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RIM In Trouble For Not Violating Privacy

Posted by kdawson on from the end-to-end-baby dept.

sufijazz writes "The US government is not alone in wanting to snoop on everything citizens do over email/phone. The Indian government wants that right too. RIM is stating they have no means to decrypt, no master key, and no back door to allow the government to access email." The article notes that 114,000 BlackBerries are in use on the Indian subcontinent. The government is concerned about attacks by militants and sees the BlackBerry as a security risk.

3 of 278 comments (clear)

  1. Blackberry privacy is only for large enterprises by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative

    Blackberry privacy is only for large enterprises. If you have a corporate Blackberry server, the keys are between the client units and the server, and RIM doesn't have them. If you use Blackberry's public servers, RIM has your E-mail. India only wants "non-corporate emails".

  2. Re:can't work even if they wanted it to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Or just use encryption. To me, that's what is so baffling about the government privacy crackdowns. If anyone who was even remotely well informed wanted to communicate in private, they'd use strong encryption. I guess once someone uses encryption, they get an Indian military intelligence unit parked outside their door.

    Yes, but blackberries make it easy to communicate securely. You don't have the hassle of a PKI infrastructure with S/MIME certificates, or using PGP.

    Incidentally, blackberries support PGP and S/MIME on top of their existing security.

  3. Re:can't work even if they wanted it to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Blackberry has been available in India for the last 3 years without the government or DOT raising a single issue about terrorists.

    Its just when Tata Teleservices offered to provide the service that this suddenly became a 'terrorism' issue. Airtel and Hutch now Vodaphone have been providing blackberry since 2004.

    This is not about terrorism but corporate politics and influence peddling which is the way of business in India. RIM just has to pay some money to the right people and this will die a natural death or ask Airtel/Vodaphone to stop their lobbying against Tata Tele.

    Terrorism is fast becoming a favoured excuse and people should be a tad more skeptical before jumping to conclusions about threats that may not exist. Terrorists have many ways of communicating without resorting to blackberry. You can't stop technology because it can be abused.