BlackBerry Battle In India Going Down To the Wire

crimeandpunishment writes "With just days before the deadline, BlackBerry's maker was shot down by India in its latest effort to avoid having its services cut off for about a million Indian users of the device. Research in Motion's effort to broaden the debate over data encryption were rejected. The Indian government wants access to users' emails. The head of a powerful industry group in India accused RIM of taking the wrong approach to negotiations, saying, 'It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'"

Comments

question:

[larry bagina]

what the fuck is their fucking problem?

Re:question:

[Anonymous Coward]

agreed.

"It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here."

RIM's response:

"We need not provide service to users in your country, because it would require us HANDING OVER SECURE DATA so kiss our ass."

Re:question:

[mrops]

"Business here is done differently".

they didn't bribe and/or bribe the right person.

It doesn't even have to be money, a few hot chicks from Montreal would have done the job. Even take pictures to blackmail pricks causing a problem.

RIM Don't cave in

[ubergeek65536]

I hope they stand their ground.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[TheGratefulNet]

like they 'didnt' for the saudis?

RIM is on my do-not-purchase list.

there is no ethical reason to give away your REAL customer's security.

the government is not your customer even though you sell a lot to them.

PEOPLE (who deserve privacy) are your customers.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[causality]

I hope they stand their ground.

No joke. From the summary:

'It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'

Sure. And if someone installed live cameras that monitor your bedroom and your bathroom 24/7, well that would just be "different" from the privacy you now enjoy.

It's like Aesop said: "any excuse will serve a tyrant."

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[MachDelta]

A gov't ban pretty much ensures they will have no customers to protect. Their choices are "give it up", or "GTFO."

Also, why bother boycotting them? Are you saying they never should have tried to cover their customers asses in the first place, and should have stuck with their competitions decision of not bothering with encryption? I say RIM deserves points for trying.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[causality]

like they 'didnt' for the saudis?

RIM is on my do-not-purchase list.

there is no ethical reason to give away your REAL customer's security.

the government is not your customer even though you sell a lot to them.

PEOPLE (who deserve privacy) are your customers.

If RIM caves, the correct response to this is to divest yourself of any stocks or funds that involve this company. If they cave, it will be because money is more important to them than the refusal to support institutionalized domestic spying, same story as always. If they cave, they would do it to preserve a profitable market. If the response to that causes their stock to be devalued and the company to have a very hard time retaining any capital, it would send the message that if you really care about profit, this is the wrong action to take.

So, like with so many things, it's up to us. It's a matter of what we will and won't tolerate, what we will and won't support and go along with. Any single-mindedness regarding profit can also be used to discourage companies from following this example. In that sense it is both the problem and a solution. Which it will be is ultimately up to us, up to We the People. If we don't care enough to back that up with action, neither should RIM.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[BitZtream]

While I agree with you in principle, as the Indian government said, they do things differently there.

One of my other principles is to let others live their lives the way they want to. If India wants to revolt against its government to change the rules, I'll support them. However, if they aren't willing to change their governments rules or if they want the rules that way for some reason, then thats their problem not mine.

Who are you to impose you particular view of how the world should work on others? What if they are happy with their situation, even though you and I think its a raw deal?

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had big dick like hindus I would not care if they watch my bathroom at all.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[cdrguru]

Like nearly all corporations today, 99% of the stock is in either the current board of directors or institutional hands. What little is out there in private hands is meaningless. Not sure when this trend started, but every IPO I have ever heard of is all about selling to institutional investors such as pension and mutual funds.

If you are using a Blackberry without a corporate email connection, by all means drop it. However, be aware that the only customers RIM cares a hoot about are the corporate clients that simply mandate what their employees will be using and pass out the phones by the hundreds.

For example, I know the FBI is 100% Blackberry. Every agent, office worker, whatever, down to the level of janitorial supervisors. How many phones do you think that is? 10,000? 20,000? Virtually the entire Fortune 500 are going to be 100% Blackberry so you can multiply that by 500 and start to get an idea of who exactly RIM cares about. Yes, that is at least 10 million phones. The individual users are a rounding error.

