Trump campaign arms up with 'unhackable' phones after Iranian intrusion

With less than a month to go before American voters head to the polls to choose their next president, the Trump campaign has been investing in secure tech to make sure it doesn't get compromised again. Military kit supplier Green Hills Software has equipped Trump's team with supposedly unhackable phones and computers as the …

[Cruachan]

"Unhackable" assumes that the person using the device has secure passwords and multi-factor authentication setup as well. You'd think that would be the case, but there is a precedent here. 2 in fact, allegedly.

https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/11/trump_twitter_account_recycled_password/

https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/23/trump_twitter_account_no_mfa/

[Kimo]

If I remember correctly several Trump associates, including Guliani, were caught in a phishing attack. The OS is never the weakest link.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Trump associates, including Giuliani

Giuliani? Never heard of the guy, I think he might have got coffee

[Charlie Clark]

Wasn't he the one of the faces of the Grecian 1999 campaign?

Love those pictures of him with hair dye running down his face. Next to the Orange one – priceless!

[Roj Blake]

He works for the marketing department of Four Seasons Total Landscaping

[The Man Who Fell To Earth]

The Real Question

Is would Green Hills Integrity admit it or report it if their products did get hacked?

[Homo.Sapien.Floridanus]

A hypothetical argument in the ether about this…

Pythagoras: The mathematics behind it are flawless!

Turin: Its encryption algorithm cannot be broken!

Hopper: Its kernel programming appears to be bulletproof!

Mitnick: Hold my beer while I make a call.

[James O'Shea]

Oh, my

Unhackable, eh? Let's see how long it will take to crack it. Remember, this kind of security is only as strong as its weakest point, which in this case would be The Donald himself. I rather suspect that he would use an easily guessed password and would turn off any multifactor, despite the best efforts of his security guys. Who may be less than enthusiastic, depending on whether or not he treats them the way he treats other minions and hasn't paid them for a while/

[gets popcorn]

[Will Godfrey]

Re: Oh, my

Well I suppose that's one way to get your designs stress tested by the best in the world - not that you'd know it had failed until far too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh, my

username TheDonald

PW The bestiestpasswordever1

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Oh, my

maga2020! . note the secure mix of letters numbers and symbols you would expect from the greatest genius ever

[dangerous race]

Very stable genius

Not 'greatest genius ever' - but "very stable genius!"

SFW - great music and lyrics - https://youtu.be/k-LTRwZb35A?si=MMF0BzNuK3tf_-Ef

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Very stable genius

My brain was blanking on what kind of genius he claimed to be.

Obviously at 50 I'm too old and senile to comment on US Presidents

[Captain Hogwash]

Re: Very stable genius

Thank you!

[chivo243]

Re: Very stable genius

From my reckonin' Stable Genius is the guy who's just smart enough to clean up horse shit.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Very stable genius

You're saying Trump is Hercules ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Very stable genius

So he's smart enough to know not to step in it?

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Oh, my

No system is proof against PEBCAK errors.

Computer: "Place your tongue on the biometeric scanner to procede."

(User does this.)

Computer: "Use the TOP side of your tongue!"

[heyrick]

Re: Oh, my

"his security guys" ... "the way he treats other minions and hasn't paid them for a while"

Given he's a presidential candidate, isn't it tax dollars paying for this security now?

[chivo243]

Re: Oh, my

I'm sure Uncle Donny gets the money from Uncle Sam, but somehow, it doesn't make it to the employees?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh, my

Minnesota city says Trump campaign still owes more than $200,000 for July rally

https://apnews.com/article/trump-vance-election-rally-minnesota-st-cloud-f68ade94a90f0125f5eb7822ff3e9a59

Cities seek more than $750K in unpaid bills for Trump campaign events since 2016

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/cities-seek-750k-unpaid-bills-trump-campaign-events-rcna174757

[gnasher729]

Re: Oh, my

The question isnt “how long until it is cracked” but “how long until trump decided to use an iPhone or Android phone”.

[Lord Elpuss]

"Everything is security Day 1, 2, and 10 without being checked."

The what now?

[MonkeyJuice]

Days 3 - 9 we insert the requisite bugs, per staff requirements.

[An_Old_Dog]

Intentionally Be-bugging Computer Code

.. is a real thing. A separate team plants bugs in the codebase, religiously recording where the bugs are, and where they are.

