Glimps of the Obama Phone - General Dynamics' Sectera Edge

(image found on PCmag.com website - Inside Obama's Classified Smartphone)

President Obama will be the first US President to use a Blackberry while in office. But, he will be keeping his Blackberry for his personal social use and for official US Government business he will be using one of two possible phones: Either the L3 Guardian or the Edge Windows CE Smart Phones.

The Edge and the Guardian are the result of an $18 million, NSA-sponsored program to develop a top-secret smart phone, according to Randy Siegel, Microsoft's lead enterprise mobility strategist.

Most BlackBerrys and Windows Mobile devices can work with "sensitive, but unclassified" data, according to Tom Liggett, the Sectera Edge product manager at General Dynamics. Those smart phones work with the FIPS 140-2 standard, which encrypts both data traffic and voice calls to a certain extent. And there are a lot of government functions, even in war, that aren't classified. In Iraq, for instance, Windows Mobile devices are used for battle triage, roadside bomb detection, and even as sniper aids, Siegel said.

But about 300,000 Americans have access to a secret, controlled Internet called SIPRNet, the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network. What's on there? It's classified. And the Edge and the Guardian are the only smartphones that can tap into it.

"The BlackBerry device and the Windows Mobile devices currently are not cleared for SIPRNetSiegel said. "This is the type of communication that a General Petraeus is giving, or many State Department officials, or many DHS officials." communications,"

To make voice calls, for instance, the Edge uses an encryption protocol called SCIP, the Secure Communications Interoperability Protocol. It runs on any of the four national cell-phone carriers' – you can actually switch the cellular module out by hand – but the calls are encrypted end-to-end, so that they can only be decrypted by another SCIP phone.

All the data on the device is encrypted using "NSA Type 1 algorithms," which are forbidden to be used by civilians, Liggett said. This is real spy-movie stuff."

The phone will offer a switch option for classified or unclassified mode. The phone itself can still do many things that a Windows Mobile device can do including connecting to Microsoft Exchange server, edit and work on Microsoft office documents and play media using windows media player. So if you are thinkin of wow i would love to get one of these phones. It will set you back $3300 provided you pass the security clearance for obtaining one too.

Blackberry Force One is up to the Job (ABC news)
Inside Obama's Classified SmartPhone (PCmag.com)