Now, when upper management goes to India for a business meeting with the folks they outsourced the entire IT department to and they are told by the corporate security folks they have to leave their phones at home that might actually cause a stir. Now this would be blatently untrue - that isn't the sort of connection that the Indian government could monitor, but it would be a great scare tactic. After a couple of people hear "the Indian government is listening in" it might not take much to switch the entire company to Blackjack phones or something else like that. Now that RIM would notice.

The only people this would affect are those with email accounts accessed through their phone carrier. RIM is fully in control of the encryption there. Corporate systems using their own Blackberry server can't be affected because RIM isn't in control of the encryption at all.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[PsychoSlashDot]

RIM's in a no-win situation here.

If they abide by the laws of the land and provide the government of India access to Indian citizens' communications they're removing privacy from those citizens. Thing is that according to the Indian government their citizens aren't evidently entitled to that privacy. So RIM can "cave in" and abide by the Indian officials' demands but at the cost of a moral high-ground. Citizens lose, government wins, RIM maintains status quo.

If they refuse to "cave in", they get shut down and those very same citizens have to buy new phones from wonderful vendors like Apple and the government will tap those communications. Citizens lose, government wins, RIM loses customers.

So really, what should they do?

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[TheGratefulNet]

what should they do?

well, what kind of people are they that run that company? do they care about fellow man? a little or a lot? do they claim to have any moral code that guides their everyday ethical behavior?

or are they like all the other companies that are in it 'for this quarter and next' ?

I pretty much know this answer, as I've been alive long enough to know how things work.

but it sure would be nice to have a company (in this powerful position) say "sorry, but the keys do not belong to you and quite frankly, you don't deserve to listen in on ANYONE's conversation"

and yes, I fully mean that absolutely. even 'bad guys' should have the same right to communicate. afterall, some 200 years ago, americans were 'the bad guys' according to england.

quite a double standard to say that we were 'right' to fight our oppressing country for freedom but that no one else (in the modern world) can have the same.

wiretapping is ALWAYS wrong. ALWAYS. just like air and water are human rights, so is the right to communicate.

do not ever think its 'ok' for a country to listen in. bad bad bad idea, in all cases. first they say its ok to listen in on 'only bad guys' but then the definition slowly enlarges until everyone meets that condition.

I dream of a world with no spying. AT ALL.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[dgatwood]

Except that unless you limit it to Indian MobileMe users, no matter how you threaten them, Apple cannot feasibly provide the same service to the Indian government. The only reason RIM can is that all the email data going to your phone is stored by RIM's servers. In effect, RIM is acting as an ISP operating in India. All a user has to do is NOT use an Indian ISP and NOT use any other ISP that has agreed to their demands and that user will have encryption without government eavesdropping. It's such a low technical hurdle that the Indian government must be a bunch of complete idiots if they honestly think that terrorists or other bad people won't be capable of figuring it out....

Thus, in effect, RIM's choices are really:

• Cave in, get sued by many of their business customers, and lose many more of their customers to ISPs with mail servers in other countries, then kick back and watch as people slowly dump their hardware for iPhones and Droids once they are no longer tied down to Blackberry's mail service. The government will then go after other companies like Google for the same concessions, but will either fail miserably or will drive users to less centralized services and then fail miserably. The end result is Epic FAIL for India's attempt to eavesdrop, but RIM loses big time.
• Stop being an ISP in India, make small businesses support their own email without using RIM's servers (bigger ones already do, AFAIK), and provide non-business users with the means to migrate to another mail service like Gmail. Then the government has to go after tens of thousands of ISPs individually. Kick back and watch as non-business users slowly dump their hardware for iPhones and Droids once they are no longer tied down to Blackberry's mail service. Again, Epic FAIL for India's attempt to eavesdrop, and again RIM loses pretty badly, but not quite as badly.
• Draw a line in the sand and refuse to cooperate. Then, MAYBE India will shut them down, but their highly wealthy customers will throw a massive fit and the government will back down.

I know which one I'd choose if I were in RIM's position. Standing up means risking a complete loss immediately with at least some possibility of continuing to do business ethically, whereas backing down is almost a guarantee of a nearly complete loss (at least of your business customers), but spread over a longer period. Thus, RIM really has little to lose by betting it all and telling India's government to get bent. Either way, caving in clearly isn't a viable option---not for RIM and not for the rest of the companies on the Internet. RIM made their bed through a fundamentally flawed mail delivery architecture. Now they have to lie in it.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Lord Ender]

Pretty much every telecom company obeys the local laws. Your advice is to divest from every telecom company? What does that accomplish?