This is for managers' debugging progress reports. The idea is that if the devs have found and fixed 80% of the implanted bugs, they probably also have fixed 80% of the real bugs. The (should be) obvious problems with this are:

1. Different bugs differ in difficulty to detect and to fix.

2. Managers auto-convert any numeric value they are given into a God-given, chiseled-in-stone hard value (which they then enter into their spreadsheets), throwing away any caveats, conditions, ranges, or confidence levels originally attached to that value.

[doublelayer]

Re: Intentionally Be-bugging Computer Code

And also 3. time spent fixing bugs that were deliberately introduced is time not spent fixing bugs that were actually there. It shouldn't be hard for managers to recognize that time is finite. Shouldn't be, but sometimes I wonder.

[heyrick]

Re: Intentionally Be-bugging Computer Code

Let's just say, at work, people off ill (etc), those who remain are expected to be capable of picking up the slack - essentially asking that we perform more than 100%. And then, when the wheels fall off.....

"Unrealistic expectations" never seems to feature in the "what went wrong" discussions. Discussions, I should point out, that take even more of the time we don't have.

[gnasher729]

Re: Intentionally Be-bugging Computer Code

If your QA finds an intentionally planted bug, then you put all reported bugs to the “bugger” team and they know exactly where the bug is.

[Lord Elpuss]

"The provider claims its software is impervious to any intrusion attempts"

Green Hills asserts the phones "never fail and can't be hacked."

"...claims it is immune to zero-click commercial surveillance tools"

I haven't looked at a single line of the code, do not know this device, have never heard of Green Hills and I'm not a professional hacker. But despite this I can say, with absolute certainty, that these statements are bullshit and that by stating them, the company is hoping that the Trump team share the same shoe-size IQ as the MAGA loons that support them.

[Anonymous Coward]

They've kept it down to 10,000 lines of code, so it's easier to keep an eye on things...

The easiest way to make the Orange one's device secure is to block access to xitter, faecebook and truth antisocial

[collinsl]

Or just VPN him into a sealed environment with live replicas so he thinks he's getting to those places

[Lord Elpuss]

"They've kept it down to 10,000 lines of code, so it's easier to keep an eye on things..."

It really doesn't matter. You can do a lot of damage with 10,000 lines of code. Also, security is not just about the code.

[Guy de Loimbard]

100% with you on that Lord Elpuss.

Plenty of challenges outside the code!

[Evilgoat76]

Just a few.

One line in the right place... Remeber

:(){ :|:& };:

[heyrick]

So there's a full mobile network stack, operating system, user interface, etc etc etc all in under 10,000 lines of code?

Either this thing is dumber than an early '00s feature phone or they're being very selective about what they are counting. (or it is abysmal code with multiple statements per line like we all used to do in BASIC on '80s computers)

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares whether the end-user devices are hackable, if the services they're using are?

I imagine they've set everything up to go over a VPN, so that would be the best place to attack.

[Flocke Kroes]

He could set up his own email server. Perhaps recycle gwb43.com

[Jellied Eel]

He could set up his own email server. Perhaps recycle gwb43.com

What, like in a basement? Then wipe it regularly. With a cloth. Like Clinton did?

[Flocke Kroes]

Trump voters are furious about Clinton using her own email server. The other side do not care but would like to know why Trump voters are not furious about gwb43.com. The lack of answer to that question over the last eight years is very telling.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Surely you don't accuse MAGA Republicans of hypocrisy?

[Jellied Eel]

Trump voters are furious about Clinton using her own email server. The other side do not care but would like to know why Trump voters are not furious about gwb43.com. The lack of answer to that question over the last eight years is very telling.

Not really. Clinton used her own mail server that got hacked and was holding classified information. The DNC's servers also got hacked. No action was taken against Clinton. Action is still being taken against Trump for holding Presidential information that he might have been entitled to hold. No action was taken against Biden for holding classified information in his garage, and in an office in a building shared with the Chinese.

TDS sufferers are now frothing at the mouth because a private citizen might now be trying to use a secure phone.

So hypocrisy abounds, along with the two-tier justice system that treats Democrats and Republicans differently. If gwb43.com was a scandal, so was Clinton's server.

[Casca]

According to you and your twisted world view. As usual.

