The US president, who has not used email while in office, has one iPhone capable only of making calls and another that is used as his Twitter phone, with access to a series of news sites and the social network, according to White House officials talking to Politico.
While his call-capable iPhone is issued by White House staff and is swapped out “through routine support operations” to check for hacking and other security concerns, Trump has resisted attempts to do similar for as long as five months with his Twitter phone, saying it was “too inconvenient”.
A US president has the power to override White House policy and disregard advice, but given that the devices and systems they use are prime targets for foreign intelligence agencies, doing so can pose significant US national security risks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by idiot_king on Wednesday May 23 2018, @03:49AM (21 children)
...nobody ever said capitalism run by (or ever produced) smart leaders...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:05AM (1 child)
Pretty much what I came here to say -- he's so full of himself that he won't believe the advice he gets from his own staff.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:06AM
There were twenty objects in front of Russo. The man, who had quite a strong build, had to manipulate these objects in a particular way before the deadline. And so, not wanting to waste any time, he began with Object One.
Russo pummeled the first object with his fists. Once the man was finally satisfied with that, he grabbed the object's topmost portion with both of his hands and twisted. Eventually, a snapping sound was heard. "It is snapped." the man observed. Now, onto Object Two.
For the second object, Russo did much the same as with the first. Although Two struggled valiently, the same disgusting snapping sound was heard. "It is snapped." the man repeated. Following this pattern, and with inhuman speed, the man worked his way through all twenty objects and finished his objective before the deadline.
Russo was sweating profusely; he did not think his hips would ever be able to stop. At any rate, as the objects were utilized as they were always meant to be, the man had finished with his work. Russo quickly departed and moved on to greater things, leaving the human-shaped objects behind.
Five women and fifteen children existed in the room Russo left, all naked. Naked, unmoving, and snapped.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:08AM
Perhaps he thinks its largely security theatre anyway, look at what they came up with as a secure phone:
Cell phones are designed to be tracking and spying devices from the ground up. Maybe no one should be using them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:29AM (13 children)
A vote is unearned, gives an equal voice to unequal minds, and currently allows for one group to steal from another group at the point of a gun. What else could you expect?
(Score: 2) by idiot_king on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:41AM
What is an unequal mind but one you disagree with, my good Brutus?
(Score: 3, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:55AM
People don't know this, we don't have democracy in the USA. Because our Founding Fathers were very very smart. They saw that democracy leads to HUGE problems. So they said, let's not do that, let's have voting, but give a bigger vote to certain folks. And they did the Connecticut Compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Electoral College. To balance the big states and the little states, the states with slaves and the states without slaves. And it's been PERFECTO!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:58AM (10 children)
I thought you'd be basking in the warm glow of total freedom by now.
Surely you have gotten the suggestion many times.
DEMOCRACY
"The wisdom of the crowd" [google.com] is a thing.
I like NPR's quiz show "Ask Me Another".
They have a segment they do sometimes. [google.com]
2 individuals answer a "how many" question and the crowd's average answer to that is also calculated.
You'd be shocked at how often the crowd gets closer to the answer than do the individuals.
...of course, Democracy works so much better when The Fourth Estate (media) does its fucking job properly. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:18AM (2 children)
The horror of Somalia is the result of yet another failed communist State, one that was run by single-party rule according to "scientific" communism; it's not surprising that in the chaos, this already authoritarian culture yielded another form of authoritarian government: Warlords.
Nevertheless, ancient tribal traditions of property rights and contractual trade obligation arose once more and have helped produce a somewhat productive market for goods and services, which has seen to the sharp rise in the Somalian people's quality of life, even in comparison to their neighbors in the surrounding, more "stable" States. The fall of Communism in Somalia has been (as it always is) a great boon to the locals in the end, and it was the instantiation of capitalistic principles (as it always is) that have brought them back from the brink of total destruction.