People, S/MIME exists for a reason. India can't break it. RIM can't break it. The NSA can't break it. Get a free S/MIME cert and enjoy your privacy on ANY network.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[thePig]

I am not sure whether /. users appreciate the whole situation in India.
Terrorists using blackberry is an actual problem here. Also, the threat of terrorists here is a real one - unlike in most other countries - with many countries actually pouring money in to push terrorism to India.

Before the current home minister came in with somewhat tight security and controls, we used to have a lot of terrorist attacks in India. The current homeminister radically decreased the number of incidents by overall increasing the security - while not too much impinging on the privacy till now.

Most of the security was through surveillance, which was being hamstrung by the enemy using blackberry for communication. So by creating this hullaballoo and then RIM publicly accepting it, terrorist will stop using blackberry for communication, thus increasing the effectiveness of surveillance.

I do accept the view point of - those who gives up privacy for security deserves neither.
But terrorism is such a big actual problem here - with more than 800 sleeper cells currently, people are going to accept this - otherwise there is going to be daily bombings and deaths.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[causality]

One of my other principles is to let others live their lives the way they want to. If India wants to revolt against its government to change the rules, I'll support them. However, if they aren't willing to change their governments rules or if they want the rules that way for some reason, then thats their problem not mine.

This is not an equal situation. It's "asymmetric" to use the scrubbed "lite" term. The difference is that the government is authorized to use force to achieve its goals, like all governments. The people who use force to resist it (the only way to launch a revolt) are, by definition, criminals. This is the problem of the people of India, to be sure. My comment was intended to apply only to the extent to which corporations based in North America interact with the Indian government.

If you *really* support the right of all human beings to live their lives the way they wish (so long as they do not seek to impose their way of life on others by force or by fraud, I would add) then you would naturally oppose any government that stands in their way. In this case, that's the Indian government. Your position of complete and total indifference is untenable if you wish to remain consistent with your stated principles.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[tanveer1979]

Hmm, so you are basically saying, before blackberry came, there was no terrorism in India? Or blocking blackberry will somehow close all aveues of encryption(ssh etc.,?)
Its due to idiots like you that we hardly have any privacy left in India, and the corrupt govt officials snoop on anybody at will.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[causality]

I am not sure whether /. users appreciate the whole situation in India. Terrorists using blackberry is an actual problem here. Also, the threat of terrorists here is a real one - unlike in most other countries - with many countries actually pouring money in to push terrorism to India.

Before the current home minister came in with somewhat tight security and controls, we used to have a lot of terrorist attacks in India. The current homeminister radically decreased the number of incidents by overall increasing the security - while not too much impinging on the privacy till now.

Most of the security was through surveillance, which was being hamstrung by the enemy using blackberry for communication. So by creating this hullaballoo and then RIM publicly accepting it, terrorist will stop using blackberry for communication, thus increasing the effectiveness of surveillance.

I do accept the view point of - those who gives up privacy for security deserves neither. But terrorism is such a big actual problem here - with more than 800 sleeper cells currently, people are going to accept this - otherwise there is going to be daily bombings and deaths.

In my view of viewing things terrorism is merely a symptom of far deeper underlying problems with government and society and with international affairs. In the face of that, secure e-mail is barely a footnote. If a government can completely and totally monitor all communications by all people within its borders, it has succeeded only in addressing a means to an end. It has not and likely will not address why so many people want to become terrorists in the first place, what motivates them, why they do what they do, and how to actually prevent this phenomenon by addressing its root causes.

Nobody ever wants to really look at root causes. They're too busy making sure a good crisis "doesn't go to waste" as an Obama staffer put it (don't think for a moment that this idea is limited to USA politics). They just want to exert as much control as possible over the means to an end. They want to make terrorism as difficult as possible by those who wish to carry it out because that means more police power for them. No one seems to want to make fewer people consider becoming terrorists in the first place. Addressing the type of political and social unrest that makes once-harmless people consider such drastic measures might mean taking a hard look at foreign and domestic policy with a willingness to drastically alter the status quo towards a pro-freedom position, and no one in power really wants to do that. It would reduce their power.

