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Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody, Welcome to the podcast. My name is
Speaker 1: Chris Polette. I'm an editor at How Stuff Works, and
Speaker 1: sitting next to me has always his senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Hey there, Yeah, did you uh did you get that
Speaker 1: message I sent you? Uh? You know, Um, I would
Speaker 1: have received it, but my smartphone was confiscated. I'm not
Speaker 1: allowed to have it anymore. Yeah, that was almost true
Speaker 1: of somebody else that Actually, everybody knows what we're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this cute segue stuff doesn't work well for us, does it.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about our newly elected president in the
Speaker 1: United States, Barack Obama, who, as you may know, is
Speaker 1: something of a BlackBerry fan. Yeah. Okay. Admittedly, critics of
Speaker 1: President Obama and have talked about his celebrity status and
Speaker 1: how the media spends a lot of attention to it.
Speaker 1: And I admit I'm a little surprised by how many
Speaker 1: BlackBerry stories there have banned about whether or not he
Speaker 1: will be able to uh to keep the little machine
Speaker 1: that he has fallen so obsessively in love with, apparently
Speaker 1: that he cannot leave it alone. Um but and and
Speaker 1: so when I was talking to Jonathan about what we
Speaker 1: wanted to do for the podcast, I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: we should talk about why this is actually a big deal,
Speaker 1: and you know why it matters whether or not he's
Speaker 1: allowed to keep the BlackBerry, right, you know, the times
Speaker 1: they are a changing. So we're talking right now about
Speaker 1: a president who was growing up around the whole technological revolution,
Speaker 1: to the point where you know, a lot of these
Speaker 1: things are are things that he's very familiar with. That's
Speaker 1: that's new to us. You know, the presidents we've had
Speaker 1: in the past, you know, of course they were aware
Speaker 1: of the technology, but they didn't depend upon it while
Speaker 1: they were you know, rising up the ranks in the
Speaker 1: political system, so it wasn't so relevant to them personally. Obama,
Speaker 1: it's a different story. So we're starting to see, we're
Speaker 1: already starting to see some clashes between Obama's new administration
Speaker 1: and the way things are traditionally run in d C.
Speaker 1: And the BlackBerry is a good example of that. So
Speaker 1: why would Obama have a problem keeping his BlackBerry as president? Well,
Speaker 1: this one actually is a lot less uh, technologically related
Speaker 1: as you might think. Um, it's actually more of a
Speaker 1: national security matter. Yeah. And and when you think about it,
Speaker 1: if you know anything about how email works, um, you
Speaker 1: know that in general most of us send, you know,
Speaker 1: plain unencrypted emails from place to place, and they go
Speaker 1: from machine to machine, and anybody can get hold of
Speaker 1: him technically. I mean, if you're really trying to it's
Speaker 1: it's not easy to get hold of it. But if
Speaker 1: you know what you're doing it, you can do it. Um.
Speaker 1: So the you know, the government agents are concerned that
Speaker 1: for in for an espionage experts might be able to
Speaker 1: get their hands on unencrypted emails until type scenario, and
Speaker 1: we'd have to call on Jack Bauer and he's definitely
Speaker 1: not the liberal type. And then there's that whole oh man,
Speaker 1: I just hit reply to all. Yeah, that would not
Speaker 1: be good if you're president of the United States and
Speaker 1: you're replying to you know, you don't. You don't want
Speaker 1: something like that going out to everyone. But but even
Speaker 1: beyond that, there's an actual act that we have to
Speaker 1: keep in mind, which is the Presidential Records Act of nine. Now,
Speaker 1: this act says that that correspondence, official correspondence uh from
Speaker 1: the president that has to do with government matters is
Speaker 1: public record. You you know, anything you send out as
Speaker 1: president that involves the policy or government, that's public record,
Speaker 1: and it has to be uh. You know, the public
Speaker 1: has to have access to it. The Freedom of Information
Speaker 1: Act also plays into this. So with that in mind,
Speaker 1: you can't you know, having an email if you send
Speaker 1: out a sensitive email to someone, you know, where's the
Speaker 1: line between the personal email and the this is in
Speaker 1: your capacity as president of the United States. Does this
Speaker 1: mean that someone has to read over every single email
Speaker 1: message you send and receive to determine whether or not
Speaker 1: this is a matter of public record. Um. The answer
Speaker 1: to that, by the way, is yes, someone does have
Speaker 1: to look that over. Um and uh. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: because that was that was one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: actually that was the main reason why our our previous
Speaker 1: president w why he gave up email. In fact, it
Speaker 1: was actually and made the news that he gave up email.
