Should Obama be allowed to keep his BlackBerry?

We are all familiar with President-elect Obama's fondness with his BlackBerry. Indeed, at a recent interview with CNBC, Obama was recorded as saying, "I'm still clinging to my BlackBerry. They're going to pry it out of my hands." I can certainly empathize, having used various smartphones over the last few years, culminating in my own love affair with the BlackBerry smartphone. 

On the other hand, technology experts say that no security system can be entirely safe from hackers, spies and snoops. In the same vein, allowing Obama to keep his BlackBerry would constitute a serious security risk. RIM, predictably, is adamant about the security of its devices and the system in place to protect the traffic passing through its network.

So, who is right here?

A survey conducted this week by the San Francisco Chronicle asking whether president-elect Barack Obama should have to give up his BlackBerry yielded a response where an overwhelmingly 50 percent of respondents said "no."

Unfortunately, I will have to side with the "technology experts" on this count. Now it is true that nobody appears to have been able to break AES-128 encryption yet. However, the problem really has more to do with eavesdropping on voice conversations via wireless tapping, and more importantly, the ability for triangulation of the BlackBerry via cell phone antennas. 

So as bizarre as the idea of having an offline President would sound, the state of technology and the need for security at this point forces us to have no choice but to accept it.

What is your opinion on this matter?

For more information about the story:
- check out the article at The Canadian Press

Related Articles:
Barack Obama news from FierceCIO
Smartphones news from FierceMobileIT