Obama communicates from hotel inside a tent
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While visiting South America, President Obama, according to his job description, must keep up with world events. He is doing so from his hotel room (note the floral carpet in the picture) inside a high tech tent. The tent is a mobile secure area known as a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, designed to allow officials to have top secret discussions on the move.
Designed to withstand eavesdropping, phone tapping and computer hacking, Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities – also known as SCIFs – are protected areas where classified conversations can be held. They can be permanent enclosures within a building, or mobile areas set up when a world leader is on the move, to allow them to view sensitive documents or have secret conversations without any outsiders listening or hacking in.
In order to keep abreast of events a mobile war room was set up in his hotel so he could hold a secure conference call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, among others.
Instead of a curtain of steel around a secure complex, a “ring of electronic waves” prevents signals from getting in and out of the tent. The only signal which can get out is the encrypted communications, which are made through a secure and encrypted phone line, which sends conversations through a satellite.
SCIFs are not new, George W. Bush was the first president to use them.
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I know it has some kind of electronic waves but it still doesn’t seem secure but I suppose they wouldn’t use it if it wasn’t.
That’s my theory too Jenny.
Oh come on, who here has not had the tent in the bedroom for their private conversatin and speechifyin. Wonder if there was a “no girls allowed” sign on front of it.
When I was a kid I had a tent in the backyard with a sign that said ‘girls only.’ But I digress.
Fascinating story but I am surprised that it became public knowledge. The tent is a combination wire and Kevlar mesh that is actively charged. The specifications of the active charging system is top secret.
All electronic equipment in that situation is specially designed to not emanate EMI or RFI radiation that can be electronically monitored. For example, it’s a relatively simple technique to pick up the EMI from an office computer from several hundred feet away and display everything that the office computer displays, pick up all keystrokes, etc
That equipment in the tent must comply to NSTISSAM TEMPEST/1-92, Level 1, Zone 0 specifications as defined by the National Security Agency (NSA) Tempest program.
Probably even reading the contents of that specification report without due top secret clearance will cause you to disappear.
The SCIFs have a page on Wikipedia, but I couldn’t understand it. The picture in the post is a US government photo, so I guess if it was ‘secret’ it just got declassified. Perhaps it’s dare to Annonymous, ‘crack this.’
I don’t think that Anonymous would even have a chance with this one. Highly encrypted on a closed loop, not even physically connected to the net for that matter.
Here is an entry page to the Tempest program at the NSA.
http://www.nsa.gov/applications/ia/tempest/TEMPESTLevel1.cfm
Interesting stuff but if you peruse too much you can probably expect a big SUV across the street with black out windows.
Something curious though… the tent shield requires full surround but the picture shows ugly hotel carpeting. I wonder if that is original or part of the “tent shield” that is changed to make it look more comfy?
This is one of the coolest stories I’ve read in a while. Makes me want to watch old episodes of “Get Smart.”
Very interesting stuff here. I enjoyed the read but a tent? How secure is a tent?
It’s protected from prying ears by a ring of electronic waves.