[tmurphx5]

"The Germans are furious. The Spaniards are incensed. The Americans are on the defensive.

And the Canadians? The ones at BlackBerry�s (BBRY) headquarters are surely smiling."

As Spying Scandal Roils Capitals, Obama Holds Tight to His Trusty BlackBerry - Businessweek

Looks like an old photo as I thought he is using the 99xx

[BravoZuluDelta]

It's not exactly a consumer BlackBerry...but we'll take what we can get.

[swooooon]

[ALToronto]

You can tell it's an old picture by the colour of Obama's hair - it's a lot more grey now.

[joeyyep]

This makes me feel worse using a blackberry, but I'll get over it.

Posted via CB10

[koool1]

He clearly needs a Q10.

Posted via CB10

[katiepea]

Wasn't Merkel using a BlackBerry? Bad news guys, BlackBerry doesn't stop NSA spying.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

Wasn't Merkel using a BlackBerry? Bad news guys, BlackBerry doesn't stop NSA spying.

I think it was just for that photo op and she was actually using wp8

[anon62607]

"The Germans are furious. The Spaniards are incensed. The Americans are on the defensive.

And the Canadians? The ones at BlackBerry’s (BBRY) headquarters are surely smiling."

As Spying Scandal Roils Capitals, Obama Holds Tight to His Trusty BlackBerry - Businessweek

Looks like an old photo as I thought he is using the 99xx

The photo appears to be from 2009 (Julyish).

[anon62607]

"The Germans are furious. The Spaniards are incensed. The Americans are on the defensive.

And the Canadians? The ones at BlackBerry’s (BBRY) headquarters are surely smiling."

As Spying Scandal Roils Capitals, Obama Holds Tight to His Trusty BlackBerry - Businessweek

Looks like an old photo as I thought he is using the 99xx

I think this has been pretty well covered in other threads but from the leaked slides so far:

* the NSA can intercept BES communications by some means
* the NSA seems to believe that they're the only intelligence agency able to do so, and it requires a deliberate, "tailored operation"
* remember that Snowden made the claim that he could "wiretap the president"

and from general knowledge:

* the President isn't using his blackberry for sensitive communications.
* the NSA and CIA both object to the president using a blackberry at all
* that blackberry has been "hardened"
* It's amusing that the article is focused on voice calls, for which blackberry (or any other handset) won't provide anything that others don't, if it's using the US CDMA or GSM networks
* none of this protection translates to BIS communications or PIN messaging for which the device is still using the global PIN encryption key at all.

** In fact, I've noticed that for iOS, cross platform BBM can send it's push alerts to the device which include some of the content of the messages. This should not be possible on iOS if the messages themselves were encrypted to a key only held by the target device (android can do it because the notifications can be generated locally on the device and decryption for the notification provided by the target device). Notice services with more real security like Threema can't send an alert other than "you have a new message" (on iOS) - because the service itself is unable to decrypt the message.

In short, that the president is using a blackberry shouldn't be considered by the average consumer as any kind of endorsement of its security.

[metz9444]

I agree that voice communications and sms are not encrypted any more on a blackberry as any other device but BES is a different story. If the NSA or whoever hacked her blackberry email that would be specified as any failure of Blackberry is very deliberately mentioned haha.

In any case Snowden is the definition of a traitor who is selling secrets for money and to satisfy his narcissism. He should be lifted and exterminated...but that's a whole different discussion.

Posted via CB10

[SK122387]

Wasn't Merkel using a BlackBerry? Bad news guys, BlackBerry doesn't stop NSA spying.

She doesn't just use a regular BlackBerry though.

It's a customized SecuSmart Z10. If you look them up, you'll see that their logo is what's on the back of the Z10 she's holding in that picture where she's holding the Z10 up. It's like 3 squares the colors of the German flag.

Posted via CB10

[SK122387]

This makes me feel worse using a blackberry, but I'll get over it.

Posted via CB10

It's okay. I'm sure plenty of people on the other side of the aisle cling to their BlackBerrys too.

They weren't fans of the "Hope and Change" thing, and the reason I keep buying qwerty BlackBerrys is because I don't want them to change

Posted via CB10

[Ben1232]

I've heard that his bespoke BlackBerry is just to throw people off the scent. He actually uses whatsapp & goes by the name of Mandy.

Posted via my CB Q10

[anon62607]

I agree that voice communications and sms are not encrypted any more on a blackberry as any other device but BES is a different story. If the NSA or whoever hacked her blackberry email that would be specified as any failure of Blackberry is very deliberately mentioned haha.

In any case Snowden is the definition of a traitor who is selling secrets for money and to satisfy his narcissism. He should be lifted and exterminated...but that's a whole different discussion.

Posted via CB10

Newspapers reporting on the leaked slides say that one of the slides shows an example of BES communications being intercepted, the target being a mexican government official.

Also I want to be clear that it's not only voice communications and SMS that are not encrypted any more than any other device but BBM PIN messages (unless the PIN key was changed when associated with an enterprise, but then PIN messages wouldn't be exchangeable with the rest of the world) are also not particularly protected. I've noticed that people seem to think that they are.