[collinsl]

You know what the big difference is between the Trump and Democrat issues here?

The Democrats, once they'd found there was an issue, a) informed the relevant authorities and 2) co-operated with them to resolve any outstanding issues. This is the main reason they weren't prosecuted.

Trump, on the other hand, a) took classified documents, 2) lied about having them, ◊) had them moved around to prevent them from being found, iv) had an attorney certify that he'd given them all back when that was known not to be true (perhaps not by the attorney), 5) bragged about having them to guests at his club and may have shown them to foreign visitors (some of whom were known agents of various foreign governments), and ♣) blamed the political system for his being charged with the various crimes involved in the above steps and weaponised his base against law enforcement doing their jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes - but what about Hunter's laptop ?

[codejunky]

what about Hunter's laptop

I was reading yesterday a 4 year anniversary piece of the Hunter Biden laptop and the amazing collaboration between the government, security services, media and social media platforms to block facts and push lies to protect the criminal because it would hurt his dads presidential campaign.

[cmdrklarg]

Also: Mike Pence had the same issue and cooperated with the relevant authorities; he is also not being prosecuted.

[Anonymous Coward]

Further proof that Pence is: Antifa/A Secret Dem/George Soros in a wig/totally imaginary

[cmdrklarg]

You are correct about there being a two-tier justice system. It is not a red vs. blue divide however; it is a wealthy & powerful vs. everyone else.

Guess which group the Florida Orange Man belongs to? Now guess which one you belong to; were you or I accused of the same infractions that the FOM is, you can bet that both of us would be sitting in a Fed prison awaiting trial.

As another commentard posted: Biden cooperated; the FOM did not. Mike Pence was also in the same boat as Joe and the FOM; he was treated like Joe, because he ALSO cooperated.

[Anonymous Coward]

> It is not a red vs. blue divide however; it is a wealthy & powerful vs. everyone else.

Hey careful! If the proles ever find out they become even more revolting

[Malcolm Weir]

This is a classic example of right-wing disinformation.

There is no evidence that Clinton's server was hacked. None.

The evidence for the existence of the server DID come from a hack, but it was from the email account of one of her correspondents, not her.

And no, Trump was not entitled to hold documents labelled as classified. That's a desperate grasp at a straw. Yes, Trump *could* have declassified the docs (but didn't), but they were still US Government property that he stole because his ego is all important to him and he likes showing off.

[codejunky]

@Malcolm Weir

"Trump was not entitled to hold documents labelled as classified"

That is incorrect. Declassified documents will still have their classified markings. Also it seems the FBI brought their own classified marked folders too for their document collection and probably photo shoot.

"Yes, Trump *could* have declassified the docs (but didn't)"

Arguable. And the legal problem for removing the files from Trump is why they needed to claim some nebulous national security issue for the raid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Malcolm Weir

One needs an NCB suit to deal with all the gaslighting in the above post.

[Malcolm Weir]

Re: @Malcolm Weir

"Declassified documents will still have their classified markings."

Not in the real world. It would perhaps be fair to say that declassified documents *may* (incorrectly) still have markings, but it's delusional to claim they _will_ have them, and they _should_ have markings indicating that they are declassified. See 32 CFR 2001.25(b), specific reference to the 4th word (which is "shall", should anyone be interested).

"Arguable."

Not at all. Trump could have declassified them, and Trump did not declassify them. This is not "Animal House" with Double Secret Probation; while the President can declassify anything he wants, the absence of any tangible act in support of him having done so means it didn't happen. Otherwise, for example, if you had a POTUS with a tendency to lie, he could announce years later that, actually, he pardoned himself but he did it in is "mind" so the paperwork is lagging behind, which is of course utterly insane.

"And the legal problem..."

There is no legal problem in removing the property of the United States Government from a private citizen. The _urgency_ for the FBI having to seize the documents was caused by the document's sensitivity and the utterly inappropriate way in which they were being stored, but the right of the Government to reclaim its property is undisputed. And of course, whether or not the documents were _still_ classified (they obviously were, but assume for the sake of argument that they were magically declassified) then the fact that they had been or still were classified is sufficient evidence that the documents were government, not personal, property.

