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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

This makes Clinton seem petty.

She had a wired-computer she could check email on in the SCIF, but she refused and was only willing to read her email on a Blackberry, so her staff tried to get authorisation for one, failed, and then tried to get her a highly sensitive top level device just so she could check her unclassified email in the SCIF (she could use a standard Blackberry elsewhere).

I'm siding with the NSA here. She should just buck up and learn to check her email on a wired PC like everyone else.

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This is easy when you work in an office every day at the same location for your job. As Secretary of State travelling all of the time around the world this isn't realistic.

The SCIF is a fixed location, your point doesn't make sense/doesn't apply here. Nobody was stopping her from using a standard Blackberry outside of that facility (and she was, according to the article).

Just because it's a fixed location doesn't mean employees in that fixed locations should be fixtures.

Then deploy RJ-45 into conference rooms and give staff laptops without WiFi. That maintains operational security and allows people to move around.

Actually, the usual approach to information security in a SAPF/SCIF is that computing resources are fixtures.

Imagine all the previous people in that position that were incapable of properly doing their jobs because they had no Blackberry in which to receive secured information.

It says in the article that Condaleeza Rice + staff were authorized for BB use whilst SecState, but the grant of that was withdrawn for Clinton.

As others have said in an attempt to refute my comment, times change.

It wasn't withdrawn for Clinton, it was withdrawn for the devices themselves. The NSA decided the potential consequences for a baseband compromise within a SCIF was too high risk.

Honestly I suspect their policy is "no wireless devices within the SCIF period." From wireless keyboards, to cellphones, to WiFi, and beyond. The black phone might be authorised but I suspect that is due to operational importance (e.g. calls vital to national security).

And John Kerry was given a gov't BB as secretary of state.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/09/30/john-kerr...

The world is a different place now than it was when those people were in that position, it's hardly a good comparison. Everything moves faster today and the Secretary of State should be able to along with it.

Would you be able to be good at your job if you were only able to check email once a day? I sure couldn't, but 15 years ago that's how often I checked it.

I could do my job quite well if I had a staff that could check it for me at the location dictated by security and then inform me over secure channels of anything that required my attention.

You realize that "over secure channels" doesn't include email, cell phone, or remote site based on this very article?

So, in this modern age those are the only secure channels to communicate with?

Imagine all the previous people in that position who were incapable of properly doing their jobs because they had no personal computer with which to receive secured information.

Imagine all the previous people in that position who were incapable of properly doing their jobs because they had no fax machine with which to receive secured information.

Imagine all the previous people in that position who were incapable of properly doing their jobs because they had no telephone with which to receive secured information.

Times change, and so does the technology required for the position.

I mean - if you go back enough, this problem doesn't exist. It's a growing problem - I'd imagine there were plenty of secretary of state's before who didn't use technology/where technology wasn't available.

Then get her a laptop and she can use that all the time. Then train her how to use the laptop so she does not have use other devices.

The issue is that the NSA didn't want to deal with managing remote devices. So the laptop would be no better than a BB.

The subtext of some of these stories seem to be that there was a great deal of tension between the intelligence community and the state department. In particular, this whole business about retroactive classification seems to be part of a larger battle on the issue of overclassification.

There's always friction between covert and overt operations.

For another elucidating example (and another Hillary situation), look at the CIA vs State Department in Benghazi.

She should just buck up and learn to check her email on a wired PC like everyone else.

No, the NSA was being petty.

Worse than that, actually. Most likely whoever made this decision had some kind of a personal grudge.

What is your basis for calling the NSA petty? Or claiming it was a personal grudge?

On technical grounds the NSA's position makes sense. Baseband compromises are viable and an active threat, cellphone OS software compromises are also viable and an active threat, so effectively every wireless device inside of a SCIF could be turned into a bug at any minute.

Additionally the NSA doesn't let wireless devices into ANY SCIF, by Clinton or anyone else. Only the US president himself is the exception to this rule and even then we're talking about a specific device designed for official functions only.

