US spies developing top-secret smartphone

US spies developing top-secret smartphone

www.smh.com.au

Lange, as the NSA's mobility mission manager, is developing a smartphone that he wants to bring inside the super-secret U.S. spy agency to access classified information and apps while on the move. He wants it to work as easily as any of the smartphones those that are so ubiquitous in the outside world.

That is no small vision for an agency where entire buildings are designated as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities, known as SCIFs in spy speak, with many restrictions to ensure the handling and discussion of secret information stays secure.

The U.S. government has secure mobile phones but they are bulky and limited to making calls up to top-secret level and connecting to the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet).

Generals and others have been known to become so frustrated with the existing devices that they switch to personal mobile phones to conduct classified conversations, according to a former U.S. official.

Lange said that if he wants access to email on the NSA's stand-alone computer network now, he has to sit at a desk - "and I'm never at my desk." He cannot get on it even on a laptop that is approved to hold information within a SCIF.

edit on 27-9-2011 by Highlander64 because: (no reason given)

I found it interesting that this agency of all agencies is telling the world that their communication technology is more than 20 years behind the rest of the world - all for the sake of 'internal security'

I guess all the gadgets and comms devices they use in movies like Mission Impossible, James Bond, and the Bourne Identidy along with most of Robert Ludlum's and other authors' spy novels are just the result of imagination of what an organisation such as NSA would have in it's employ

Pity

www.smh.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

Unless this 'smartphone' is researched, prototyped, developed, and manufactured entirely within the USA,
It could never be classed as 'secure'.

Free Trade and Outsourcing is a b....

You actually believe that they are 20 years behind?
The things you see in movies and read about in fiction novels are overblown and exaggerated, naturally, but that doesn't mean they are always that far from the truth and reality.
If writers and producers have thought of it, then rest assured(or not?) that the top scientists and engineers employed to develop new weapons, defensive systems and communications devices for the military complex, have probably thought of it if not something better already.

Two(and a bit) things..
The military industrial complex is at least 20-30 years ahead technologically then what is available to the consumer. This means the NSA can not be behind. The tools, or devices, or systems, available to regular analysts or whatever, people who don't do anything top secret, may not be the latest gadgets, maybe a general or two really has gotten fed up, but there is no way they are behind.
Just because you don't hear about it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Also, they would like us to think they are behind. If they are behind technologically, then that means that they can't do their job of protecting us properly, so that means they need more money to develop new things so they can be at the forefront technologically, so they can protect us from any threat.

In recent years there has been a huge surge in "spy hacking" by China, against US and other governments computer networks. So keep that in mind when reading articles about how "behind" US intelligence agencies are technologically.

now think sbout ot likre this most generals are in what late 50s early 60s oh course they are going to have troublev with smart phones get they new nsa jutterbug varuant

reply to post by BLV12


of course I dont believe that - lol
the comment is tongue in cheek

one must always 'read between the lines'

they cant even secure their own computers

what makes them think they can secure their phones.

yeah rightie!!!!

Can i get one of those phones?

I'm tired of my iPhone recording and storing every location that i have been.

I hate the fact that any e-mail or text i send or receive can be potentially monitored.

I absolutely abhor the fact that if i log into Facebook they will still monitor me after i log out.

WHERE CAN I GET ONE OF THESE PHONES

reply to post by proteus33

now think sbout ot likre this most generals are in what late 50s early 60s oh course they are going to have troublev with smart phones get they new nsa jutterbug varuant

Ah, youth and its exuberance has yet to learn of old age and treachery. Yes even the generals get frustrated with products that just do not preform as they should. One should remember that the contracts for their equipment is given to the lowest bidder. So don't be expecting sparkling performance.

This doesn't surprise me at all LOL

I read an article what, about a yr ago where some of *the enemy* used some like $14.99 software and hacked into the brain of a drone plane or some surveillance equipment in the sky, enabling them to receive the same data we were. Seems like it even got a small blurb on the news.

Lately I am not sure what is up with our willingness to announce things that are better left unsaid. I firmly believe if we hadn't been bragging up the Seal Team that took out Bin Laden on national TV, we wouldn't have had to have the stories about their funerals

But, then again who knows how much of this article is disinformation??? lol What I find the most amusing about things like this is the founders of this country sure understood corrupt and ineffective government FAR better than we do

reply to post by Highlander64


these lads have the latest and greatest well before it trickles to the consumer market level. they live well ahead of the curve.

this is public fluff to seek that big budget money, the bottom line of everything. they can make what appears to be a rational plea to have a device which allows accessibility to eyes-only and heavily restricted data as needed.

on the surface it appears logical. whiz kids hack and crack every device that hits the marketplace, it seems.

still, it's BS. these boys don't use the Friends & Family Plan.

even the reporting is misleading. surely manufacturers need input from their clients in order to most well serve their needs. so Agents had coffee & donuts with representatives. smartphones in the present and future state of technology are developed by teams of egghead computer science and electrical engineers that A'ced their courses at the best schools in America.

still, it is fun to read. and it strokes the egos of desk jockeys who dream of working in the field while blowing smoke up the butt of the masses who get to pick up the tab for everything.

Somebody is spreading disinformation. I work in telecommunications and deal with some of the Canadian Agencies when it comes to top secret com devices. Trust me if we got them here in Canada.....Hell, I know they got them in the U.S. !!!!

We used to use palm pilots, then it was the Q3 and last I saw what the HTC. They link up to the central data base through their office computer, sort of like a Bic server would when it is placed between the cloud and the LAN. As for encryption PKI ( Public key infrastructure) Based on triple Dez 128...Well it was but has since been up grated to 256. Unbreakable.

Like I said.....This story doesn't add up.......

The NSA has it's own chip fabs, and special-purpose CPUs to enable decryption at wire speed. Sealed non-ventilated solid-state crypto equipment (like the KW-7) was designed in the 1950s while the general public had tube electronics. Fiber optics was viewed as un-tappable up to the 1990s but in the 1980s COMSEC techs were routinely trained in how to polish the side of a fiber cladding to bond another fiber (needs a transceiver with high sensitivity). Crypto key management systems were first developed by the NSA in the 1970s where a KMS generated electronic keys for various levels of classification (SCI, TS, S, C) for global use. In the 1990s a variety of Internet sniffer projects were launched, far ahead of the Patriot Act.

The NSA is still far ahead of civilian world.

I was in military intelligence and yes a lot of their equipment is old. We were using regular Dell desktops where I was stationed, and when I was flying we had ancient equipment on our plane, and they finally got it updated shortly before I finished active duty. Of course the reason for that is that some of the equipment is proprietary, and they sign contracts with vendors that last decades apparently, so the companies have no incentive to modernize it.

Originally posted by ProphecyPhD
Can i get one of those phones?

I'm tired of my iPhone recording and storing every location that i have been.

I hate the fact that any e-mail or text i send or receive can be potentially monitored.

I absolutely abhor the fact that if i log into Facebook they will still monitor me after i log out.

WHERE CAN I GET ONE OF THESE PHONES

Errrr....??? Throw the phones away and dont use facebook......simple as.