Vladimir Putin gave President Donald Trump an Adidas soccer ball at their Helsinki News conference last week. Now we find out that the ball may have contained a transmitting chip within it.
Video from the conference shows the ball with a logo that has a chip as a standard feature, downloadable information on the “product, Addidas football content, special competitions and challenges.”
According to the Adidas website, the technology works by interacting with smartphones or tablets enabled with “Near Field Communication,” which the company describes as “a digital technology that allows two devices to exchange data or trigger certain actions when physically connected to each other.”
Scott Schober, a cybersecurity expert, said in an interview that the technology would be unlikely to be used for espionage and that any gift a US President receives would be thoroughly vetted to ensure it is safe.
I don’t want to be an alarmist, but the above assumes that Donald Trump gave it to the Secret Service to be analyzed. We are talking about a man who famously, proudly, uses an unsecured phone, and won’t give it up in exchange for a secure one (why?). We are also talking about a man who has been caught in several attempts to set up a back channel of communication. What if this chip can receive radio signals that Trump can download right onto his phone?
What if Trump wanted the “Chip” in it in order to facilitate direct communication of some sort, to download messages from Putin? Is it THAT crazy?
Of course it is highly unlikely, but is anything that crazy anymore?
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