Damned if I'll let you and your ilk turn my part of the world into another Somalia or Venezuela, or any of the other socialist shitfests to behold.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @03:29PM (1 child)
Communism mostly fails, because the people extolling its virtues mostly don't explain capitalism correctly in fear that they might convince people the wrong way ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @02:49AM
Here's your chance to explain Capitalism to us and note how it differs from Leftist notions.
Be sure that you don't confuse Capitalism with any of these:
Business
Markets
Private property
Democracy
Zero points for you if you don't note how Socialism is Democracy Everywhere (including the workplace).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:29AM (2 children)
The Wisdom of the Crowd is served by 2 necessary components:
Well, Democracy doesn't depend on expertise, and in the long run always devolves into one group colluding to steal resources from some other group.
In contrast, Capitalism depends on the self-interested expertise, and at least forbids interactions that do not fit into contractual agreements made in advance (thereby obviating the most pathological cases of collusion)—there's always a means by which to route around collusion for those who care.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:44AM (1 child)
Democracy
Demos==people; cracy==rule
devolves
You're describing what Capitalism does to Democracy:
It turns it into Oligarchy.
Thomas Piketty wrote a 696 page book about it.
...and I notice that you haven't identified an alternative to Democracy.
You seem to be hinting at no gov't at all.
That's The Law of the Jungle.
The people of 1920s Chicago would have a name for you: Fool.
.
Capitalism depends on [...] contractual agreements
You're not describing Capitalism, nitwit.
That's just "business".
Capitalism is an ownership class exploiting the labor of a non-ownership class and keeping the surplus value. [google.com]
As Mondragon (Spain and now worldwide) and Suma (UK) and thousands of other (Socialist) businesses (AKA worker-owned cooperatives) demonstrate, that exploitation is absoloutely unnecessary.
One day, you may grow up and expand your knowledge base, junior.
Currently, it is just pitiful.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @10:12AM
Many of them are turning into exactly the sort of stratified Capitalist corporations you complaint about. While they might not be all the way yet, their ownership by the workers is eroding at a steady pace as those in power don't want to share the rewards with those at lower tiers in the companies, or people of other cultures/backgrounds they chose to hire at lower wages.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @12:45PM (3 children)
Averaging is one thing, and democracy is another.
When 45% of the people say 1, 10% say 50, and 45% say 99, the average is 50.
Democracy, on the other hand, says it's a tie between 1 and 99, but definitely not 50.
I'm not saying democracy is worthless (I believe it's the least bad option available), but at least with present voting systems, it's nothing like averaging estimates.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:14PM (2 children)
but[,] with present voting systems...
Take a trip to Australia around Election Day.
Watch voting done right.
There, everyone is required to go to the polls and sign in or they are fined.
N.B. Some will tell you that folks there are required to vote.
That's not exactly true; a citizen can despoil his ballot if that's what suits him.
They have ranked voting there too.
They also DON'T hold elections there on TUESDAY (a workday); instead, they make Election Day a national holiday.
Switzerland has a pretty impressive form of Democracy as well.
The Nordic countries haven't allowed their Democracy to completely succumb to Capitalism's greed.[1]
Too many folks think that the way things are done in USA is the way they're done everywhere.
That's clearly not so.
Here, we talk a lot about Democracy, but the actions of Joe Average don't carry through WRT that.
The USAian Ownership Class, OTOH, have always been very active assuring that they remain in control and that capital will continue to count more than labor.
[1] I previously mentioned the book [google.com] where the Economics professor thoroughly examined 250 years of Capitalism and found that in time it completely turns Democracy into Oligarchy.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday May 23 2018, @09:00PM (1 child)
Here in New Zealand we do things slightly different to the Aussies, but after several governments holding power after winning less than 40% of the vote we demanded change and selected Mixed Member Proportional to replace the awful first past the post system we had.
Almost every western democracy has a better system than the US.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @11:58PM
Hey, hey. I was hoping my comment would bring some firsthand accounts.
Almost every western democracy has a better system than the US
Amen.
...and I'm not so sure that the "almost" is even necessary.
This place was set up as an Oligarchy and The Elites have only occasionally (grudgingly) made any concessions to that plan.
