
When Trump Phones Friends, the Chinese and the Russians Listen and Learn - petethomas
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/us/politics/trump-phone-security.html
======
21
Why don't they have a mobile cell access point (like a Stingray) that they
carry around with the president, for his off the shelf iPhone to connect to?
And this access point would connect securely to a NSA proxy or whatever.

Or is the problem further down the line, do the Chinese intercept the
international carrier links between USA and Germany let's say?

~~~
uxhack
Or why not use a VOIP like protocol with end to end encryption like WhatsApp
or telegram ?

~~~
thinkling
Because that requires buy-in by the person you want to call. And Mr. Trump
wants to call whomever he wants, whenever he wants; he's not going to wait for
his staff to arrange for the other person to install WhatsApp.

------
nostromo
I wonder why Apple doesn't encrypt calls between iPhones. And subsequently
work on an open encryption standard with Google et al.

It's strange that Facetime and Messages and Whatsapp and others are end-to-end
encrypted, but voice is not.

~~~
fspeech
End to end encryption would not prevent malware from having access to your
microphone.

~~~
nostromo
Nothing can save you if you install malware on your device.

But end to end encryption would be good for everyone -- not just world
leaders.

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

~~~
tareqak
I think that it is more likely that the president and certain other VIPs would
get end-to-end encryption. Remember, law enforcement agencies still paint the
picture that only drug dealers, terrorists, and other criminals need end-to-
end encryption.

------
atom_enger
Do we know how the calls are being intercepted?

~~~
brohoolio
There are other articles talking about how many stingray devices there are in
Washington DC owned by foreign governments.

~~~
thinkling
One would think that the President's team would travel with a known-good pico-
cell device and let his phone only connect to that. Or force wi-fi calling and
only let the phone connect to the wi-fi network they bring along everywhere.

~~~
jacobsheehy
There is a huge amount of unwarranted assumptions and misplaced trust in the
President* to follow the advice of his team in this thread. He has made it
very clear that he thinks he is the smartest person in the world and doesn't
need to listen to experts.

I don't think anyone can follow him with a known-good device and let him
connect to that. The article describes his short-temper and complete
unwillingness to sacrifice even a few minutes to take care of security issues.

> Or force wi-fi calling and only let the phone connect to the wi-fi network
> they bring along everywhere.

You cannot force this President* to do anything that he thinks inconveniences
him. You can't "force WiFi calling" without being fired or at least being
afraid of it.

The solution here is not a technology fix for the phone of this President. The
fix is a new Congress that cares about national security and a new President
that cares about national security.

Also,

> One would think that the President's team would...

No, one really wouldn't. The President's team is not concerned with actually
fixing this problem. They have made it clear that national security concerns
come second to the whims and desires of the President*.

~~~
thinkling
Nothing in the schemes I suggest takes the President any time. You outfit his
environment with picocells & secure wi-fi networks, set up his phone to prefer
to connect to those, and you're done at least for preventing Stingray attacks.

I think a more compelling answer would be "You'd think that the government's
IT people would have found a way for Hillary Clinton to have an easy-to-use
yet secure email server and yet they stonewalled her to the point that she had
her own server set up at home."

------
dboreham
Hmm...why don't they force Wifi calling? Should be more secure than GSM, no?

~~~
aetherson
Does the white house have wifi? Serious question.

~~~
lintroller
Yes it does, Obama directly addresses the topic in this interview:
[https://www.cbsnews.com/video/president-barack-obama-and-
mrs...](https://www.cbsnews.com/video/president-barack-obama-and-mrs-michelle-
obama-on-last-super-bowl-in-white-house/)

> King asked, "Is the water pressure good? Is there Wi-Fi? Does the toilet run
> in the Lincoln bedroom."

> "You know that whole tech thing, we've been trying to get that straight for
> the next group of folks," President Obama replied. "This is an old building
> so there's a lot of dead spots where the WiFi doesn't work...no, actually
> it's an issue."

------
graeme
This article mentions that restoring an iphone from backup also risks
transferring any malware.

What would be the way to restore an iphone: would restore data from icloud
also risk malware infection if the phone had it? (E.g. syncing calendars,
imessages, health data, etc, all of which can use icloud sync)

Referring to regular iphones here, not the president's custom phone

~~~
thinkling
For backed up data to carry a piece of malware, they'd have to exploit a zero-
day bug in iOS or in the associated app. That's possible in theory, but those
have been rare, and once iOS or the app gets fixed, the exploit in the data is
neutralized.

