Slashdot Mirror
Blackberry Gives India Access To Servers
Meshach writes "As happened earlier in Saudi Arabia Blackberry has reached a deal that allows Indian authorities access to the transmissions of hand held devices. Much of the fear comes from worries about terrorists: Pakistani-based militants used mobile and satellite phones in the 2008 attacks that killed 166 people in Mumbai."
How long before every country decides that in order to allow RIM to operate they need to open up their servers?
The better question may be "where has this already happened with a gag order attached to the request?"
This is like banning box cutters on planes because the 9/11 terrorists used them, as if terrorist can't figure out how to enocde their messages in other ways. Terrorism isn't the reasons for this, repression is.
Oh, I get it now ...
If it is Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it is all about censorship ...
But if it is India, it is a move against the terrorists ...
It is all about spin ...
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By overtly giving access to these governments they can scan for US or European business partners (hopefully RIM limits to the local to that country traffic). This allows them an unfair competitive advantage as they can then direct local companies often state owned or controlled to change bids or marketing approaches. Saudi Arabia this might apply to leveraging better prices from suppliers or from gaining a better advantage in the financial sector, and in India it means they can now cherry pick information related to manufacturing deals to gain advantage over the people looking for competitive bids between India and other outsource manufacturing (and outsource software development).
This is not good. Corporations should strongly consider if RIM is a viable solution at this point.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
I know RIM is only providing meta-data on the content, but honestly, are you telling me that this *wont* be used to spy on a corporate competitor?
India is corrupt in a very "Who me?" way. This law has only abuses, in a country where you can buy a SIM for 5 dollars, with a photocopy of just about anybody's id. The terrorists don't need to bother with the BB or anything even remotely expensive - the underworld maybe (The D Company), but not the "kill them all and let God sort them out" category of terrorists.
But it's not like India is the first place to do this. Echelon was used similarly, I guess to spy on foreign firms.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
anyone truly needing encryption will manage their own layered end-to-end solution or have someone competant handle that for them.
the rest of us will be denied our privacy and the government will come off looking like its 'tough on crime'.
oh, and a private corporation gets to keep a huge marketshare and shit on its customers. or maybe its customers' customers.
ie, business as usual.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
I somewhat can understand the concern of law enforcement that a secure mail environement makes their job more difficult. On the other hand, giving access to the RIM infrastructure implies that you are no longer innocent until proven otherwise, but you are now suspect until your innocence is proven. BAD
While Internet Service and PIN2PIN messages seem to be encrypted with the same key for everybody, RIM always claimed that enterprise mail is encrypted with a unique key end to end from the enterprise server to the device and that nobody else has this key, specially not RIM. Enterprise mail solution is crypted with AES 256bit, so if this is true, your corporate mail should still be safe. And if you don't trust this, use S/MIME or PGP or don't use mobile corporate mail at all.
Anyway, this step does not increase the customer trust in the RIM solution, I really hope for a clear statement from RIM on this purpose.
They can always go back to using number stations on the shortwave bands. Just a thought.
How about "Another RIM job for Blackberry Users"?
John
Can you believe the unmitigated nerve of those crappy little backwards countries and their oppressive Big Brother-ish monitoring of their citizens!!? Thank god nothing like this could ever happen in the United States, where we actually give a rat's ass about protecting our privacy from the government!
Oh, wait... Well, shit.
India actually did get hit recently by Muslim terrorists who received intelligence, coordination and orders from neighboring Pakistan over mobile phones for several days as they moved through Mumbai targeting non-Muslims and racking up a body count of 166.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE didn't suffer any recent attacks coordinated and made possible by mobile phone technology, and both have historically been far more willing to curtail free speech than India (which isn't anywhere near US standards for free speech itself).
RIM should have hung tough and refused India's request, but at least India had a legitimate reason to ask. "All about spin" - yeah, darn that annoying reality and how it gets in the way of the narrative you prefer.
I think there's a difference in the encryption levels for emails (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) vs instant messaging (BlackBerry Messenger).
At least, according to the video link provided by AC, way below: http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=157644
So what happens is, RIM provides the decryption codes for instant messaging. The emails, however, cannot be decrypted, since RIM does not have the codes - they're stored locally on BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, which are set up locally within company premises.
Or so the story goes.
and they made my decision on which smartphone to get when my Blackberry Storm kicks the bucket a whole lot easier. One of the reasons I went with them was because of their relative integrity when it comes to my information. If that practice is going out the window then my business just went out the window for them as well, and I'm certain I'm not alone.
Verizon has delegated enough authority to let the UAE write SSL certificates impersonating any site which will get automatically accepted by most browsers, so don't you think it's getting hard to know if your communications are actually secure from eavesdropping?
Part of the problem of secure communications is that there are too many governments who don't want people to have them because people can (and do) plot nefarious things with them.
Pakistan has been the (alleged and many a times proven) source of funding for most terrorist attacks. Blackberry has been the alleged/potential medium for communication for terrorists that can not be traced. I see nothing draconian about Indian government requesting Blackberry asking for tracking their data, specially when ever other telecom provider does.
Btw. even today there is a news headline about how Indian police cracked a murder victim by tracking his cellphone calls:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Infosys-manager-confesses-to-killing-wife-held/articleshow/6308212.cms
May be Indian police men are not able to track such communications in Blackberries.
with al the effort by government to get access to the comm transmissions on Blackberry's, that SEEMS TO INDICATE that they already have access on other mainstream networks and brands.
this is really worrying.
g
Or they could have realized that access to a market with over fifteen percent of the world's population would let them rake in more cash than the additional sales from demonstrating security. Most people with Blackberries want a smartphone, not Fort Knox.
The difference between US and India is that with Indian authorities this was released to the press. US instead puts a gag order and then probably gets everything they want.
NSA probably has a back room in blackberry - or has the encryption codes itself.. !
"Despite what we are hearing, and considering the public track record of this administration, I simply do not believe their claims that the NSA's spying program is really limited to foreign communications or is otherwise consistent with the NSA's charter or with FISA," Klein's wrote. "And unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals' phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens."
One of the documents is titled "Study Group 3, LGX/Splitter Wiring, San Francisco," and is dated 2002. The others are allegedly a design document instructing technicians how to wire up the taps, and a document that describes the equipment installed in the secret room.
Read More http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/04/70619#ixzz0wavMN6aB"
I know a number of people with corporate-issued Blackberrys. One of the featuures that made these attractive to corporate customers was that RIM set them up with their own server infrastructure. This placed encryption and data security in the hands of their IT departments. While the networks over which data traffic travels might be intercepted by foreign officials, those messages remain encrypted until they arrive at the company servers. RIM is out of the loop.
How do these governments deal with such networks?
Have gnu, will travel.