Speaker 1: He sent an email message out to his friends and
Speaker 1: said that essentially I'm paraphrasing here, but that he enjoyed
Speaker 1: having these uh conversations in cyberspace with everyone, but out
Speaker 1: of concern for this act, the Presidential Records Act, he
Speaker 1: had to quit using email because he didn't want anything
Speaker 1: to come to light that might be embarrassing for someone.
Speaker 1: Because he felt that the media were kind of uh
Speaker 1: scrutinizing him to a level where that would just be
Speaker 1: a matter of time. It would just take you know,
Speaker 1: sooner or later there's gonna be some email message that
Speaker 1: would be shown to everyone in the world, and you
Speaker 1: know it could potentially be embarrassing, whether it was intentional
Speaker 1: or not. So uh, he famously gave up email. Now
Speaker 1: Obama seems to be of a different mind. He he
Speaker 1: really has embraced um cyberspace in a way that no
Speaker 1: other president has. That's true. Um, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of online marketing as far as his campaign strategy was concerned.
Speaker 1: You know, he used Twitter or his campaign I should say.
Speaker 1: Obviously he was a little busy, Uh, I needed a
Speaker 1: little help with all these different media. But he had
Speaker 1: Twitter and email and all kinds of SMS, phone apps exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: so that that was sort of unprecedented to using uh
Speaker 1: new media to reach out to so many people during
Speaker 1: a campaign. And I think we'll probably see that from
Speaker 1: virtually every campaign at virtually every level going forward. Um
Speaker 1: and at least in the next few years, and maybe
Speaker 1: not immediately. But and of course he he depends on
Speaker 1: his BlackBerry for more than just email. He uses it
Speaker 1: to stay connected to the outside world through things like
Speaker 1: reading up news articles and getting news in an unfiltered way. Um.
Speaker 1: I've heard it said that, you know, he he uses
Speaker 1: it so that he prevents himself from being caught in
Speaker 1: above where you know, information that gets to him just
Speaker 1: you know, it's just the information people want to get
Speaker 1: to him. This way, he has a more direct connection
Speaker 1: to the outside world to to maintain that kind of
Speaker 1: uh perspective. And that that was interesting to me. So
Speaker 1: here we are, what's the status now, Well, it's kind
Speaker 1: of influx. We According to Robert Gibbs, who's the Press secretary,
Speaker 1: he says that Obama will get to keep his BlackBerry.
Speaker 1: Well maybe not his BlackBerry actually from what I from
Speaker 1: what I have read that it seems like there may
Speaker 1: be a possibility that he'll get to this is true.
Speaker 1: There is his personal BlackBerry, which he uses basically to
Speaker 1: keep in touch with his friends and many senior staffers.
Speaker 1: UM and UH, you know that would probably be his BlackBerry.
Speaker 1: And then there's another machine that he mights to communicate
Speaker 1: more sensitive matters. But this can't be a standard BlackBerry,
Speaker 1: and there's a couple of reasons for that. Um. UH.
Speaker 1: The company that makes the BlackBerry Research in motion UH
Speaker 1: is located in Canada, which goes back to the national
Speaker 1: security thing. A lot of their their servers, a lot
Speaker 1: of the messages go through their servers. Actually, I think
Speaker 1: all their messages go through the service, and that means
Speaker 1: if it's leaving the United States borders, um, that's a
Speaker 1: matter of some concern. But they don't know when those
Speaker 1: Canadians could have made but they do. They do offer
Speaker 1: a two fifty six bit encryption model some of their
Speaker 1: their their machines, and UM, I think there it's possible
Speaker 1: that they may be creating a custom UH encryption scheme
Speaker 1: just for the president. However, there is another option too
Speaker 1: that he might get. Yes, actually there's a couple, but
Speaker 1: the one that the one that most people are I
Speaker 1: think more people have heard of than the other is
Speaker 1: the Sectara Edge from General from General Dynamics, and they
Speaker 1: make a lot of stuff on government contracts and really
Speaker 1: high tech you know technology stuff from from a lot
Speaker 1: of different kinds of environments, not just you know handheld
Speaker 1: technology times. But the Sectara Edge is one of those
Speaker 1: that has been rated as being acceptable for top secret
Speaker 1: voice communications and uh SO and secret email and web browsing.
