It’s time for President Biden to ban iPhone use in all Federal buildings and for all Federal workers with any clearance level. When Xi banned them in China it was purely political, but the side effect was to make his government much more secure. American must ban iPhones in all Federal buildings as well as any Federal worker with any clearance level. This ban must also extend to their significant others.

iPhones are insecure

I know many of you will point to my hatred of all things from the cult of Apple, but iPhones are simply insecure. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, “The i stands for imbecile.” There is no fountain of good will in the OpenSource or the iPhone market, cybercrime is big business. According to CNET the CIA has had spyware known as Vault 7 hacking into imbecile phones for years. You can bet it is not just for amusement.

Hopefully you read the first link in this section because the Pegasus software sold by a company in Israel has been hacking into iPhones for many years. Long ago it required someone to click on a link, recent reports have it using a zero day exploit where the user does nothing. There was a time it required a single missed call but more and more reports are surfacing that it can “just breach.”

What is important is that spyware seems to be able to walk right in and install itself on your “smart” phone without your knowledge. Many labs say it can access both your microphone and camera. If you are walking around a Federal facility or discussing classified information you are carrying a bug!

How many service personnel take an iPhone onto a base?

It’s a real question. When you watch PBS News Hour or most other legitimate news broadcasts (not Fox), you see Senators and Representatives checking their imbecile phones as they walk the halls. There staff is also on imbecile phones. Supreme Leader Putin doesn’t need to buy a spy in Washington, elected officials have volunteered to send him classified information simply by having that phone in a building where classified discussions happen.

Patching after a breach simply isn’t security or “being responsible.”

The federal government has to mandate that every wireless carrier, and by extension phone manufacturer selling in America, must offer a fully secure dumb phone.

What is a fully secure phone?

  • No over-the-air (OTA) updates. Software updates must be manually instantiated by a locked mechanical switch. Not a button or in software, but with a bar of some kind you have to slide that physically provides the power to the flashing hardware. You cannot use the phone while it is engaged.
  • No texting. Really stupid breaches happen with texting especially with images.
  • No Internet. You do not need Internet on your phone. You especially do not need Internet on a device that fits in your pocket possessing both a camera and microphone.
  • It can have bluetooth for hands free driving but cannot allow any other functionality to bluetooth.

Beware official software updates! Solarwinds should have taught you that!