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The President’s New Phone

Jeff John Roberts
By
Jeff John Roberts
Jeff John Roberts
Editor, Finance and Crypto
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Jeff John Roberts
By
Jeff John Roberts
Jeff John Roberts
Editor, Finance and Crypto
Down Arrow Button Icon
January 21, 2017, 10:56 AM ET
Donald Trump in South Carolina
CHARLESTON, SC - FEBRUARY 18: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump talks talks on the phone while making a stop for lunch between campaign events at Fratello's Italian Tavern in North Charleston, SC on Thursday Feb. 18, 2016. (Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)Jabin Botsford—The Washington Post/Getty Images

A version of this post originally appeared in the Cyber Saturday edition of Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily tech newsletter.

President Trump began his new job and, at the insistence of the Secret Service, finally ditched his old cell phone for something more secure. Trump’s reported reluctance to part with his Android device was not unusual—people in power, like most of us, prefer convenience over security.

The tech-loving President Obama, for instance, complained on TV that his POTUS-edition smartphone didn’t have popular Internet features. (As for Hillary Clinton, her IT operations included not just that infamous server but also aides who smashed her old BlackBerries with hammers).

When it comes to the U.S. president, though, there’s no room for balance between security and ease-of-operations: Security is paramount. But for almost everyone else, including the thousands of women descending on Washington D.C. to protest on Saturday, there’s a case for convenience.

Not everyone is willing to acknowledge this, however, and one result is misinformation among women in Washington about the popular messaging app WhatsApp. Specifically, an irresponsible news article has reportedly led protest leaders to warn that WhatsApp (FB) contains a “backdoor” and is not a secure way to communicate.

The WhatsApp allegation is false. While the app does contain a security hole—an “attack surface” in hacker parlance—it’s a tiny one that can only be exploited in very unusual circumstances. What’s more, the hole reflects a design decision by the makers of WhatsApp, who understood that eliminating the risk entirely would make the app less convenient to use, and that people would likely turn to a less secure form of messaging instead.

This is what we must understand when it comes to cyber security for ordinary people: Perfect must not be the enemy of the good. But for President Trump, the stakes are different and nothing less than perfect security will do. Let’s hope Trump, whose previous positions on “the cyber” can charitably be described as contradictory, by now understands that.

About the Author
Jeff John Roberts
By Jeff John RobertsEditor, Finance and Crypto
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Jeff John Roberts is the Finance and Crypto editor at Fortune, overseeing coverage of the blockchain and how technology is changing finance.

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