Swiss video on mobile phone security

This is an informative video from the Swiss television program Einstein, about the potential threats and risks of mobile cell phones:

The phone shown in this report is the Secure Mobile Phone Omnisec 230 (fact sheet in PDF), made by the Swiss firm Omnisec AG. This is a modified HTC smart phone, with a hardened Android operating system, and with all risk providing applications (like bluetooth and GPS) removed. The microSD Security Module provides encryption with 256-bits key length to secure communication for classification levels up to Top Secret. But, the cost for two of such phones is said to be around 50.000,- Swiss Franks.


UMTS

For most people, a far more affordable way to get better security for cell phone communication is just to use the UMTS or 3G mobile network, instead of GSM. Where GSM only has authentication of the user to the network, UMTS uses mutual authentication, which means the mobile user and the network authenticate each other. This prevents a so called "man-in-the-middle attack" by using false base stations. Also UMTS uses stronger encryption algorithms (KASUMI-based 128-bit key algorithms) for securing the voice and data during the radio transmission between the handset and the base station. For this, GSM uses the rather weak A5/1 algorithm with only a 64-bit key.

Nowadays, UMTS services are widely available in western countries and accessible through high-end smart phones like the popular iPhone 3G and the Samsung Galaxy i9000 series. However, it should be noted that the use of the UMTS-network still bear the risks of intrusions through unsafe applications and malware. Furthermore, UMTS does not provide any end-to-end encryption or authentication between one user and the other. Traffic between between the fixed network stations is still unencrypted and there's authentication only between users and the network provider.


BlackBerry

Another affordable option for more secure mobile communication is by using the BlackBerry smart phone, which is very popular amongst business people and government officials. A BlackBerry encrypts data (including e-mail, but excluding voice) that travels between the handheld device and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server by using either Triple DES or, for the latest models, AES with 256-bit key. This allows the BlackBerry to be the only consumer handheld devices certified for use by government agencies of the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. But again: this only applies to e-mail messages and not for voice conversations.

So, people who want or need the certainty of strictly private phone calls from one person to another, have to assure that through extra applications or specialized hardware features, for example like the aforementioned Omnisec phone or a variety of other highly secure mobile phones.

Update:
In November 2020, the Swiss broadcaster SRF reported that not only Crypto AG sold weakened encryption devices, but that one of its largest competitors, Omnisec AG, did the same, selling less secure devices from their 500-series even to Swiss federal agencies and the UBS bank. Omnisec was founded in 1987 and dissolved in 2018.

Links
- Application for Secure deletion on Android
- Overview of GSM and UMTS Security
- Paper about Cryptographic Algorithms for UMTS (PDF)

Obama on vacation

In the previous post we saw the cool phones the American president uses in his Oval Office. This time we take a look at the telephone equipment he uses when he is on vacation, because "Presidents don't get vacations, they just get a change of scenery." as a former president once said.

For this purpose we have two nice pictures from the vacation of president Obama from August 18 to August 29, 2011 on the Blue Heron Farm in Chilmark on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

In the first picture we see president Barack Obama, reflected in a mirror, conducting a conference call on the situation in Libya with his national security staff. Also participating is John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, who sits on the right:

President Barack Obama and his assistant John Brennan in a conference call. August 22, 2011
Note how the telephone and power cables are taped onto the table
(White House photo by Pete Souza - click for a bigger version)

On the table we see two sets of the Secure Terminal Equipment (STE), made by L3 Communications. This is a telephone capable of making secured calls up to the level of Top Secret. The STE is the successor of the legendary STU-III system and is used for secure end-to-end communications throughout the government and the military of the US. For the President Of The United States (POTUS), these phones are used when he is travelling or staying somewhere outside the White House.

In the second picture we see Obama monitoring Hurricane Irene with John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (in light blue shirt) and some other officials. They are waiting for a conference call on the hurricane with affected governors and mayors:

Obama monitoring Hurricane Irene with John Brennan and some other assistents. August 26, 2011
(White House photo by Pete Souza - click for a bigger version)

This picture shows the same table as in the previous one, but with different chairs and different phones. There are two telephone sets on each side of the table: an regular white Panasonic KX-TS108W office phone, and a dark gray Cisco 7975G Unified IP Phone.

The white phone sets are most likely part of the private branch exchange (PBX) of the holiday house and therefore have no special security features. As we can see in this picture, the conference call is made using these white phones.

The Cisco phones are more interesting, because they belong to the highly secure Executive Voice over Secure IP (VoSIP) phone network, which was installed in 2007-2008. For this network the common high end Cisco IP telephone sets are used, but with a bright yellow bezel faceplate, instead of the standard silver one. Yellow indicates that this network is cleared for conversations up to Top Secret/SCI, the highest classification level.

As the second picture is taken some days later than the first one, it looks like the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) eventually installed this secure network instead of the STE phones. In the pictures you can see that the cables of the STE-phones are only provisionarily taped onto the table, but the cables of the Cisco ones are neatly bound by tie bands. The latter phones allows the president to make calls with the highest classification level.

A bit strange however, is the fact these phones are sitting in what seems to be a not very secure room (note the open door in the first and the open window in te second picture and that it's a temporarily hired location). For example former president G.W. Bush had such communications equipment in a special room without windows at his ranch in Texas.

For (non-secure) mobile communications during president Obama's vacation, the telecommunications company Verizon installs two temporary cell towers, known as cell on wheels, on Martha's Vineyard. Apparently the island normally lacks a sufficient cell phone coverage, so these extra towers are needed to provide the president and his staff with a good reception.

