The phones of the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

(Updated: December 5, 2024)

Since October 1, former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte is the new Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), succeeding Jens Stoltenberg from Norway, who had held this office since 2014.

In his new function, Mr. Rutte has telephone sets for secure and non-secure calls and even a hotline with the White House. He also has a somewhat odd switch to access classified as well as unclassified computer networks.

New NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at his desk, October 1, 2024
(photo: ANP/Remko de Waal - click to enlarge)

Telephone equipment

In the photo above we see that Secretary General Rutte has one phone in front of him, but the picture below shows that there were two additional telephone sets at the right side of the computer screen:

Former Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (left) and his successor, October 1, 2024
(photo: ANP/Remko de Waal - click to enlarge)

Not much later, Mr. Rutte rearranged the phones and the other items on his desk, as can be seen in this crop of a photo on the NATO Flickr-account from November 19, 2024:

The desk of Secretary General Mark Rutte, November 19, 2024
(photo: Flickr/NATO - click to enlarge)

The Polycom VVX 411 VoIP phone

The first telephone set of Mr. Rutte can be identified as a Polycom VVX 411, which is a mid-range business phone for Voice over IP. It was manufactured by Polycom, an American company founded in 1990, which develops equipment for voice and video communications.

The device looks rather bulky for a modern-day IP phone, but that's not because it has additional security functions, as the commercial model is just as big. However, there's also a version of the Polycom VVX 411 that was modified by CIS Secure to prevent unintentional audio transmissions (TSG-6 approved). The available photos give no indication that the Secretary General has this modified version on his desk.

The Polycom VVX 411 VoIP phone at the desk of
former Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
(photo: NATO Flickr-account)

The Polycom phone has a rather peculiar accessory, which is attached left of the handset. It's an HL10 Handset Lifter which is connected to the wireless headset that is also on Rutte's desk. When using this headset, one can answer an incoming call by pressing a button on the headset, after which the HL10 Handset Lifter automatically lifts up the handset of the phone, and lowers it again after pressing the headset button to disconnect the call.

The HL10 Handset Lifter was made by headset manufacturer Plantronics, an American company from Santa Cruz in California, which in 2019 acquired Polycom and then changed its name to Poly. In 2022 the company was sold to HP for $1.7 billion in cash.

As the Polycom phone has no labels or markings, it's the one that is used for all non-secure phone calls, whether internal or external.


The Cisco 8865 IP phone

The second telephone set on the desk of Secretary General Rutte is a Cisco IP Phone 8865, which is one of the most widely used high-end executive phones and includes a camera for video calls. A similar model, for example, sits in the Oval Office on the desk of the President of the United States.

> See also: The phones in president Biden's Oval Office

The Cisco 8865 Unified IP phone on the desk
of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

The red labels on this phone indicate that it is used for secure (video) calls. As this phone has no encryption capability itself, it is connected to a dedicated Voice over IP network with bulk network encryptors that encrypt the outgoing and decrypt the incoming traffic.

The current Cisco 8865 replaced a slightly older model, the Cisco 9951 IP Phone, that was on the desk of Rutte's predecessor Stoltenberg. For that model the end-of-sale was in 2016, with Cisco support ending in 2021.

The Cisco 9951 Unified IP Phone on the desk of
former Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

The Cisco 7975 Unified IP Phone

The third telephone set on Mr. Rutte's desk is an even older model: the Cisco 7975 Unified IP Phone, which was originally introduced around the year 2000. The end-of-sale for this phone was in 2018 and software maintenance ended in 2023. This phone wasn't there on Stoltenberg's first day at the new NATO Headquarters in May 2018, but it does appear in a photo from May 2020.

When such an old device is still in use, it often means that it has been rigorously tested to fit a special purpose. In this case it immediately brings to mind a similar Cisco 7975 IP Phone on the desk of Ukrainian president Zelensky. Moreover, it is not only the same device, but a very close look also shows that the touchscreen of both phones has the same wallpaper:

The 7975G Unified IP Phone on the desk of
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte

Close-up of the Cisco 7975 Unified IP Phone on
the desk of Ukrainian president Zelensky.

The wallpaper is an image of the White House and given the fact that Zelensky used this phone for calls with US President Biden, the identical telephone set on the desk of the NATO Secretary General must also serve as a hotline with the American president.

> See also: The phones of Ukrainian president Zelensky

Computer equipment

Besides the three telephones, Secretary General Rutte of course also has a computer screen with a keyboard and mouse on his desk. Additionally, there's an unusual device, which at first sight looks a bit like an old radio with a rotary knob:

A reader of this weblog identified this device as a "5 Position ABCDE Switch" made by Black Box, an Indian-American company that provides a range of computer network products. Black Box was founded in 1976 and has its headquarters in Plano in Texas and an Indian headquarters in Mumbai.

An ABCDE Switch is used for "switching one device to any one of four other compatible devices". In this case it's most likely used for accessing computer networks with different security classifications from a single Keyboard, Video and Mouse set, which is why it's usually called a KVM-switch.

The particular device with the rotary knob on the desk of the Secretary General isn't listed on the Black Box website, nor is it visible on the list of NATO approved products for information assurance. However, a lot of them are for sale on eBay, so it might be an older model that has been replaced by newer ones with push buttons.

Interior of a 5 Position ABCDE Switch as advertised on eBay

Update:
In December 2024 it was announced that NATO is in the process of creating a classified cloud system in which eventually all 32 member nations can share secret information. Currently the United States, the United Kingdom and several other countries are drafting an implementation directive for transitioning classified data from different repositories to a single cloud environment. Inspiration for this move comes from Ukraine, which moved its sensitive data out of data centers and into the cloud following suspicious Russian cyber activity right before the the country was invaded by Russian troops.

> For the telephone equipment used by Mark Rutte as prime minister of the Netherlands, see my blog post from 2014: The phones of the Dutch Prime Minister



Links and sources
- Trouw: In de nieuwe werkkamer van Mark Rutte kijkt Nijntje niet langer gezellig toe (October 17, 2024)
- NCI Agency: NATO Information Assurance Product Catalog (NIAPC)

See also the comments on Hacker News