Obama's secure PDA

[Jerry Leichter]

On Jan 26, 2009, at 2:49 AM, Ivan Krstić wrote:
> [A]ny idea why the Sectéra is certified up to Top Secret for voice  
> but only up to Secret for e-mail? (That is, what are the differing  
> requirements?)
I have no information, but a guess:  Phone conversation encryption, at  
all levels, has been around for many years.  Email is a relative  
newcomer.  Further, the problem for voice is inherently simpler:  A  
conversation is transient.  It's not expected to be recorded, and I'm  
sure the devices are designed to make recording a conversation  
difficult even for someone with full access to the phone.  So you're  
dealing with establishing a secure session, with nothing left after  
the fact.  If you're talking email, on the other hand, you're  
inherently dealing with information at rest.  That changes the whole  
game, introducing issues of key management, maintenance of security  
level of time - a conversation once completed is gone, so the question  
of how to declassify it or move it to another compartment or whatever  
cannot arise - how to deal with forwarding, and so on.  All of this is  
inherent in a usable email system.  An email system for the White  
House has the additional complication of the Presidential Records  
Act:  Phone conversations don't have to be recorded, but mail messages  
do (and have to remain accessible).

It makes one wonder if this is a Sectéra limitation, a Sectéra-for- 
the-President limitation, or whether there is no Top Secret email  
infrastructure at all....

                                                         -- Jerry

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