ANTenna Blog -- Mobile

According to the Washington Times, the National Security Agency is still working on the software to encrypt the President's favorite communications device.

The job won't be done for another couple of months, and in the meantime, apparently, Obama has had to connect his regular Blackberry to a Sectera Edge in order to use it securely. Hardly portable or convenient, but as President he can always hand it to a Secret Service agent to mind (kind of like a regular guy asking his wife/girlfriend to stash his cellphone in her purse so he doesn't have to carry it.) No word on whether the President is still as dependent on mobile email as he was during the campaign.

Now, bMighty wrote about this topic several times late last year and early this year, but I have to admit it's kind of lost its lustre as a hot story.

I like the idea of the President leveraging modern technology to stay in touch and get his job done, but the actual mechanics of it are becoming tedious. (Though I would love to see a photo of the Blackberry - Sectera hybrid in action, I don't expect that any time soon.) And it's disappointing that the new device will be able to communicate only with other secured devices, most likely in the hands of top White House aides and the First Lady.

Next update: when Barack actually gets his mitts on the new encyrpted Blackberry 8830 he's been promised. And then we won't cover it again unless we can dig up a legitimate SMB technology angle.

The Story So Far:
Small Is The New Large: Presidential Edition - November 19, 2008

This Presidential Blackberry Thing Is More Complicated Than We Thought - November 22, 2008

Obama Blackberry Update - January 8, 2009

Obama May Get Super-Duper-Top-Secret Blackberry - January 22, 2009

Obama's Desire For A BlackBerry Illuminates Network Security Holes - January 27, 2009