So again, you'll have to justify your position.

What is your basis for calling the NSA petty? Or claiming it was a personal grudge?

There may have been valid (short-term) reasons as to why it would have been difficult (or costly) to provide her with a POTUS-like solution.

But the overall sense I get from the article (and in my view, the bigger issue at play here) is that Clinton and her secure technology coordinator (Donald Reid) felt they weren't being given a credible explanation as to why their request would be unworkable. And (subjectively) felt they were being ignored generally with regard to their request.

(And BTW no, the partial explanation they were given -- "use has expanded to an unmanageable number of users" -- meaning presumably legions of underlings probably shouldn't have been granted exceptions in the first place, is not, on the face of it, a credible explanation as to why an exception can't be granted for the 2nd most important office holder in the Executive Branch).

Only the US president himself is the exception to this rule

Umm, what "rule", and why is the POTUS the only exception?

These are the questions that Clinton and Reid were apparently unable to get an answer to.

"These are the questions that Clinton and Reid were apparently unable to get an answer to."

So they just decided to do whatever they wanted because they feel that they are above the system.

I can't avoid asking myself what would happen if, some subordinate of them, just thought that some rule in their department was stupid and decided not to follow it.

Again, I see no defense whatsoever for the course of action Clinton ultimately took, both in regard to her BlackBerry and in setting up her personal email server.

> Umm, what "rule", and why is the POTUS the only exception?

Taking wireless devices into the SCIF. And because POTUS has a national security need for immediate communications (because they're the head of the military, have access to the football, and may need to make key strategic decisions).

The key question is: Are you going to risk more lives and save more lives by allowing potential bugs into the state's SCIF? Leaks from within a SCIF could almost certainly get people killed (foreign agents, US agents, US military personnel), the key question is if the Secretary of State can save enough lives by being instantly accessible in that one area?

> These are the questions that Clinton and Reid were apparently unable to get an answer to.

Or they received an answer but either didn't understand the answer or just didn't like it. There are a lot of people who claim that their issues are never addressed just because they don't understand the answer to the question they're asked.

I'm sure the NSA gave them a full report on why cellphones are risky and how they can be compromised. But I don't know if that information was received by state or understood.

By "rule" I was referring to the criteria by which exceptions were granted. I'll grant that wasn't clear in my language, but that's what I was driving at.

Because [the] POTUS has a national security need for immediate communications because they're the head of the military, have access to the football, and may need to make key strategic decisions).

The Secretary of State's job is also quite important, you know. They're also pretty high up in the chain-of-succession for direct access to the same duties as the POTUS.

Or they received an answer but either didn't understand the answer or just didn't like it. ... I'm sure the NSA gave them a full report on why cellphones are risky and how they can be compromised. But I don't know if that information was received by state or understood.

Drawing from the trove of recently released emails, the article itself says that most likely they were informed of (and understood -- or at least her staff understood -- the risks of) using private cellphones ("her staff was fully aware of the security risks associated with using her BlackBerry.") What they didn't understand is why a modified cellphone was considered a secure enough solution both for the POTUS, and for the predecessor SoS -- but not for the current one.

As to whether Clinton herself really understood the risks, or she did, why she continued to use a non-secured device, anyway?

That I don't know -- and I won't offer any defense for, either.

The timing of this article is significant. Politically, it's playing the victim card.

The arguement I have read is that the device the president had was only possible because he has a full security detail 24x7 that can keep track of the phone. Doesn't the secretary of state have that as well?

That isn't an argument that I have read. Obviously it would be "bad" if the black phone slipped into enemy hands, but I think the real concern is that with more of them out in the world there is more potential for adversaries to try and attack them wirelessly.

That's the real paranoia. What if the black phone turned into a wireless bug? Anything wireless inside of a SCIF is "bad." The black phone is just an exception for national security reasons, the default is to deny all.

I doubt she was staring at a computer using her blackberry. Possible I suppose but I imagine she was in a lot of meetings.

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