Speaker 1: So that would be very important from a national security standpoint. Um,
Speaker 1: it's if you've never seen a picture of this thing.
Speaker 1: It's not the sleekest handheld device you've ever seen. It's
Speaker 1: actually kind of chunky looking. Um not. The the aesthetics
Speaker 1: are not We're not as important as the how it worked.
Speaker 1: I guess, well, you know, it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: as long as it's secure, that's the word. But I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, have you seen Obama. The man has style.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, all right, I'm just saying now, granted, okay,
Speaker 1: that limo little chunky, well true, but it's also an
Speaker 1: armored truck underneath there. You have a fair point. Um
Speaker 1: whatever machine ends up being the official handheld communication device
Speaker 1: that the President uses, Um, it's going to have to
Speaker 1: Anybody who receives an email from it is going to
Speaker 1: have to have some kind of compatible encryption technology. And
Speaker 1: UH by that I mean, um, if you've read our
Speaker 1: article how encryption works. Uh, there will be a public
Speaker 1: key and a private key involved. So whoever uh President
Speaker 1: Obama sends a message to, he'll have to have the
Speaker 1: appropriate encryption key to send to them. Otherwise it's going
Speaker 1: to show up as gibberish on whatever device they used
Speaker 1: to read it. Um, So it's going to be very
Speaker 1: thoroughly encrypted, and they will have to be the UM
Speaker 1: appropriate software installed on the receiving end in order to
Speaker 1: receive and decrypt it properly. Yeah, this is another good point. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the concerns people might have about any kind
Speaker 1: of portable device that connects to the Internet is that
Speaker 1: theoretically you could set it down and someone else could
Speaker 1: pick it up, and then they have access to everything
Speaker 1: you've sent and everything that was sent to you. Now
Speaker 1: with the President, that's not as big a concern because
Speaker 1: he happens to have all these big burly secret service
Speaker 1: guys around him all the time, and they don't tend
Speaker 1: to let that happen, and he probably wouldn't, you know, say,
Speaker 1: leave it on the bus or it would not be likely,
Speaker 1: especially with the way he's treated his BlackBerry so far.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you've seen pictures, that thing seems to
Speaker 1: be in his hands pretty often. But beyond that, so yeah,
Speaker 1: he he wouldn't. You wouldn't have to worry about him
Speaker 1: setting it down. But what about the people he sends
Speaker 1: messages to? So if he emails, you know, Joe Bob,
Speaker 1: and Joe Bob happens to put his phone down for
Speaker 1: five minutes, then turn around and it's gone. Well, now
Speaker 1: you've got a whole new issue on your hands. You
Speaker 1: can't put secret service agents around every single person that
Speaker 1: Obama may or may not send email messages to. That
Speaker 1: was one of the big, big barriers to the whole
Speaker 1: BlackBerry issue in the first place. That's true, but um,
Speaker 1: you know that could that could go for virtually anyone else.
Speaker 1: I mean any other White House staffer or uh C
Speaker 1: i A or FBI agent you know there, or even
Speaker 1: someone who carries around a briefcase. I mean, we've had
Speaker 1: issues where uh government information has been taken the Los
Speaker 1: Alamos National Laboratory a few years ago when they had
Speaker 1: that laptop computer go missing. Um, you know, any anything
Speaker 1: like that, any form of information that can be actually
Speaker 1: recorded in some way. Yeah, that's actually taken out of
Speaker 1: the building. That's a good into into what another thing
Speaker 1: I just wanted to touch on briefly, which was the
Speaker 1: state of technology in the White House when the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, because that was that also made
Speaker 1: the news again Obama's administration that the campaigners and everyone
Speaker 1: involved were used to this sort of high tech kind
Speaker 1: of approach to making contact with the public and keeping
Speaker 1: in touch with each other. And so they come to
Speaker 1: the White House and then they find out there hardly
Speaker 1: any laptops in the White House. And again part of
Speaker 1: that is because it's easy too or fairly easy to
Speaker 1: abscond with a laptop, at least it's easier than a desktop.
