What’s the Big Deal with the BlackBerry?

The recent issue regarding Obama’s stand to keep his BlackBerry PDA-phone despite the NSA or National Security Agency’s stand that he should use the NSA’s favored Sectera Edge raises some questions from curious individuals. What’s with Sectera Edge? Why does NSA favor this over theBlackberry?

General Dynamics’ Sectera Edge is certified by the NSA for Top Secret emails, websites, and communications. Sectera Edge uses secure protocol to encrypt all communications, thereby, making sure that hackers and other cyber criminals will not succeed in accessing the information from the phone. BlackBerry, on the other hand, does not meet the security standard required by the NSA. For one, BlackBerry can easily be infected by malware and virus that can make the PDA-phone accessible to hackers. Emails can also be intercepted in BlackBerry. Aside from this, the latter has built-in GPS that would make it easy to pinpoint the location of the user.

Because of the very advanced technology that hackers and cyber criminals used to spread crime online, it is understandable that the National Security Agency would not easily give up its stand just to give in to Obama’s whim. Actually, former US presidents such as Clinton and Bush gave up their email during their time in office.

The final decision

The National Security Agency has now made its decision, and that it is allowing President Obama to use BlackBerry to communicate with some high-ranking officials and friends. However, he will be using the Sectera Edge in activities relating to the affair of the state.