President Obama has had to tote around two smart phones up until now: a BlackBerry 8830 that he uses for personal calls according to ABC News, and a General Dynamics Sectera Edge that he uses for secret government business.
According to the Washington Times, those two devices will soon become one, once Obama’s BlackBerry gets a SecurVoice software package from Genesis Key. Obama will then be able to use his BlackBerry for up to “Top Secret” communications, the Times says. General Dynamics told us back in January that standard government-issue BlackBerries can be used for “sensitive, but unclassified” calls, a few notches short of Top Secret.
According to Genesis Key, SecurVoice uses Type 1 encryption algorithms, the same NSA-developed spy-movie stuff used by the Sectera Edge.
The Times story says that right now “The General Dynamics Corp.-made Sectera must be plugged into the presidential BlackBerry,” which makes no sense. They also say BlackBerry makers Research in Motion are based in Toronto, which they aren’t. But we’ll let that pass. There’s no reason that the rest of the story couldn’t be true.
Post a Comment