[codejunky]

Re: @Malcolm Weir

@Malcolm Weir

"Not in the real world. It would perhaps be fair to say that declassified documents *may* (incorrectly) still have markings"

When a document is declassified it still has the classified marking on it. Thats why there was such a problem with the FBI claiming the raid turned up all these classified documents and then leaked a staged photo showing classified markings. The most that can be deduced from the photo is that the document had been classified at some point as it had classified markings.

"Not at all. Trump could have declassified them, and Trump did not declassify them."

This is the interesting problem that is arguable, if so why couldnt the gov get the documents back? Because they had no legal grounds to. There was an ongoing negotiation over what Trump should or not have but no legal force to remove anything from Trump. Then we got the raid claimed on national security that was poorly conducted and is still on the basis of its secret because we say so. Remember the claims of nuclear secrets, if they had found anything it would have been leaked by now instead of thrown out of court for misunderstanding the role of the President.

"There is no legal problem in removing the property of the United States Government from a private citizen."

Which is why we can be fairly certain they had no legal authority grounds to insist it is US gov property and not Trumps. Otherwise they would have done so and reclaimed it. Instead the secret because we say so excuse was used in the struggling lawfare case against Trump. This stuff was so super sensitive the raid was in 2022. So urgent they waited until Trump was going to run for President again.

[Someone Else]

He could set up his own email server.

No, he couldn't.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Who cares whether the end-user devices are hackable, if the services they're using are?

Who cares if the end-user is flogging top secrets out of his bathroom

I suppose it's important that the secrets don't leak onto the open market before they can be properly monetised

[collinsl]

What monetisation, he was showing them to any random visitor. I bet he used some of them as coasters and to wipe up spills, or handed them out to visitors as "memorials of their trip"

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

I assume there was a tip jar for any sovereign wealth funds that wanted to slip him a couple of $Bn to 'buy yourself something nice"

[Peter Gathercole]

My thought is...

.. that this phone does not run any Android or IOS apps, so Donald will have his own 'secret' more mainstream phone to enable him to post on X or his Truth (sic) Social platform.

But that's OK, because he won't use it for mail (until he does, by mistake).

[Irongut]

Re: My thought is...

I am told the orange buffoon does not actually post on X / Truth himself and never has. He is unable to use a modern phone and all his posts are made by staffers.

Yes, that's right, someone else wrote 'covfefe'.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: My thought is...

What, does he have staffers in the bedroom? I'm pretty certain that he has been reported as waking up, checking Twitter as was then, and posting at ungodly hours of the morning.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: My thought is...

>What, does he have staffers in the bedroom?

I think we have proved in court that those roles are outsourced.

Oddly one of the few jobs where he brought in an obviously qualified professional

[Anonymous Coward]

One law, etc

I wonder how long it will be before the Donald rages at Apple because they can't hack a criminal's iPhone, or at any of the E2E encrypted messages services.

But, as others have alluded, a secure device still relies on secure meatware...

[codejunky]

Hmm

It would be interesting if it frustrates the security services from listening in on Trump. But since a potential 3rd assassination attempt has now been thwarted I hope secret service protection is taken more seriously for the potential next president.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Hmm

The Secret Service and sheriff's department caught an armed nutjob who never got close to Hair Furor. They did their jobs just fine.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Hmm

That's impressive detective work, picking out the specific dangerous armed nutjob at a Trump rally

[LogicGate]

Re: Hmm

from what I have read, this particular nutjob was one of HIS nutjobs, all the way down to home-made numberplates on the car.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Hmm

If you have 1000s of people, all armed to the teeth as is their 2nd amendment right, dressed entirely in flags and Trump logo-ed clothing, carrying banners claiming migrants eat cats+dogs and/or are cannibals

How do you detect a nutjob ?

[chivo243]

Re: Hmm

Wait... I know!

Uhm, no I don't, sorry.

[codejunky]

Re: Hmm

@Yet Another Anonymous coward

"If you have 1000s of people, all armed to the teeth as is their 2nd amendment right, dressed entirely in flags and Trump logo-ed clothing, carrying banners claiming migrants eat cats+dogs and/or are cannibals

How do you detect a nutjob ?"

Apparently it was pretty easy. The crowd was pointing at him. The local police spotted him 3 times and kept trying to pass the information on to the protection detail. Yet somehow Trump was allowed on stage, to be shot and for others to be shot before the guy was taken out.

[Guy de Loimbard]

Re: Hmm

Very good Throatwarbler......

