Another safety risk of Obama using a BlackBerry

know.bbhacker.com - your BlackBerry questions answered

Barack Obama using a BlackBerry A lot has been written in mainstream media about the problems with Barack Obama keeping his BlackBerry now that he is President of the United States. Most of them have been focused on keeping his communication private, but Chris Soghoian at cnet news writes about another safety risk that the BlackBerry for the POTUS imposes.

The news coverage and analysis by armchair security experts thus far has failed to focus on the real threat: attacks against President Obama’s location privacy, and the potential physical security risks that come with someone knowing the president’s real-time physical location.

He explains in-depth the details how it is possible to determine the location of somebody using a mobile device using the IMEI and a device called Triggerfish.

The most common device used to locate a phone by its IMEI is a "Triggerfish", a piece of equipment that is routinely used by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. This kind of device tricks nearby cell phones into transmitting their serial numbers and other information by impersonating a cell tower.

I also think it is interesting to look at the risks when using a BlackBerry abroad.

The federal government can most likely trust AT&T and the other wireless carriers. After all, they did join forces with the National Security Agency to spy on millions of American’s phone calls without a warrant. The telecommunication companies in foreign countries are far less likely to be pro-United States, and in some cases, they are likely to be working closely with foreign intelligence agencies.

Thus, as long as President Obama keeps his BlackBerry turned on while he is in China, it is likely that the Chinese government will be closely monitoring his location, as reported by the president’s phone to the Chinese government-owned phone company. The same sort of security issues will likely arise in many other countries.

Due to these security concerns, this blogger would be extremely surprised if the Secret Service permitted the President to use his BlackBerry when on foreign trips.

Read the full article Obama’s BlackBerry brings personal safety risks.

BlackBerry Spy

Nice review. You took the words right out of my mouth in your conclusion. I highly doubt this application would work to the extent they claim it works. You more than likely have to be standing really close for it to work.

rick tait

hmm, i put a small amount of my above comment within &lt and &gt, and so some text was lost.

it should be:

" in one of those cars or vans could be a “private cell tower”. completely private, secure and controlled by [engineers for the WH/DoD/Secret Service etc]. this is nothing different than the "base of operations" that is setup whereever the POTUS sets foot in the world. all they would need is an extra piece of gear. thats it. this isn't rocket science. why on earth would people expect that POTUS connects to a regular cellphone network? do you think he NEEDS to? folks, THAT is what his BB connects to. "

rick tait

one thing that the amateur pundits are not considering is that obama doesn't use the regular cell networks. consider this: wherever in the world obama goes, there is a HUGE amount of "gear" that goes with him. planes full of it. cars. vans, etc. in one of those cars or vans could be a "private cell tower". completely private, secure and controlled by . that is what his BB connects to. and there is some kind of backhaul circuit (satellite? microwave? burstable framerelay? etc) that connects the private cell tower to a non-public aggregation point where filtering/abstraction/encapsulation can occur. thus, the location is hidden/abstracted.

private cell networks are nothing fancy, and are actually easy to do (see triggerfish, above).

all that would be needed is to switch out the radio within a fairly standard blackberry, and then noone could track it at all (as long as they were not privy to the standards/protocols used on the private network).

thoughts?

-rick