I'll note here that Venezuela had an election Sunday.
While Western Lamestream Media keeps trying to paint that in negative terms, Jimmy Carter's organization The Carter Center has said that no other country holds elections that are as transparent as Venezuela's.
In the meantime, he and his staff won't participate in monitoring USAian elections because those have become so completely and obviously crooked.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:26AM (3 children)
The idea that security experts could laugh and point at those not understanding security and blame those folks for their lack of security was recognized as victim blaming in the 2000s.
It's not up to regular folk to become die-hard security experts. It's up to security experts to make security easy to use in regular, daily life.
And so far, we're failing - hard.
The fact that the President of the USA is reluctant to use a secure "phone" points more to our inability to make decent security usable than to any lack on the president's part. Another comment around here claimed that the phone couldn't even be used to call or be called. That's not security.
And let's be honest, it isn't that hard. The guy gets a nuclear football with fresh codes every day. If they can do that, they can also get him a fresh phone with a fresh number. Basically: while he sleeps, swap his cellphone with an equivalent model, new number. Copy & pasta over all his data, and right before he wakes up register the new number to his twitter feed and other apps he'll use. Route calls to the old number to his new number via some proxy.
The president is not aware anything's changed, but anyone trying to track his hardware will fail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:11PM
contradicts
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:22PM
yes, and the goddamn federal gov should be able to automate the flash. it shouldn't require more time than it takes to actually flash an image to the phone.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 23 2018, @06:26PM
The idea that security experts could laugh and point at those not understanding security and blame those folks for their lack of security was recognized as victim blaming in the 2000s.
Mrs. Clinton would like a word with you....
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:18AM (1 child)
They have apparently managed to wean him off his Samsung Galaxy II, which was long past receiving any updates.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:06AM
Shame he wasn't given a Note 7
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Kalas on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:22AM
Ignoring the easy comments about his willful ignorance, I do see a shred of insight (well, maybe not the best term regarding our current president) in his statement.
I've often talked with my friends about security and privacy, and the second most quoted reason for not implementing common better safety measures like encryption, unique passwords for each site, or letting your presidential staff do their damn jobs basically boils down to the extra effort or inconvenience involved. The first of course being "but all my other friends and family do it this way so why should I give a shit?"
Far and away most people will choose convenience or loss of privacy over having to do a tiny bit more work or not being able to share selfies via X app.
Reminds me how Amazon tried out their one click payment button after realizing many people just closed out of the payment page whenever encountering minor errors like a mistyped CC number. Gotta grease the wheels on those drunken impulse buys after all.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:42AM (11 children)
Unless he's conducting official business on the insecure device, I don't really see the issue.
Now not updating your shit and letting your techies make sure it's at least not one giant pile of exposed, exploitable services, that's fucking stupid. But then the majority of people are fucking stupid when it comes to device/network security, so he's worth a little mocking but nothing special.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:43AM (1 child)
That's the soft entrance to fucking around with the president's devices...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 23 2018, @10:35AM
Yeah, depends on what he's allowed to connect it to. I'd like to think the WH admins have at least enough sense to keep insecure, personal devices on a different network than even slightly secure ones.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:24AM (8 children)
That's because you don't want to see.
You know cellphones have microphones, right? A compromised cellphone could be used to listen into everything Trump is doing.
(Score: 4, Touché) by MostCynical on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:43AM (5 children)
So, not much he doesn't already put on twitter, then?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:20AM (4 children)
Getting a tweet a minute early would allow for lots of trading of stocks, bonds, commodities, etc.