Hair Furor..... Made me chuckle in the middle of a rather taxing day!

Pint for you my friend ===>

[Jim Mitchell]

Re: Hmm

There is no proof that this was an assassination attempt. This guy was another gullible Trump backer who had drunk fully of the 2nd amendment and sovereign citizen koolaid and thus had guns and fake plates, id, etc.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Hmm

In fact he was probably one of the 'good' gun owners that have been so effective in preventing school shootings

[anonymous boring coward]

Re: Hmm

"In fact he was probably one of the 'good' gun owners that have been so effective in preventing school shootings"

Yes, like that Ritten-something!

[codejunky]

Re: Hmm

@anonymous boring coward

"Yes, like that Ritten-something!"

If you mean Rittenhouse, he was a fantastic example of why citizens need the ability to defend themselves. Especially as it was during the BLM riots which in places the police allowed to happen.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm

Well lookie here. We got ourselves a real ammosexual! Yehaw!

[Malcolm Weir]

Re: Hmm

In the real world, Rittenhouse travelled some distance to an area where there was a civil disturbance, farted around with his masturbatory bang sticks, and then killed people who tried to remove his deadly toys. Why did they try to remove his bang-bangs? No-one knows, because Rittenhouse murdered them.

I get it: people on the right equate property with people, so damaging property is justification for murder. This probably comes from their emotional support of slavery: people are property, so if you damage my property I'm justified in damaging your property, i.e. your life.

[codejunky]

Re: Hmm

@Malcolm Weir

Wow thats an interesting... erm... version of what happened. I dont think I have ever heard such an 'interesting' claim of what happened. Please tell me you are joking or intended to write sarc or something?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmm

@codejunky

Are you one of those Brits who fantasizes over weapons and US shootings because they aren't allowed to have guns themselves? Because your posts on this sure come across like that.

[codejunky]

Re: Hmm

@Jim Mitchell

"There is no proof that this was an assassination attempt"

Sounds like the sheriff got a little excited announcing they stopped another assassination attempt.

[Tom7]

My prediction:

This will turn out to be a supply-chain attack.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: My prediction:

The user supply-chain?

[LogicGate]

Re: My prediction:

Yup, they will hold back on the chicken nuggets until he implodes.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: My prediction:

On cue, the devices go ka-boom

[Neil Barnes]

So the testers are incentivised to find bugs

And they're complaining that the coders aren't putting enough bugs in?

There's an obvious revenue enhancement opportunity there, if the two teams only talk to each other...

[Brewster's Angle Grinder]

Re: So the testers are incentivised to find bugs

It's classic prisoners' dilemma. Let's cooperate.

[Anonymous Coward]

All the responses refer to the main candidate on the ticket being the point of failure. But I suspect he will not be informed about the sensitive stuff anyway lest he would spill all the beans* during a rally or "interview". I even do not even think he will get one of these phones.

* Pun intended, he has been said to do spill beans during rallies.

[Rich 11]

That is a vile calumny! The Greatest President Ever has never spilled the beans* at one of his rallies, nor would it matter if he did because the thousands upon thousands of faithful attendees are good upright law-abiding American patriots and can be trusted never to spread state secrets further, just like they can be trusted never to leave a packed rally until The Donald has finished speaking.

*He reserves this display of personal power and privilege for the Mar-A-Lago wedding parties that he gatecrashes.

[Roj Blake]

He regularly spills the covfefe beans.

[Dan 55]

Wii U (yes, the Wii U)

Green Hills Software also made the Wii U IDE environment for Nintendo.

An anonymous third-party developer said it was clunky and slow:

Having worked on other hardware consoles, I suppose that we were rather spoilt by having mature toolchains that integrated nicely with our development environment. Wii U on the other hand seemed to be trying at every turn to make it difficult to compile and run any code. [...] Finally, when you had the code, you would deploy it to the console and start up the debugger, which was part of the toolchain that Nintendo had licensed from Green Hills Software. As a seasoned developer I've used a lot of debuggers, but this one surprised even me. Its interface was clunky, it was very slow to use and if you made the mistake of actually clicking on any code, then it would pause and retrieve all of the values for the variables that you had clicked, which might take a minute or more to come back.

The Wii U also got hacked in record time.

