I see this, as well as Hillary Clinton's use of a personal email server, as a manifestation of a problem with the way we do security: when IT security restrictions are a pain in the butt to comply with, people are going to try to get around them.<p>A trivial example: IT requires users to change their passwords every N days. So users start with "password", and when they are required to change it, they use "password1", then "password2", and so on.<p>A non-trivial example: someone in a high government position is told they have to use a crappy, outdated, locked-down Blackberry device to access their official email, so they start using a personal email account or a personal phone for official business.<p>Security doesn't work if it's hard to use, because people will find a way around it, and some of those people will have enough power that you can't force them to comply.
I'm not the most clued up on US politics, but is it his personal phone? If it is, this could give rise to a situation not dissimilar to the one caused by Hilary Clinton's private email server!
Thought: it would be possible to make the phone reasonably secure by having one of the SS agents (who are always around him) carry a secured WiFi access point, which the phone connects to (and it doesn't connect to anything else).<p>Then the access point is VPN-ed and firewalled back to an endpoint that is secured, from which phone calls are then connected directly to e.g. Verizon / ATT / Level3 for
termination to the dialed number.<p>i.e. network topology is<p>TrumpPhone <--> WifiAP <--> VPN to <--> Secured endpoint <--> telco/bandwidth .<p>More security could be added by e.g. configuring a virtual phone number which lives "on the switch" then forwards to a securitized softphone. This would mean that the phone number attached to a physical phone would never be used; and multiple phones configured identically could be set up ahead of time, audited, upgraded, etc.
An hypothesis: There are idea bubbles, just like there are financial bubbles. In fact, arguably a financial bubble is just one application of idea bubble - for example, 'real estate always goes up'; 'tulips are worth more than gold', 'crypto-currency doesn't need regulation', etc. That is, the evidence for idea bubbles seems obvious: they are widely known in finance, technology (hot trends, etc.), angry mobs, and elsewhere. I'm just classifying them as a way of thinking about them.<p>More specifically, I hypothesize that there is a bubble right now in political thinking: It doesn't matter what evil, incompetent, or highly risky things we do, as long as our side 'wins' in the immediate term. We can safely ignore the longer term consequences. A successful businessperson who relies heavily on international trade told me recently: 'Trump is vile, but I voted for him and I'd vote for him again - because I'm a businessperson and business is good.' In that statement they believe there is a problem but choose to ignore its consequences, even the ones that will directly affect their business (e.g., trade problems).<p>And that property seems to apply to all idea bubbles in all areas: Ignore the consequences. I can see how bubbles work up close: The mechanism seems to be that when everyone joins the bubble, 1) it's exciting and engaging, and 2) nobody is making us think about the consequences; the social pressure to exercise judgment band behave is gone, because nobody will judge you for it. The parents are gone - let's party! Pick up your pitchforks and torches! This is gonna be Awesome!!!<p><i>Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.</i> - Philip K. Dick[0]<p>[0] Attributed; I don't have time to find the source.
>Last year, Trump reportedly had an iPhone with just one app on it: Twitter.<p>Can someone with more knowledge explain how is this a security nightmare? If he's not using it for email, if it's just for him posting his opinions onto Twitter, I'm not sure I follow why it's so bad?
Headline is misleading. It should say <i>smart phone use</i>, not <i>cell phone use.</i> A lot of this is about his use of the internet via his phone, not about voice calls per se. The ability to pull a phone out of your pocket and call someone, almost any time, any where, is just another layer of the issue. But his use of twitter would be problematic even if it was all done from a PC.<p>When I had a job at an insurance company, where we had to comply with HIPAA et al, most people in the department hated making phone calls. I was there a fairly long time before I got any training on handling phone calls.<p>Phone call themselves are an information security nightmare waiting to happen in part because it is live conversation. It is hard enough to write a letter that is HIPAA compliant. Certain kinds of letters, like those advising customers of a HIPAA breach related to their policy, had to be written using a form letter and then reviewed by the legal department to make sure it was in compliance and this all went through your boss.<p>In the claims department, it was common for people to speak colloquially of 'paying claims' because most claims were paid, not denied. But the correct term is <i>processing claims.</i> I had a coworker get in trouble because she called a customer, said something like "We need this information so we can pay your claim" (instead of saying "so we can process your claim") and then the claim was actually denied.<p>President Reagan helped bring the presidency into the video age. He was a former actor and was constantly aware of surroundings and what was in the background behind him, what was framing his image. This changed the way the presidency was portrayed in visual media, both pictures and film. If you go look at presidential images preceding his administration and those following it, they are dramatically different.<p>My impression is that Trump made a concerted effort to go where the people were and adopt the channels of communication they used, including twitter. It wasn't his thing, personally. No surprise that he has no clue what he is doing.<p>Perhaps this is the presidency where we need to figure out how the president uses the internet and social media. Perhaps they need to develop some protocols around it. I don't believe there are previously established good protocols.<p>This is another venue for communicating with the people. Hopefully we woo't throw out the baby with the bath water in trying to resolve the issues this presents.
This is such a yawner. Everything about Trump is a disaster or a nightmare or incompetent, blah, blah blah. (Hillary had a barely secured email server in here closet!!)<p>And here we are, decent economy, relative peace, no collusion, functioning government. Trump may be unconventional but there's nothing wrong with that (in fact many, including detractors, praise that quality) and it seems to be working OK so far.<p>Disclaimer: I loathe Trump but believe the criticism he gets is frequently unwarranted.