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BlackBerry Services To Be Halted In UAE
WrongSizeGlass writes "Bloomberg is reporting RIM's BlackBerry Messenger, e-mail and Web browsing services will be suspended in the United Arab Emirates, the Middle East's business hub, starting October 11th due to security concerns. RIM faces similar restrictions in India. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said in a statement on state-run Emirates News Agency, 'In their current form, certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE.' A senior Indian government official said, 'Though RIM has been fully cooperating ever since the matter was taken up with it in 2008, reports of the company's move to set up a server in China forced us to look at it in a different way.'"
The UAE's telecoms regulator said the move had 'nothing to do with censorship' ...except where the monitoring leads to censorship. That is, you can say all you want on the phone, but the censorship would be done off the network.
Sounds like they're bitter about being caught with their hands in the cookie jar with the Etisalat attempt.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
'In their current form, certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE.'
This roughly translates to this.
The BlackBerry lets you have the possibility of expressing nonofficial opinions regarding the government/state/religion and our secret police force may not be able to find you and break your fucking shins and toss you in a dungeon until you realize the error of your ways and die.
I read this and thought: "really? security concerns over the BlackBerry network?". Then I figured out that the "security concerns" were that it is too secure for them because they like to reserve the right to eaves drop and lay the smackdown when they feel appropriate.
What are they afraid of, some guy might exchange Blackberry PINs with an unmarried woman?
Wasn't Barrack Obama's right to keep his Blackberry after he became President questioned because the server was hosted in Waterloo Ontario, at Blackberry's headquarters in Canada ? Blackberry's elliptical curve encryption algorithm ( formerly from Certicom) must be pretty tight.
The government has finally gone over the top at the HTC EVO likely being out of stock for the next 99 weeks
Wow, for us who read UAE as Universal Amiga Emulator that headline didn't make sense at all.
Rather than embrace the chaos and dynamism of changing ideas and turn over of ideas needed for technology to advance, they fear people having unfettered communications.
It's really sad.
China seems to have a rather successful economy, and their policy toward RIM is just as strict.
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I wonder if India's response to Blackberry is part of an effort to present itself as a viable alternative to China for some segments of the medium- and high-tech manufacturing sector. Even with it problems, India has always shown a greater commitment to democracy than China ever has.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Just about every Emirati out there has either an iPhone, a Blackberry or both. It's a land of new money run riot, both for the locals and the expats - flaunting what you have, no matter how vulgar the behaviour, is the order of the day and "understated" doesn't appear in the dictionary. RIM's best strategy on this would probably be to refuse to back down and wait for the inevitable shit storm from the Emirati's who are no longer able to send and receive email. Worst case scenario is that they lose a tiny, albeit affluent, market. Big deal.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
There are some Islamic-ruled countries with wrecked economies, but some of them (such as UAE and Saudi Arabia, the ones we're talking about here) are in pretty good shape, and as long as the petroleum holds out, their economies will remain pretty damn successful.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Some other places are reporting this as both saudi and the UAE (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100801/world/ml_emirates_blackberry). Saudi being a somewhat bigger market.
Yea they suck but I see so many from the US on here bashing them when the US is not much better.
The US does all the same shit!
"'In their current form, certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the UAE.'"
"'In their current form, BlackBerry encryption services work correctly and prevent us from fully enforcing an oppressive police state, causing judicial, social and national security concerns for the control freaks in power in the UAE.'"
Newspeak version:
"Blackberry encryption equals thoughtcrime."
I think the poster meant technologically innovative economy.
"... services will be suspended"
This, IMHO, is only hinting at the real problem: Blackberry internet services are provided through a central server (BIS or BES) that acts as a proxy; the handheld device doesn't access the HTTP, POP, or IMAP services directly (at least with the provided apps).
RIM's encryption is pretty darned good, but this "server in the middle" method of operation gives some Security folks headaches because of the possibilities for mischief.
While it is very nice for corporate monitoring and control, the downside is that a government can easily shut down BB services by blocking the server. If the BB was a true Internet client, this would not be the case.
You have the right to remain silent. If you don't, anything you say will be misquoted and used against you.
...how good Blackberry security is if they have countries worried that they won't be able to spy on their citizens and visitors properly without the password ;)
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
China seems to have a rather successful economy, and their policy toward RIM is just as strict.
Hong Kong is just as successful and China had nothing to do with it. Let's see what happens in 99 years.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
A "successful" Muslim economy just means more weapons for the Jihadists they (all to some extent) support. It is my hope they embrace religion over knowledge and progress, because progress is a weapon.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
He said "successful", and he was talking out his ass.