This also leads to the somewhat odd situation that local people only have a good cell phone reception during the time the president is on the island. Then suddenly their phones ring and text messages arrive in places where it's quiet during the rest of the year!


- The New York Times: If Phones Ring, Obama Is Here, With Cell Power

Does Obama really lack cool phones?

(Updated: December 21, 2014)

In April last year, US president Obama told some fundraisers that he was disappointed by the communications equipment he found in the White House:

"I always thought I was gonna have like really cool phones and stuff," he said during a Q&A session with contributors at a fund-raising meeting in Chicago on April 14, 2011.

"We can't get our phones to work." Acting out his exasperation, he said: "Come on, guys. I'm the president of the United States! Where's the fancy buttons and stuff and the big screen comes up? It doesn't happen."

Obama made these remarks after the press pool had left and may not have realized some reporters back at the White House could still hear his comments. The president was probably responding to a question about bottlenecks in technological innovation and he used his White House experience as an example.

A lot of people would probably like to believe these remarks of the president, symbolizing the outdated state of the federal government. But in fact, what Obama said, isn't quite true.

In 2006-2007 president George W. Bush had the White House Situation Room completely renovated, providing it with state-of-the-art communications facilities. Since then the real Situation Room has all the phones and videoscreens and other stuff, which was before only seen in movies.

Also, when Obama took over the office in January 2009, he found quite a cool phone on the presidential desk in the Oval Office: an Integrated Services Telephone 2, or IST-2. This is a so called red phone (I'll explain that term in a later blog post) capable of making both secure and non-secure calls from one single instrument:

Not a cool phone? An IST-2 telephone on Obama's desk, March 29, 2009
(White House photo by Pete Souza)

The IST-2 was installed in the White House in 2007. It's a phone specially designed for the US Defense Red Switch Network (DRSN), which connects the president and the Pentagon with all major military command centers. These new phones were part of an upgrade of the communications system, which became necessary after some serious communication problems occured during the 9/11 attacks.

Therefore, the problems caused by outdated equipment should have been solved under president Bush. This would leave nothing to complain about for Obama anymore.

But there's an other interesting fact. Only a few weeks before Obama made his aforementioned remarks in April 2011, the rather rare IST-phone had just been replaced by two more ordinary sets:

The Cisco 7975 and the Lucent 8520 on Obama's desk, July 31, 2011
Also on the desk appears to be the iPad Obama got from Steve Jobs in May 2011
(White House photo by Pete Souza)

Now we see a Cisco 7975G Unified IP Phone (with expansion module 7916) behind a Avaya/Lucent 8520T on Obama's desk. This Lucent phone is from the most widely used business phone series worldwide, but is dating back to the mid-nineties. The Cisco 7975G is a VoIP (Voice over IP) telephone, and as such also one of the most widely used.

Both are high-end multiline models, with many functions and large displays, with the Cisco one even having a full colour touchscreen. This phone is also "cool", not because of having the military grade specifications or the exclusiveness like the IST-2, but because the phone (and its ringtone in particular) became an almost iconic item from the highly popular tv-series 24:

A Cisco 7970 IP Phone used in the CTU operations center in the tv-series 24
(screen cap by www.24tv.de)

This series, which was broadcasted between 2001 and 2010, shaped people's imagination of the presidency and was in many ways a forerunner of reality. For example there was a popular black president (David Palmer) years before Obama was elected, and much of the fancy communications equipment from the series, like video teleconferencing, was implemented in the real White House Situation Room in 2007. And now the real president also has the same cool Cisco phone as the heroes used in the tv-series.

So, as we have seen, Obama didn't really tell the truth. The story he told the fundraisers was true during the beginning of the Bush administration, but not during his. Obama actually has some quite cool phones at his disposal, but maybe the only thing is that he just doesn't realize that ;-)

Update:
A great picture of the phones Obama uses in the Oval Office was released on December 16, 2014, when he made a call, using the non-secure telephone, to president Raúl Castro of Cuba:

President Obama calling president Raúl Castro of Cuba, December 16, 2014
Also notice the specially secured Blackberry at his right hand
(White House Photo by Pete Souza - Click to enlarge)

Links
- Report on CBS News: Obama laments lack of "cool phones" at the White House
- About the renovation of the White House Situation Room
- Pictures of more "Obama Phones" at Cryptome.org
- Dutch article about Obama's gadgets at ZDNet.nl
- Extensive German fanpage of the 24-series

Inside the White House Situation Room

As the first post of this weblog about top level telecommunications we start with a nice video about the White House Situation Room, released by the White house on December 18, 2009:

As we can see from this video, the 2006-2007 renovation transformed the Situation Room from one simple conference room with a small office space into a multi room facility with high tech communications equipment, much like we see in fictional movies and tv-series.

At the same time, we also see that the Situation Room isn't the exclusive space for the president anymore. Many other government officials use the new conference rooms too for their (video conference) meetings.

The Situation Room is maintained by the White House Situation Support Staff (WHSSS), which was created ca. 1985 to oversee the Situation Room and the Crisis Management Center (CMC), which was set up in 1982 in the Old Executive Office Building and acted as a "second situation room". The WHSSS is nowadays part of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA).

The telephone equipment which is used in the Situation Room, will be discussed on this weblog later on.


More pictures and information about the White House Situation Room and its history can be found on the following website: www.whitehousemuseum.org.

An interesting article about the functioning of the Situation Room can be found amongst the CIA's Studies in Intelligence.

About the history of the Situation Room you can also read: Michael K. Bohn, Nerve Center: Inside the White House Situation Room, Brassey's Inc. Washington 2003.