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When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn

nytimes.com

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Re: When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn

#31

Post by komali2 »

Nrbelex wrote: post #7

>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 tru…

Do 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?

Re: When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn

#32

Post by jacobsheehy »

gumby wrote: post #9

Similarly 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 physically violent and currently-attacking-us Russia, spying on the communications of the US President*, is _not_ a good thing. This is a very clear military threat.

Re: When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn

#34

Post by downandout »

Nrbelex wrote: post #7

>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 tru…

It wouldn't matter. The weakest link in any chain is the one that will be attacked. They'll simply listen in on the other end (the friend's phone), since the calls themselves are not encrypted and it is unlikely that the government is going to pay for all of his friends to have secure phones/lines. This has likely been the case with all calls to all friends of all Presidents for many decades.

Re: When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn

#36

Post by fspeech »

If 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."

Re: When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn

#37

Post by sandworm101 »

gumby wrote: post #9

Similarly 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…

Overflights check on what countries are physically doing. Stepping up that concept, trust but verify, to include policy changes is a big leap. Overflights do not provide a chance to directly alter behavior in the way that diagramming a president's cellpohone patterns can. This isn't verification. This is intelligence being used to alter policy. That isn't trust but verify, that's, examine, meddle and influence.

Re: When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn

#39

Post by eatbitseveryday »

saagarjha wrote: post #4

It would be interesting if phone calls ended up becoming end-to-end encrypted because of something like this.

You can do this with certain applications over a data connection, e.g., Signal, Wire, and others.
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