Obama gets to keep his BlackBerry

If only to confirm what many folks already know: President Obama will be keeping his BlackBerry smartphone. As can be expected, Obama's privilege to become the United State's first president with access to email on the move comes with some rules, which we shall take a look at.

First of all, only a select group of people will have his address; this select group must first receive a mandatory briefing from the council office of the White House. Finally, the messages from the President will be designed such that they cannot be forwarded, though it remains to be seen how that would be possible. Perhaps this "select group" will be issued with specially modified BlackBerry smartphones as well?

And yes, the security of Obama's personal device has been bumped up a notch, though actual details are, understandably, being withheld. Rumor has it that one key enhancement will likely include the incorporation of an even more robust AES-256 encryption to encrypt its data traffic. I have written about the higher data efficiency of the BlackBerry versus Microsoft's direct push implementation in the past.

According to new White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, "The president has a BlackBerry through a compromise that allows him to stay in touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends in a way that use will be limited and that the security is enhanced to ensure his ability to communicate."

To read more on the article:
- check out this article from The Seattle Times
- check out this article from The Register

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