Looking at a list of known iOS malware [1] I don't offhand see any tools that
manage to install themselves through exploits in non-jailbroken iOS or
exploits normal App Store apps.

The closest thing I saw was an injection of malware into a pirated version of
the Xcode developer tools, causing all apps compiled with that version to be
infected. Those apps were then spread through a third-party app store--so
again only loaded onto jailbroken iPhones.

Perhaps the scariest thing is something like Wirelurker[2] that spreads over
USB connections and can spread from iPhones to Macs and back to other iPhones.
People don't plug into other Macs very much, but if this were modified to
affect CarPlay, it could spread from iPhone to rental car to iPhone, to
iPhone, to iPhone...

[1]
[https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Malware_for_iOS](https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/Malware_for_iOS)

[2] [http://time.com/3560875/iphone-malware-
wirelurker/](http://time.com/3560875/iphone-malware-wirelurker/)

~~~
graeme
Great summary, thanks! So basically, exploits are possible on _extremely_ high
value targets like the president, but apart from that there are basically no
malware worried for updated, non-jailbroken iphones.

I'd been curious about this since reading about NSO Pegasus and their SMS
method. Is this likely in the "zero day, high value target category"?

I've never properly seen an explanation of how it's supposed to work.

[https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/iphone-hacking-
spyware.htm...](https://thehackernews.com/2018/07/iphone-hacking-
spyware.html?m=1)

~~~
thinkling
Pegasus is listed in that exploit wiki link I posted above and they link to
some technical documents about it.

~~~
graeme
Oh thanks, so they’re all patched and it only works against older iphones/non-
updated iphones.

------
rv-de
> what arguments tend to sway him and to whom he is inclined to listen — to
> keep a trade war with the United States from escalating further.

So, maybe it's a good thing he's using his iPhone.

How difficult would it be to develop something like an iPhone One for the
president and other high officials?

> His Twitter phone can connect to the internet only over a Wi-Fi connection

There was a lot of criticism regarding him using Twitter with regards to
computer safety. I would think that the CIA or Secret Service approaches
Twitter in such a case and tries to work out a custom solution to make extra
sure the account isn't vulnerable to tampering. Like 2FA where he gets the
pins from an assistant or something like that.

~~~
singularity2001
German government has/had iPhone Ones. Didn't stop allies from eavesdropping.

------
Nrbelex
>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 truly the root cause of the issue, it should be relatively simple
to rectify.

ETA: aside from the obvious solution of getting his contacts on the secure
phones, is there any reason he couldn't use a satellite phone to bypass
insecure cell networks altogether?

~~~
komali2
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?

~~~
ceejayoz
"Modifying the phone" likely means stuff like physically disabling the camera.

------
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."

~~~
thinkling
> the article seems to mainly point the finger at malware

Actually the article says:

> "But the calls made from the phones are intercepted as they travel through
> the cell towers, cables and switches that make up national and international
> cellphone networks. Calls made from any cellphone — iPhone, Android, an old-
> school Samsung flip phone — are vulnerable."

~~~
fspeech
That is a good point. The paper didn't make it as black and white as I read.
However in my mind intercepting calls without police power (thus carrier
cooperation) is much harder to achieve.

~~~
bb88
The intelligence services are really clever in getting the information they
need. Often, just like with other forms of security holes, they just need to
be clever exactly once, and that might lead to months or years of
intelligence.

I also think of intelligence agencies are a little like magicians in how
readily they will exploit someone's trust in reality.

~~~
fspeech
Right. Considering that calls can be intercepted at either end, just securing
his end does not preclude the call from getting compromised on the other end.
Maybe that is why the security people are not pushing back that hard, since it
is fairly hopeless to limit him to only speaking over secured lines. Sure it
is easy for him to access a secured line, but not the friends he wants to talk
to.

~~~
bb88
> Maybe that is why the security people are not pushing back that hard

And I quote:

"Mr. Trump’s use of his iPhones was detailed by several current and former
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could discuss
classified intelligence and sensitive security arrangements. The officials
said they were doing so not to undermine Mr. Trump, but out of frustration
with what they considered the president’s casual approach to electronic
security."

------
gumby
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 responsible practice but it's interesting to
consider it in a game theoretic context.

~~~
_iyig
>Of course China is not currently a military threat to the US ...

I would disagree. China routinely threatens U.S. naval vessels which transit
disputed regions of the South China Sea, and maintains a large battery of
missiles pointed at Taiwan, an American diplomatic ally. They have also
developed hypersonic anti-carrier missiles, and are rapidly expanding their
blue-water navy.

~~~
gumby
I referred the jostling in the Spratleys in my comment and on their ability to
project force in another comment down thread.

They are rapidly expanding a blue water navy _from a tiny starting point_
(e.g. recently bringing online a Ukranian aircraft carrier (not a super
carrier) _doubled_ their carrier force) and have a few remote naval bases, but
their strength, to the degree it exists, is locally strong and externally
mainly soft power.

There is no question the US would abandon Taiwan the same as Macarthur pulled
back to the southern half of Australia in WWII. Pragmatics argues this -- as
pragmatics argue against China actually attacking Taiwan militarily any time
in the next 30 years. E.g. bombing Hon Hai would degrade Chinese manufacturing
unacceptably.

------
merpnderp
If he used Facetime audio calls, not only would the calls be clearer, no one
could listen in.

~~~
ceejayoz
I suspect that'd just get various intelligence agencies to bug his confidants'
homes directly.

------
latchkey
Just tap the people he calls on a regular basis.

------
jacobsheehy
Mods, can we get Russia added back to the headline? It has been removed and is
causing confusion in the comments.

~~~
dang
I assume it was the submitter's attempt to make the title less flamewar-prone,
but that cause was clearly doomed, so sure.

------
brohoolio
It’s amazing that I know all this. Like that the president has multiple
iphones, he likes to call multiple friends, that foreign governments listen
in.

If this was Hillary the republicans would impeach her right away for
endangering the country. They should do the same to Trump.

------
downandout
It is relatively trivial to identify the friends of a famous person, such as
any sitting President of the United States. Since the government doesn't go
around paying for secure lines for all friends of all Presidents, it seems
likely that all calls from all Presidents to all of their friends throughout
modern history were subject to eavesdropping. This isn't a "Trump is an idiot"
issue, as the article strives so diligently to imply. All Presidents have had
this issue when speaking to friends who don't have secure lines at government
expense.

~~~
netsharc
Well, it's more like "Trump is an idiot, and this is another attack vector the
Chinese are using to influence him.". Previous presidents read daily
intelligence reports and probably paid attention to the warnings about what
they can talk about with their friends over insecure lines, but this guy
"knows best".

IIRC Obama invited his high school friends a lot to hang in the White House,
that's one way to avoid insecure phone networks.

------
craftyguy
> Mr. Trump’s aides have repeatedly warned him that his cellphone calls are
> not secure, and they have told him that Russian spies are routinely
> eavesdropping on the calls, as well. But aides say the voluble president,
> who has been pressured into using his secure White House landline more often
> these days, has still refused to give up his iPhones.

How is blatant disregard for communication security not an impeachable
offense? This behavior is not only destructive for himself, but destructive
for the nation. Does he have to send nuclear launch codes over SMS before he
gets in any sort of trouble?

~~~
tomohawk
The president can declassify anything he wants to, merely by speaking it to
someone else. He's the only person in or out of the government who can do
this. So, not impeachable. Impeachable would be when the former Secretary of
State did not exercise care when handling classified information. The relevant
statute does not require intent - only lack of care.

It is interesting that all the push back by governments to keep phones from
being secure has resulted in no phones being available that are secure - at
least not any that people want to use.

~~~
craftyguy
Interesting. So does the president have a free ticket to declassify _anything_
, even if it puts the nation at risk (e.g. during a time of war)? For example,
if trump posted the location of a surprise invasion force on twitter, can the
rest of the government just "lol, trump on twitter again" and move on?

~~~
s_m_t
The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces so pretty much
anything the military does is under the presidents authority or by authority
delegated down the chain of command from him/her. The president could
personally lead troops into battle if he wanted to. I think the only president
to have served as an actual general during their time as president was George
Washington during the whiskey rebellion.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
President Lincoln wasn't leading troops into battle, but he was (briefly)
under fire in 1864, during Early's raid on Washington.