Speaker 1: So hardly any laptops, No, Max Boy, that got a
Speaker 1: big response. Yeah, Apparently the the Obama campaign used Macintosh computers.
Speaker 1: And then they ended up you're trying to perpetuate that,
Speaker 1: aren't kinda um? And uh, they ended up on what
Speaker 1: was it, Windows two thousand machines. They said that the
Speaker 1: Windows machines everything was running software that was at least
Speaker 1: six years out of date. One aid said that it
Speaker 1: was like going from an Xbox to an Atari. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, in their defense, I understand a little bit
Speaker 1: about where that's coming from, because, um, I worked for
Speaker 1: a very large company before I came to the house
Speaker 1: Stuff works, and we were using Even years after XP
Speaker 1: came out, we were still using Windows two thousand. And
Speaker 1: the reason they were doing that was because everybody in
Speaker 1: this very large company was using Windows two thousand. It
Speaker 1: was running smoothly, They had the package exactly the way
Speaker 1: they wanted it, and there weren't any big hang ups
Speaker 1: with it. And I would imagine, especially in an environment
Speaker 1: where security is an issue and you have everything pretty
Speaker 1: much stabilized the way you like it, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of loath to change the technology. You know, it totally
Speaker 1: makes sense because again, think about it this way. Hard
Speaker 1: copy information can be stolen, can be copied, all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, but you have to get into the
Speaker 1: physical location where that stuff is in order to do that. Right,
Speaker 1: So with electric communication you don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: You know, you can be you could be on the
Speaker 1: other side of the world and find a way into
Speaker 1: an electronics system and intercept messages and things of that nature. So,
Speaker 1: you know, on the one hand, you're like, how can
Speaker 1: the United States of America, argue, would be the one
Speaker 1: of the most advanced countries on the face of the planet,
Speaker 1: how can it run its government using this old, out
Speaker 1: of date software. But on the other hand, you think, well,
Speaker 1: how safe would it be if they were using you know,
Speaker 1: brand new technology, would it? Would it really be prudent
Speaker 1: to use that? Uh, considering that there are people out
Speaker 1: there who might be a little interested to know what's
Speaker 1: going on in the White House at any given time.
Speaker 1: But I do understand that they had, you know, all
Speaker 1: the ws on the keyboards, but they did have eight
Speaker 1: years to replace them after the Clinton White House staff
Speaker 1: removed all the WS when w got into the office. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wacky politicians. So yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious to see what the White House
Speaker 1: looks like from a technological point of view at the
Speaker 1: end of Obama's administration. I mean, will we see major
Speaker 1: updates to the software and the hardware, or will they
Speaker 1: choose to keep these what some people would call antiquated systems.
Speaker 1: Because there's a measure of security involved just by using those. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't, honestly, I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1: I would I would expect there'd be some kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, area in between. I would imagine that, given
Speaker 1: what we've read about about the administration and the needs
Speaker 1: of the White House going forward, I would imagine that
Speaker 1: if you were are a security and electronic security expert
Speaker 1: at the n s A, your job is pretty safe. Probably. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also don't think we'll be seeing Microsoft surfaces on
Speaker 1: all the tables or anything like that anytime soon. So
Speaker 1: it's not heavily unless they're heavily encrypted, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that you know, essentially you're just looking at blocks and
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't know what any of this is. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. So, but it's a
Speaker 1: brand new world. I mean, we've got a president who,
Speaker 1: for the moment at least appears to to have the
Speaker 1: go ahead to use an electronic device to send email. Um,
Speaker 1: that's new. We'll have to see how that plays out. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it might help Obama in the long run,
Speaker 1: because he'll be seen as someone who is very responsive
Speaker 1: and can stay in touch with the outside world and
Speaker 1: is not just kind of sequestered away, or it could
Speaker 1: come back to haunt all of us if the worst
Speaker 1: should happen. So time we'll have to tell. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know what, I've got something else we can talk about.