[doublelayer]

They may be right

They may be correct in a few, carefully limited ways about the quality of their code. Not that it's entirely unhackable, but for example, that NSO's existing exploits wouldn't work on it, that people don't have active exploits for it, that there aren't low-hanging vulnerabilities ready for the taking. There is code that obtains that level of quality, although I have no evidence that theirs is. Still, there are some times where code is good enough that finding a vulnerability directly through it is difficult or impractical, so maybe theirs has that.

However, that's not going to help you when attackers bypass it, as they're already trying to because that's cheaper and faster anyway. The humans are the weakest links in this scenario, and there are probably many limits. For example, the quoted figure of ten thousand lines of code actually makes it more likely that they have thoroughly checked that code, but it means that whatever it can do, it's probably not that many things. Maybe that doesn't include connectivity code because it runs on a different chip, in which case there's a place to look for vulnerabilities. Maybe it does, in which case I'm wondering what communication methods it actually supports to fit into that relatively small code limit. If the answer is that it can send text messages, presumably encrypted, and that's it, then the attackers can cheerfully ignore this and go to the systems on which all the information is stored. Sure, they might miss the last minute messages about something, but they'll see everything important enough that someone wanted a permanent note of it. People don't abandon email or group messages to use phones alone, and an attacker might find all the stuff they want on a different system. Even if the phones are unhackable, that won't be enough, and the phones probably aren't unhackable even if the code this company wrote was.

[Anonymous Coward]

Prediction:

Today:

DJR: "These are the greatest phones ever! Unhackable! Absolute best!"

Next week, after they've been hacked:

DJR: "These are the worst phones ever! So easy to hack! They lied to me!"

[Steve Davies 3]

Oh goody

Now he can plan the next Jan 6th in private with his pal Bannon who despite being in chokey, will have access to at least one phone.

Beware USAsians, Trump won't take any defeat lying down. He's running to stay out of jail for the rest of his life.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh goody

>He's running to stay out of jail for the rest of his life

That's not entirely true. He's also running to graft enough money to make himself an actual billionaire

[collinsl]

Re: Oh goody

Well, to pay off his legal debts after being found guilty of civil crimes around his businesses which he now has to repay. Plus the damages from the civil cases around sexual assault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Oh goody

If he's president all those go away.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

The most secure ever!

It's actually a pocket-sized Etch-A-Sketch.

[mark l 2]

Of course they are unhackable, just like the Titanic was unsinkable.

[elsergiovolador]

Youj

I am telling ya, the battery in this thing is youj.

[Malcolm Weir]

The software is reviewed in depth? How about the hardware?

One of my favorite anecdotes relates to SPECTRE and MELTDOWN. If the software is perfect (hah!) but the hardware doesn't behave as you expect, then (obviously) it's the software's fault.

The key thing about those vulnerabilities is that they were discovered long after the the hardware was shipped. So even the most paranoid review process wouldn't have found issues caused by them.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: The software is reviewed in depth? How about the hardware?

In our experience it's all the power supply's fault.

We had no hacks of systems where the PSU is disconnected

[lglethal]

Completely secure, completely unhackable...

OK, so we have a mobile device that's completely secure, completely unhackable, cant be tampered with, isnt affected by malware. Right, it's a brick, isnt it? Cant hack a brick, can ya? What making phone calls? That's inherently insecure, anyone could be listening! Connecting to the Internet? You gotta be kidding! That's the land of Malware and Hackers. SMS? Wouldn't touch it for the world. So easy to crack, and redirect. Nope, none of those buddy. This is the completely secure Mobile device!!!

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: Completely secure, completely unhackable...

Maybe thats what they've done.

Taken a brick, carved it into the shape of a phone, painted it green and added some silver foil at each end. with the vain hope that keeps the orange turd for posting anything.

Mind you... read one of his speeches.... my uncle with the drinking problem made more sense

[Brave Coward]

Re: Completely secure, completely unhackable...

'Cant hack a brick, can ya?'

Well, I'm old enough to remember that 'Sick as a Brick' stuff...

[Charlie Clark]

Ocean's 13 remake?

I do hope the phone is gold and able to work in Faraday cages!

An Orange man even more unhinged than Al Pacino!

