Obama's Blackberry

Ok, this one has been stewing in my head for a while, and since I've got some downtime as I recover from last night's puke-o-ramma, here's the brain dump.

Everyone was making a big fuss over Obama having a Blackberry. There's issues of record keeping, etc. but I think everyone was missing the point.

The security risk isn't the device, its the SERVICE.

Wireless carriers are notorious for employees snooping into high profile customer's information, and now we have the President with a standard Backberry (albeit running some killer encryption .... we hope) ... a Blackberry that has to use some sort of common carrier for its use.

While the data might be encrypted, even access to what numbers it calls/txt's would be sensitive information and this is where things get touchy.

I don't think its a good idea for the President, or any of his staff to be using handhelds that use common carriers for that reason. National security is pretty damn tight around the POTUS, but this situation has created an open door literally right to the man himself. Sure they can make all sorts of software changes to his account with the carrier, but at the end of the day, it comes down to people, and that's the weakest link in the chain.

I sure hope someone is really on this issue. I mean ON this issue.

The downside is something I'd rather not contemplate.