(Score: 4, Funny) by MostCynical on Wednesday May 23 2018, @08:41AM
Doesn't he tweet *before* he thinks, though?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @09:00AM (2 children)
I heard all his tweets are already delayed from displaying publicly for 15 minutes but accessible via a special api.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @09:58AM (1 child)
> delayed from displaying publicly for 15 minutes
Well, if this is true, there should be some insider trading going on in with stock and futures. His tweets move markets all the time, just look at the current changes in tariffs. Has anyone tried to follow the money?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @06:03PM
Its not insiders, the info is available to anyone on other websites that archive/mirror his tweets.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 23 2018, @10:38AM
That's a fair point. I'm not terribly worried about it recording what he says but other people do spout sensitive information around him.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:36PM
I'm not sure how actually useful that even is, when this is the guy who changes his mind on major issues about once a week and most of what he says doesn't mean anything in the first place.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday May 23 2018, @05:00AM
It takes real focus, dedication and effort to fight the current system of ubiquitous surveillance, privacy invasion and rape by advertisement set up by mega-corporations so big they don't even care about the laws anymore. As some posters said here, smartphones have been designed as surveillance devices from the get-go: trying to use one with privacy and security in mind is kind of contradictory, because software vendors make it exceedingly hard on purpose - if not impossible.
Most people are too lazy, or don't have the time to fight back. So they internalize the fact that "it's like that now, you can't avoid it", give in, and let themselves be put under constant surveillance for the sake of convenience. The same people who elected Trump in fact.
So no surprise there: Trump represents his constituents after all. He's a symptom of today's society, not a mere accident. It's people who remember a society that still had a degree of anonymity and freedom, and who try to do something to preserve it, who are the exception.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday May 23 2018, @09:12AM (1 child)
One phone for calls without the data, bluetooth and wifi turned on and another doing nothing else but twitter is actually pretty good security since the call making phone is practically sealed to hacking while the twitter account is no great loss.
Good job Mr. President.
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:18PM
Well I guess it's more the White House IT department that made a good job of convincing Trump of this.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday May 23 2018, @12:26PM (10 children)
Oh, for fucks sakes. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the president of the Unitied States of America has no business posting directly on a privately owned and run social media service.
Messages to the public should be filtered through whatever publicity department and then disseminated to all relevant outlets.
The funny thing about e-mail is half of the internet could disappear and e-mail would still work (except for the people on the part that disappeared). E-mail is not owned by a single company. There is not even a single e-mail service. Internet e-mail is not very secure but internal e-mail should be fine. Oh, yea, as long as Hillary keeps away from that. :P
I would even sort of expect most phone calls to be scheduled so as not to need a cell phone. Although emergencies are in no shortage there these days. But I'm sure Trump makes plenty of phone calls from the crapper too.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:00PM (3 children)
Well, that depends on the set of desired outcomes.
A little background. When a new President is elected, the U.S. doesn't get a new government, it gets a new figurehead. Even a 100% turnover in congressional representatives doesn't get you a new government, it just gets you a fresh set of legislators for the existing government.
The business of governing falls to the innumerable agencies of the Federal government, some of which have one or two token politically-appointed "leadership" positions, and most of which don't.
In addition to the more mundane areas of government such as Health and Human Services, Social Security Administration, Veteran's Affairs, and so forth, there's the so-called three and four letter agencies [wikipedia.org] like the NSA, CIA, DIA, OICI, DHS, ONSI, INR, TFI, who, with or without new figureheads, keep up not only their patriotic work for the good citizens of the country, but also keep up with any covert operations, black ops, nasty domestic spying, and other assorted evils pretty much irrespective of who the "executive, legislative, and judicial" folks are.
To the point: If you goal is not a reasonable, representative-republic oriented one, then the commonsense advice you outline above might not be the best course.
A hypothetical person involved in the evil aspects of government, above, perhaps could not dream of a better situation than to have everyone arguing about what an idiot/covert genius/doofus/brilliant negotiator the outrageously clumsy president is and whether he is a TwitTM or not.
Ironically, security advice originates and should flow from the agencies. I wouldn't count on it. They probably want things just as they are. Trump is personally so big and flamboyant a target that they are provided not only concealment, but cover. No way are they going to advise him to close the circus.
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 23 2018, @06:10PM (2 children)
Very DUMB tweet by Requerdanos!