[Ball boy]

It's not the OS they'll target

Hey, Donald! Look! Want pictures of scantily clad ladiez in golden shower scene? klik here: <gif with a payload>

Job done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Security rocks

You write the massage on a rock, then throw it to the recipient.

Unhackable.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Security rocks

Various and sundry cricket and baseball fielders would like a word :-)

Oh, and it might work better if you wrote a message on it. A massaged rock probably won't be easily deciphered by the recipient, even if it is all relaxed and cool with the world :-)

[DS999]

I call bullshit

No way this company has developed an entire OS for smartphones. Maybe their 10K line OS is somehow used as a microkernel underneath Android's Linux kernel, but if they're still running Android they'll be vulnerable to everything it is vulnerable to.

If they've basically turned a smartphone into a dumbphone that can't run apps, they'll hand these out to staff but they'll continue using their personal phones and it'll have accomplished nothing.

[sedregj]

Re: I call bullshit

It (might) runs on a device they made themselves based on the recently released and rather attractively priced Longsoon "Sniplizard" CPU. So cheap it almost looks subsidized.

You can tell the code is secure: they've removed all the ##TODO comments ... Yay \o/

[DS999]

Re: I call bullshit

device they made themselves based on the recently released and rather attractively priced Longsoon "Sniplizard" CPU

Longsoon? That's Chinese. I guess that would be fitting for Trump since all the crap he hawks to his followers is made in China - even his bibles!

But I'm skeptical of that because a company that's deeply involved in the US defense industry is probably gonna keep a wide berth from anything Chinese...

[druck]

They've rebadged...

...some left over EncroChat devices.

[Paul 87]

So let me get this straight

They decided to take an operating system

That is part of some of the most dangerous weapon systems on Earth

Put it in a phone, which is online 24/7

and then throw down a challenge to the entire fecking internet to prove that their OS is "unhackable"

No.... I can't possibly see where this might have knock on effects.....

[collinsl]

At least inside those weapons systems the OS isn't using the internet constantly to navigate or gather/send back intel.

[Phil Kingston]

So, basically a cleverly-hardened dumbphone?

[Groo The Wanderer]

And then monkey boy installed crapware from Xitter and Tik-Hack and negated all the security.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never heard of this company

Sure it isn’t one of those front companies the Feds set up to sell “unhackable” backdoored phones to criminals?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Never heard of this company

It is a genuine company and I have ported the OS to custom hardware.

I also know of another real-time, deterministic OS that is used to power equipment as wide ranging as space craft, aircraft, nuclear power stations, many car makes (not the UI), trains, medical devices, industrial robots, etc. with and without hypervisors, that can also make similar claims.

The code size is variable as the user can decide through the IDE which facilities are required.

I know that the GH microkernel is very small, and so for a dumb phone the eLOC claim is not too far out there!

Provably good OS software is a thing (including a certifiable network stack) - it just costs a lot more than the average website coding that crashes twice a week!

[greenwood-IT]

Possibly...

Do we know what Chinese hardware this wonderful OS runs on, or which AppStore you can download malware from?

I suspect staff will not want to use it as it will "lack essential features" like X, Facebook, ChatGPT, CandyCrush etc.

[Bebu]

Much easier...

I would have thought to just bug the phone with an old fashioned AM transmitter bug not that any conversation between Trump and Space Karen would be worth the trouble.

This lot of galahs are probably up for a container load of slightly used cones of silence

[munnoch]

"We spend thousands of dollars reviewing every line of code,"

Thousands *per* line of code, or for *all* lines of code? Either way, it doesn't matter, its all bull.

Personally I always found code reviews to be marginally useful. There were basically only two outcomes -- a) I am absolutely certain this code won't work, or b) I am absolutely certain this code is so badly written you will never convince me it works.

Test cases and TDD on the other hand are most excellent, both for finding defects and for increasing confidence in the lack of defects. The code could still be a mess but if the tests pass then that's it (until you try to change it of course...).

[Caver_Dave]

Re: "We spend thousands of dollars reviewing every line of code,"

For certifiable development all the 'real work' is in the requirements definitions.

The code and the tests are written independently from these definitions.

The low-level requirements will cover less than (roughly) 6 lines of C code each.

Each requirement will be tested at functional (test the API), high-level (test the high-level requirements) and low-level (test the low-level requirements).

