UN officials, world leaders, and high-ranking dignitaries cover their phone cameras primarily as a failsafe protection against zero-click spyware, remote activation, and accidental data leaks.
While software fixes and encrypted apps protect data in transit, they cannot override the laws of physics: if a camera lens is physically blocked, it cannot see, no matter how sophisticated a hacker's exploit is.
Obama had a heavily modified phone that had nearly all the features removed. It couldn't send texts, take photos or play music, nor connect to the internet.
So, of course, when trump became president he refused to use the secure phone and continued to use his old, completely unsecured, phone.
Back in those days, wasn't Blackberry way more secure than iPhone? I remember an internship I had in 2012, the managers of the company were heavily encouraged to have Blackberries over iPhones, and I think it was for security reasons.
I recall a story not too long after Trump was inaugurated during his first term where they were finding wifi sniffers all over D.C. because neither he nor most of his administration cared about security and were all using personal devices. After 1.5 Trump terms the US basically no secrets, if Trump and his ilk haven't outright given or sold the intel, it's been leaked or stolen due to their incompetence.
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u/Character-Total-3857 18h ago
UN officials, world leaders, and high-ranking dignitaries cover their phone cameras primarily as a failsafe protection against zero-click spyware, remote activation, and accidental data leaks.
While software fixes and encrypted apps protect data in transit, they cannot override the laws of physics: if a camera lens is physically blocked, it cannot see, no matter how sophisticated a hacker's exploit is.