He didn't say how gay AIDS is, just that separating every word with periods is gayer. If you think AIDS isn't gay at all, I'd expect you to agree. Instead you assert his exclamation is factually incorrect, which would mean you think AIDS is gayer than separating words with periods. I personally find them both similarly gay, which is not at all. Would you, to end my confusion, please clarify your individual assessment of their relative gayety?
As long as it protects ME when I travel there. In any case, I am fine with this.
iOS encrypts a few records.
That has not been true since the 3Gs. Current iPhones (and the 3Gs) encrypts the whole storage, which is why you can remote wipe them instantly as opposed to a very like wipe period for the older phone, and also be set to wipe after a few incorrect PIN entries.
I would say a device that communicates directly to corporate servers is in the end inherently more secure than something that must send traffic through a third party. Blackberry still has better local physical security measures but both Android and iOS are catching up.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No, SA is, I think, better compared to Iran: a nation with a relatively affluent population that's under the thumb of oppression, both political and religious.
If you let SA create themselves a government, I very much doubt it would look that much different than you see today in terms of what the west considers oppression- it would just be many smaller groups dong the oppressing. That's why there not much chafing there from the people for any kind of large reform.
Now Iran on the other hand, the people as a whole are generally pretty secular and modern in thought, but they are truly kept down by an oppressive government. You can tell because people in Iran are willing to die or be seriously injured to try and throw the current government out of power. It's just that no-one is willing to help them, so they are basically stuck until they reach a critical mass or leadership weakens.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No it was questioned because of the concern that some people would have a direct line to the president and others won't
I don't see that as a problem, at all.
As long as the full logs of who contacted the president on his blackberry are kept and made public.
I say, let the president use technology to the fullest and let the people he is representing see how he governs.
And that goes for any president.
As an added bonus presidential communications being public gives them just that much more appreciation for privacy concerns.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If only they could have the enviable debt and unemployment levels that the United States enjoys!
Karma fed to this user will be promptly burnt. Be warned; be wary.
How secure is the BlackBerry? So secure, the world's leading police states have forbidden its use within their borders. If you need to keep your communications confidential, only BlackBerry can guarantee it.
Makes you wonder about iPhone, Android, etc.
Stuart Eichert
Saudi is entirely dependent on oil. Once that is gone, the house of Saud will be overthrown by extremists, the average Saudi will be glad to see them go. Just like the average Persian was glad to see the shah go in favour of the Islamic Revolution.
UAE is already in as much trouble as the west. Their debt is greater then that of the US (in terms of debt to GDP, the US still has more in volume) and this does not look to be decreasing. As others have pointed out, showing off is the fashion in UAE, especially in the Emirate of Dubai. Take the Burj Dubai for example, it's the Emir's trying to tell the world that their dick is bigger.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Ummm... You forgot about Malaysia and Indonesia.
Malaysia has a quite successful economy and for SE Asia, the average Malay is well off. Their economy is diversified between skilled manufacturing, mining and petroleum with some agriculture mixed in. Have a Dell Latitude or AMD proc, chances are it was assembled in Malaysia. Some of that petrol you used today, chances are Petronas drilled that out of the ground.
Indonesia has a stable economy, being mostly based around mining and agriculture means that despite this the average Indonesian is not very rich.
But then again, despite being Muslim nations Indonesia and Malaysia are democracies, albeit imperfect ones (show me a perfect one, these nations have no more corruption then the Hindu, Buddhist or Christian governments of SE Asia). The freedoms found in Malaysia are comparable to the west, girls walk around in average clothes (SE Asia in general is quite conservative, this goes for Buddhist Thailand and Christian Phillipines as well) and very rarely do you see "ninja ladies" (the only ones I've seen are in the richer areas of Kuala Lumpur).
Oppressive governments tend to destroy economic prosperity. Religion doesn't factor into it. If not for the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia (Buddhist) would be doing as well as Thailand or Vietnam. If not for the Junta in Myanmar (Buddhist), would the major export from Myanmar still be opium? What of the corrupt and oppressive regime in Columbia (Christian). The economic problems in the ME are not conducive to Islam, they are conducive to bad governments which exist in all religions.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I am a local of UAE. Regardless of whether I agree with this or not, it should be noted in fairness that UAE's Government is asking RIM for access to the underlying data network similar to what RIM has already given the US and the UK Governments.
Kettle, meet pot.
this is another prong in the battle against smart phones, and in particular the battle against the rise of facetime and SME growth. They're moving into position to deliver their final crushing blow geekoids