Look, I've appointed 20 judges -- very smart guys, good looking guys and sexy sexy ladies -- to the United States Courts of Appeals. Those are JUDGES FOR LIFE. And I like the young ones, these folks are in their 40s and 50s. They'll be in those seats for a long time, believe me. Unless, I guess, our Second Amendment folks do something. Mike Scudder started work this week. A lot of my judges started last week. And there are 10 more I've nominated. OBSTRUCTIONIST Dems are holding them up. But the ones I got through, it's a record. More appeals judges than any other president for that amount of time in office. 20 judges in 16 months. Obama put in 55 judges but it took him 8 years. I'm going MUCH FASTER AND HARDER, believe me. Obama, by the way, in 8 years he put 2 judges on the Supreme Court -- our very highest court. I put a guy in in my first 100 days. The brilliant Neil Gorsuch. Big help on the EPIC case. Huge win for American workers and the USA!
I've fired a lot of people from the White House. As everyone knows. And got new people, right? Well, those people run my agencies. The agencies Requerdanos tweeted about and many others. EPA, FDA, FTC, NOAA, so many. I find new people to run the agencies. The folks I find aren't shy about firing people. If they're shy, goodbye! And I tell Congress, let's cut back on some of these. Same agency but less money. Spend less money on agencies, start to pay our national debt -- we're a debtor nation. Give money back to our beautiful corporations. And back to our other taxpayers. The Fake News MSM calls it "underfunded and understaffed." They're saying that one a lot. Or "understaffed and underfunded." I call it WINNING!!!!
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 23 2018, @06:18PM
(cont) Great tweet by Chuck Grassley -- "Proud to say the judiciary committee + the senate made history 2day by confirming the 12th circuit judge this year. the MOST in the 1st yr of any president in the 228 yr history of our country" twitter.com/ChuckGrassley/status/941391031626592258 [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:34PM
Yeah, because the asshole Republicans dragged their heels on it so they could exploit a loophole. If they had just done their damn jobs like they were supposed to, Obama would've appointed 3 and that "first 100 days" appointment never happens.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:28PM (5 children)
I don't really understand why no one has fixed Twitter and Facebook. There is no magic sauce that requires them to be centralised. In fact they are already decentralised (data centres on most continents). Why do all of the nearly-ran Google/Yahoo/Microsoft not get together and sort it out? Someone to lead them by the nose?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @04:23PM
Because as much as they want to take over the social network traffic from Facebook/Twitter, they then want to own it themselves. The last thing they want is a system they cannot control.
Case in point: The "hostile takeover" of Usenet by Google Groups.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:28PM (1 child)
Because centralized companies do centralized things. It's like asking why there are so many different Linux distros--because the people who work on them like to do their own thing.
What is the benefit for a large company to do a social product that is distributed over just keeping it centralized as usual? Show them the benefit and they'll do it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by tangomargarine on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:31PM
Or similar to how there are so many streaming services lately. It would be great if Disney, NBC, CBS, etc., etc. could just play nicely and license their stuff to Netflix, but they all start their own $10/month streaming services because they want it all to be their money. Cooperating means they have to share the profits, and they think they can make more money by keeping their products to themselves.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by terrab0t on Wednesday May 23 2018, @07:39PM (1 child)
I’ve heard of a few attempts to make open, decentralized social networks with the same features as Facebook, but none have taken off yet.
As for Twitter, Mastodon [mastodon.rocks] is gaining traction. You use it like Twitter, but—just like email—users are on various different Mastodon servers.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday May 24 2018, @08:38AM
> I’ve heard of a few attempts to make open, decentralized social networks with the same features as Facebook, but none have taken off yet.
Sure, needs some big name backers. At some point, Google, Microsoft et alia have to realise that their attempts at Hangouts, and whatever the microsoft equivalent thing is called (is windows live a thing?) are doomed to fail. At least if they gang up they stand a chance... and decentralised would be a very natural route to take in that instance.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 23 2018, @01:17PM
Buttery Mails
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 23 2018, @09:41PM
They’re not going to take away my social media!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 24 2018, @12:19AM
if a twitter device is a 'national risk', there is a bigger problem.