President Trump rebuts the use of unsecured personal iPhone... from an iPhone
The New York Times ran a story recently that quoted White House administration officials who were worried that the President sometimes tweets and chats via his private iPhone, instead of solely via the government-sanctioned for the purpose gear. The whole thing was met with some laughter and ridicule across the globe, with Chinese officials suggesting that maybe he should use a Huawei phone instead if intelligence sources are so worried about the matter.
Needless to say, while Apple does its best to keep iPhones secure, a run-of-the-mill unit won't be much of a problem for eavesdropping by someone with malicious intent and the resources to apply it. Intelligence officials are worried that China or Russia might be listening on such calls with unpredictable consequences.The so-called experts on Trump over at the New York Times wrote a long and boring article on my cellphone usage that is so incorrect I do not have time here to correct it. I only use Government Phones, and have only one seldom used government cell phone. Story is soooo wrong!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2018
That's not the first time "intelligence officials" are worried by actions of this administration, but it's sometimes hard to fathom if their tips come with other purposes than genuine threat worries. A recent Bloomberg report about Chinese spy chips in Apple's iCloud servers, for instance, now sounds like it may be a plant for political, China-bashing purposes by such sources, and Apple went so far as to ask for an editorial retraction.
President Trump, however, just partially confirmed the New York Times story himself. He tweeted in a rather convoluted manner that there is no merit to the claims he often uses his personal iPhone, saying that he has just "one seldom used government phone." That didn't preclude him from sending said rebuttal with the tag "Twitter for iPhone," rendering the report a bit more credible, save for the whole China/Russia eavesdropping part which would be hard to detect and prove anyway.
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