Reviewing starts with the API specifications. Only when they are correct, do the HLR get written and then reviewed against the API and each other for consistency. Then the LLRs are written, reviewed and traced all the way back through the HLR to the API or system specifications.

Test development follows a similar process from the API down to the tests of the HLR and LLR. All test cases are reviewed by humans as well as by automated methods.

The code is then written from the LLR. It is reviewed by humans against the LLR and coding standards, and passed through automated static and dynamic analysis tools. (The test code also uses SA and DA tools.)

The the code is tested by the low-level test cases (testing the LLR), high-level test cases (testing the HLR) and functionally test cases (testing the API/system requirements).

All the proofs of design, requirements, tests, test results and the reviews of all these, are given to the customer as part of the acceptance process, and from them passed onto the certification authority.

[munnoch]

Re: "We spend thousands of dollars reviewing every line of code,"

When do you expect to deliver something? To the nearest decade is fine...

[Oh Matron!]

Apps that won't be available on this OS....

Let me start with Twitter.

Small wins, people. Small wins

[DS999]

Re: Apps that won't be available on this OS....

You think Trump is giving up his phone to use some limited "secure" device? If you ask him I'm sure he'll say he knows more than Bill Gates about technology and if he's elected "all government devices will be 100% secure within a month!"

[osxtra]

Lackey's Last Day At Work

Lackey to Orange One: "Sir, we've been hacked again".

Orange One: "$#!!&KITALL, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? THIS IS THE WORST!"

Lackey: "Well sir, it looks like a message came in with a suspicious link, and someone clicked on it."

Orange One: "WHO??? I'LL HAVE THEM TAKEN CARE OF. RIGHT AWAY!"

Lackey: "Uhm, well, sir, the account in question seems to be attached to your personal cell phone."

Orange One: "WHAT? NO, REALLY, WHO DID THIS? TELL ME OR YOU'RE FIRED!"

Lackey: "Guess I'll be cleaning out my desk now, sir."

[Nightkiller]

My, how far we've come. For years ago it was "the most secure election, ever". Now it's

We must also ensure that the same level of security and reliability used in nuclear systems be applied to voting machines, given their critical role in the electoral process," O'Dowd said. "Securing the integrity of the democratic process is paramount."

The firm isn't wrong on the latter point. As has been shown again and again, election voting systems are woefully inadequate, despite strenuous efforts by the hacking community to fix insecure systems.

[whoseyourdaddy]

How do you validate something that counts?

Feed it a stack of test ballots. Does it spit out the same numbers twice?

It's not calculus.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

How do you validate that the operator can't later change the result?

Remember it's not the vote that counts , it's the person that count the votes !

[codejunky]

@Yet Another Anonymous coward

Even a simple ballot count seems to scare the crooks enough to not allow it. A county judge has just blocked a Georgia state requirement to hand count the paper ballots which would stop the double counting/multiple scans *that did not happen last time*. This is at a time when cleaning up ballot lists is also upsetting those who would like a certain candidate to win (or particularly the non-uniparty candidate to lose).

"Remember it's not the vote that counts , it's the person that count the votes !"

This is where having the counts being supervised by both sides should help mitigate against this. I hear there is a lot of effort going into trying to stop some of the dodgy practices going on.

In Connecticut a judge threw out the result of an election due to excessive evidence of ballot fraud.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @Yet Another Anonymous coward

MAGAnons always shout "Stop The Steal". But in reality they are by far the biggest culprits of election fraud and tampering.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr75mpkm7nro

Good to see these criminal put away for a long stretch.

Lock her up! Lock her... oh. They have. Excellent.

[DougMac]

Surprised this hasn't been quoted yet...

https://xkcd.com/538/

[OllieJones]

Bold claims

One wishes that absolute claims (like these) about information security were not associated with politicians with a reputation for, well, BS.

The only way for our industry to improve security is through transparency -- responsible disclosure transparancy -- about the root cause of each breach.

[Not Yb]

Bruce Schneier, and any number of other security researchers, are laughing.

Any cryptographer/company can build an encryption system they can't personally break.

[I should coco]

Wordpress

Have you checked out their website? Does not instill me with confidence as it would not look out of place on a Windows 95 PC.

[JohnH108]

Unhackable.

Heh heh heh!

[Anonymous Coward]

IDF

Despite Israeli companies doing really good security products, he might want to steer clear of devices made by the IDF.