A version of this post originally appeared in the Cyber Saturday edition of Data Sheet, Coins2Day ’sdaily tech newsletter.
Media outlets spent Friday bracing for a news dump and, sure enough, it was a doozy: FBI transcripts from an interview with Hillary Clinton revealed that she used 13 different mobile devices to send emails from a private server during and after her tenure as Secretary of State. What’s more, Clinton allegedly misplaced some of the BlackBerry devices, and some of them are simply gone — making it harder to determine the extent to which hackers could have penetrated Clinton’s communications.
It’s important to note the FBI transcripts are heavily redacted, and the media is still assessing their significance. Still, the initial optics are not exactly flattering to the Clinton campaign, including her claim that she was not aware that the symbol “(C)” at the beginning of a paragraph stood for CONFIDENTIAL. Likewise, one of Clinton’s security measures — having her aide smash a couple of the BlackBerries with a hammer — is not exactly confidence inspiring.
Expect to hear a lot more about the BlackBerrys and the rest of the report as the presidential campaign kicks off in earnest after Labor Day. But no matter how you feel about Clinton or her critics, there is actually one big upside to the l’affaire email. Namely, political candidates from here on will have no choice but to take cyber-security issues as seriously as they do their voting records and their campaign hair-dos. By the 2020 election, no serious candidate will be able to take a cavalier approach to communications.
In the past, the public has not expected their political leaders to possess much in the way of tech savvy. This is likely because, for average people, cyber security is complicated and a nuisance and we can relate when politicians feel the same way. But with widespread reports of foreign adversaries burrowing into our computer networks, the stakes are too high for anyone in power to brush off security measures. It’s time for Clinton, Donald Trump and every other aspiring leader to start setting an example for the rest of the country to follow.