U.S. President Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) (R) during a luncheon at the Congress of Tomorrow Republican Member Retreat. (Photo : Getty Images/ Alex Wong)
When Donald Trump tweeted about a Crime in Chicago on Jan. 24, Tuesday, several people noted that he did so from his uncensored Android phone. This is was just moments ahead of his inauguration although previous reports have indicated that he would switch to another censored phone.
According to The New York Times, Trump's continued usage of the uncensored phone poses a national security risk. Even when Barack Obama took office back in his time, he was forced to switch from his Blackberry to a secure censored device with encryption features.
Censored phones usually have their traditional features turned off. They are also restricted to dial a preselected group of people who have similar secure devices of their own. Individual phones such as that of Trump, however, are full of security vulnerabilities and are technically reachable through hacking.
During the inauguration, the Secret Service had issued Trump a secure phone, which had limited features. Obama's similar device could not take pictures or even send texts although Twitter was among its tools.
It is not clear which phone Trump is using for now although previous reports had mentioned a Samsung Galaxy S3. If not encrypted, there are tons of security loopholes. A hacker, for example, can use keylogging software to see what he is typing even before he sends the text to its destination.
Experts believe that Trump's phone should not be connected to the internet and neither should he be allowed to tweet from it. Also, a commercially available phone should never be used in high profile meetings where sensitive topics are verbalized.
According to BGR, the more Trump uses his uncensored Android handset, the more likely someone will target it in the long run. For a president, political experts agree that he should use a properly encrypted device for reasons too complicated and intricate to go into.
In the meantime, Trump is getting a backlash considering his earlier criticism against Hillary Clinton on similar security matters. His campaign spent weeks and months disapproving his opponent for allegedly mishandling emails. Now the matter is recoiling on him.
The white House is yet to react to Trump's continued usage of an unencrypted device. Here is what phone encryption entails:
