enough for this kind of application -- it can't even handle my regular phone calls properly without crashing or memory corruption.

[flatline Posted Jan 14th 2009 2:06PM]

Fred:

Yes these devices use commercial carriers a lot of the time, but the actual call/user data is encrypted and go from the carrier's towers to DoD-owned assets. The carriers are only providing bandwidth in most cases. To my knowledge the devices ARE hardened against Van Eck-type bleeds, although you could theoretically still snag the wireless signal out of the air. It would just be useless without thousands of years to decrypt it.

Also, as I state later in the comments, I don't think these devices run WinMo exclusively. They are most likely running the Green Hill Integrity OS kernel with Windows running inside a secure partition. You'd be surprised how much of a difference this can make.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 13th 2009 9:56PM]

Those NSA phones are hot. I would get one if I had the money. Are they allowed for civilian use?

[flatline Posted Jan 13th 2009 10:12PM]

there is absolutely no reason for a civvie to have one of these phones. the security features would be useless without keys from the NSA and/or a valid CAC. you can probably get a normal ruggedized phone for a fraction of these.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 13th 2009 11:39PM]

Hmm... don't they have a plain, secure, candybar phone?

I don't think Obama needs to surf the mobile web on his cell phone. Methinks he'll be a little busy for that.

[balls Posted Jan 14th 2009 12:27AM]

I'm not a MS hater, but aint no way I would trust them with securing the presidents data.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 14th 2009 2:18AM]

Barrack looses his access to his BlackBerry and Michele will hardly have access to his BlackBerries sounds like a wash situation from here.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 14th 2009 4:26AM]

Here is a more sexy one for obama


http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2007/10/nsa-phone_468.jpg

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 14th 2009 1:59PM]

http://sigillu.com/Nokia_N93i.html

They need to just let Obama have something like this...
A secured s60 phone.

[TMC Posted Jan 14th 2009 6:37PM]

I doubt that they use a public encryption standard for this baby. AES 256 is approved for military secrets, but NSA has their own algorithms.

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 14th 2009 5:19AM]

I didn't go through everyones comments, so I don't know if anyone has mentioned this.

Isn't using Windows (any flavour) in the same sentence as security, contradictory in itself?????

[flatline Posted Jan 14th 2009 11:04AM]

To all those expressing disbelief at WinMo being used on this device, I am fairly certain that it actual runs Green Hills' Integrity OS. See http://www.ghs.com/mobile/index.html

This is considered to be the most secure OS/kernel currently on the market, although that definition in and of itself is something of a moving target.

[deedubbadoo Posted Jan 14th 2009 11:36AM]

What is the "trusted display" is that like a new age beeper?

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 14th 2009 12:59PM]

Windows Mobile? Seriously?

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 22nd 2009 11:58PM]

well, up yours buddy, guess what? apple doesnt make their os any more safer than microsoft does. (remember less than 30 sec complete take over of air through backdoor on safari?) and now with that trojan on iwork. who would ever thought. just because hackers arent interested in creating thousands of malware for mac, doesnt mean it's secure. (and quite frankly, no one who does productive work does it on a mac - finance industries, engineers, etc they all use pc with windows.)

[(Unverified) Posted Jan 14th 2009 1:15PM]

combination of Window & security? is this a joke??

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 13th 2009 2:44PM]

Russia rules!!!! Medvedev rules!!!