RIM In Trouble For Not Violating Privacy

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.

Comments

This could set a precedent

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Phone companies in the US, maybe elsewhere, are legally required to facilitate eavesdropping under CALEA. End to end encrypted data services such as Skype and Hushmail have escaped this so far.

Will they be faced with the dilemma of changing their architecture versus being banned? Will they lose confidence no matter what? Hushmail at least used to publish their source code, but Skype is closed source and the binary is heavily obfuscated.

Re:This could set a precedent

[unlametheweak]

Phone companies in the US, maybe elsewhere, are legally required to facilitate eavesdropping under CALEA. End to end encrypted data services such as Skype and Hushmail have escaped this so far. So has TOR and Freenet so far. The German built JAP proxy technology was forced to put in a backdoor for the German police; all completely unannounced until a programmer looked at the (open) source code. Wikipedia has a slightly different interpretation (no back doors, but warrants issued to log IP addresses). To this day there are some very stupid people who believe that "anonymous" services should have backdoors in place to make these services un-anonymous.

I can remember when the PGP creator was put on trial in the US for his subversive software. The American government was smart in dropping the case and thus not setting a possible legal precedent (against themselves), but that was pre-9/11. As Bob Dylan once said "The times they are ah changin'"

Re:This could set a precedent

[Anonymous Coward]

I can remember when the PGP creator was put on trial in the US for his subversive software.

He wasn't on trial for his subversive software, it was for exporting munitions without a license.

Most countries (including the USA) have rules on the exportation of military technology. They don't want John Doe to export 100,000 artillery shells to a war zone (or an enemy) without approval.

Encrypted communications technology was classified as a munition, so you need a license.

However, the mathematics for strong encryption had been known for years, and free available around the world, so the US wasn't accomplishing anything by blocking the export of PGP.

Re:They can take a lesson from the USA

[hansraj]

I suppose you have little knowledge about India. Perhaps the situation is not as bad as some other countries but the indian police and indian jails are scary enough to begin with. If you tell an indian that the police tortured someone or that some guy in prison got thrashed pretty nasty, I doubt s/he will be surprised. At least I won't. The situation is even worse if you don't live in a big city where situation is perhaps better. I come from a small village/town and you have to bribe the police even to file a report and even then they are pretty nasty to you. And it is pretty common that if a policeman stops someone who doesn't appear to have a "good background", a slap precedes any question.

Perhaps if one is suave enough to be using PGP or "rich" enough to have a blackberry things are different but for most people *any* involvement with law-enforecement agencies is bad news already. Gitmo is perhaps tame. Of course that doesn't make gitmo right, but a statement like "they need their own gitmo" is humorous in a dark sort of way.

Re:can't work even if they wanted it to

[lena_10326]

I don't really agree with everything you said, but the Troll modifier was completely unwarranted.

I know. Jesus H. Christ. WTF. The idiots mod'ding on here are getting rather out of hand. My post was so NOT troll.

Anyway. Back to business and on to your your reply.

Personally, I will accept ZERO losses of freedom for even real gains in security. Not perceived gains mind you, REAL tangible gains.

It's too late. In 2008, you can be stopped, required to show your 'papers' (driver's license), questioned and interrogated, threatened with guns, shot, arrested, and taken into custody without committing any crime. How? By police. There are so many laws on the books that at any given moment in time you are guilty of something, even if it's a matter of interpretation and you eventually get off, it can still happen causing you grief, humiliation, financial loss, and wasted time. The depressing part is it's worsening by the month.

I am PERFECTLY willing to go and KILL absolutely every one and everything affecting my freedom. Just point the direction. If a politician says to me that I have to lose freedom, privacy, and anonymity due to some enemy out there, I will respond with this question, "Can we just go kill them instead?".

My stance would not be so aggressive. I would draw the line at our borders. Inside our borders, yes, but outside no. I don't feel invading other countries to root out 'tarrists' and thus create new 'tarrists' is a wise plan of action, nor is losing our moral ground.

Whatever happened to fighting for your freedom? I thought that was the American Way right?

We all have different definitions of fighting though.