Speaker 1: I've got some listener mail. Really before we go into it,
Speaker 1: I think we should thank our sponsor. Our sponsor that
Speaker 1: would be Audible, Yes, it would be so www dot
Speaker 1: audible podcast dot com slash tech stuff. If you sign
Speaker 1: up there, you get a free download. They have thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of audio books in their in their library,
Speaker 1: and uh, there's some great stuff in there. So we
Speaker 1: thought we would recommend a couple of books. Chris, why
Speaker 1: don't you recommend one that's true? Um, you know, no
Speaker 1: telling whether or not President Obama will be listening to
Speaker 1: audio books on his uh N S, a security enabled portable.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's kind of the acronym, right, Um, But
Speaker 1: if you were going to use your free download and
Speaker 1: you were interested in finding out what makes President Obama tick,
Speaker 1: you might check out Dreams from My Father, a story
Speaker 1: of race and inheritance. You know, it's it tells a
Speaker 1: lot about him growing up, and it's narrated by the
Speaker 1: President of the United States, so that that would be
Speaker 1: a good choice if you're interested in learning more about
Speaker 1: the person using the black period. Excellent, And I have
Speaker 1: a recommendation for what could go Seriously Seriously wrong with Technology? Okay, um, okay.
Speaker 1: So it's a horror novel. It's not real, but it's
Speaker 1: sell by Stephen Keing narrated by Campbell Scott. So Cell
Speaker 1: is a story about a computer virus that people UH
Speaker 1: encounter on their cell phones that then causes them to
Speaker 1: go bunkers and start chopping each other up into tiny bits. So, um, hey,
Speaker 1: you know there's a there's a worst case scenario for
Speaker 1: you that would be interesting if that happened to the
Speaker 1: com Yeah. Well, you could get either of these or
Speaker 1: one of fifty thousand more books for free by signing
Speaker 1: up at www dot Audible, podcast dot com, slash tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: and now listener mail. So this listener mail comes to
Speaker 1: us from Benjamin ivy Uh. In the interest of full disclosure,
Speaker 1: he and I have a Facebook past. Benjamin writes to
Speaker 1: us and says, last Christmas, I bought my brother several
Speaker 1: small gifts, a T shirt, used sci fi books, and
Speaker 1: his favorite snacks, rather than simply placing these items under
Speaker 1: the tree. I took his GPS device and hid them
Speaker 1: all around our town. I gave him the coordinates to
Speaker 1: find the first gift. Each gift was placed in a
Speaker 1: bag along with the coordinates to find the next gift.
Speaker 1: It was super fun and made for a very memorable Christmas.
Speaker 1: To do this, I would recommend hiding them in not
Speaker 1: too public places yet still accessible from a car. Also,
Speaker 1: to keep track of the coordinates, you have to hide
Speaker 1: the last gift first and work backwards as you cash them. Um,
Speaker 1: that's a great idea. It's very fun, very entertaining a
Speaker 1: couple of just tiny reminders. Um, if you're hiding them
Speaker 1: in a city, make sure you're not gonna put it
Speaker 1: someplace where people are going to freak out and think
Speaker 1: that you're putting a bomb there. Uh. You may need
Speaker 1: to get permission from someone to hide something someplace, And
Speaker 1: as he points out, don't put it into public a
Speaker 1: place or anyone could come by and pick it up.
Speaker 1: But I don't know what happened at make a pixel
Speaker 1: digital camera back in the trash can over there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know it's funny because of scorn they picked up
Speaker 1: trash on Thursdays you have Wednesdays. Yeah, but thank you
Speaker 1: very much Benjamin for the email and for the suggestion.
Speaker 1: That's a great idea. I love the whole scavenger hunt thing.
Speaker 1: Very cool. Yeah, so if you guys want to write
Speaker 1: into us, you should definitely give it a give it
Speaker 1: a go. We love getting that email. It's a podcast
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com And if you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about anything we've talked about, you can
Speaker 1: check out how stuff works dot com and we will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think. Send an email to
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