I'm not saying that terrorists are something other than scum. They are. I'm saying that you are dealing with nations that, based on their actions, have the attitude of "well if we're going to have terrorism anyway, things like the USA's Patriot Act that we could have never passed without active attacks sure do sweeten the deal". That's part of the problem. Anyone who gets what they want due to terrorism, directly or indirectly, is part of the problem of terrorism. Unfortunately that includes many state actors.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[russotto]

"Business is done differently here" is a code phrase. Usually a code phrase for graft, though.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

If RIM caves, the correct response to this is to divest yourself of any stocks or funds that involve this company. If they cave, it will be because money is more important to them than the refusal to support institutionalized domestic spying, same story as always.

History seems to show that this is a sure indication that it's time to buy RIM stock ;)

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[mrops]

As far as I know, even the Saudi's have access to encrypted data only. Nonetheless, they will now have a way to map social network, e.g. terrorist suspect xyz sends a lots of messages to pqr. This may be enough for them. With no human rights as well as acceptance of torture (I lived there for a while so not making this up) they can pick both xyz and pqr in the middle of the night and drive bamboo's up orifices to get what they want.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Skapare]

That's one way to do it. It's not the only way. Expect terrorists to be running their own encrypted servers somewhere soon, if not already.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Prune]

Please mod parent down: as of 2009, 80% of blackberry customers are non-corporate consumers: http://www.twice.com/article/295368-RIM_Majority_Of_BlackBerry_Users_Now_Consumers_Small_Businesses.php

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

You say "we the people". Presumably you're referring to Americans. Why don't you open your eyes and mind to the fact that India IS NOT America! What a concept. That a society other than yours/ours may have different norms, different priorities, different attitudes. Has that ever occurred to you - that maybe not everyone is the same as you? That some people may think differently than you? Obviously not. You're a prime example of the Ugly American - an imperialistic pig that wants to impose his values on another. And I say this as an American. But I have also lived for three plus years in India. And here's a news flash for you: They are not the same as we are. When you live in a country that has been attacked as many times as India, with two nuclear powers as your next-door neighbors, you might think differently about some things. So do the world a favor and STFU about your limited beliefs and attitudes. Or, open your mind and eyes and start to realize that not everyone has the same views as some Americans do. Maybe then our standing in the world might improve.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

A gov't ban pretty much ensures they will have no customers to protect.

No customers in Saudi Arabia or UAE - fixed that for you.

But lots of customers in civilized countries...

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

For example, I know the FBI is 100% Blackberry. Every agent, office worker, whatever, down to the level of janitorial supervisors. How many phones do you think that is? 10,000? 20,000? Virtually the entire Fortune 500 are going to be 100% Blackberry so you can multiply that by 500 and start to get an idea of who exactly RIM cares about. Yes, that is at least 10 million phones. The individual users are a rounding error.

Lies. In fact, over 80% of blackberry sales have been going to individual consumers for quite some time now.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have never managed a BlackBerry Enterprise Server before. BlackBerry email routes through RIM's networks whether it's a personal BlackBerry or a corporate BlackBerry.

Do you recall a couple of years back when there were multiple outages of corporate BlackBerry systems and it impacted pretty much everyone? This was because RIM's network went down and stopped processing email. All BlackBerry email routes from the handheld device, through RIM's network, and then to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server hosted by the corporation. It does not work in the way ActiveSync, IMAP, or POP3 work which are all point to point connections (POP3 is inherently insecure).

BlackBerry HAS to fight this as it may affect their business outside of India as well. India isn't picking on the Exchange servers running ActiveSync as they'd have to gain access into each and every corporation to read their email. With BlackBerry, all they have to do is scan it at a RIM hub.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[BangaIorean]

MOD Parent up

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[falconwolf]

Who are you to impose you particular view of how the world should work on others?

Ah but they can impose their views on you, me, and everyone else? Because that is what it happen if RIM caves in. I don't think RIM will be able to keep my communications secret while allowing someone's communications in India to be monitored and read. I don't have any smartphone but if I had a Blackberry I'd switch to an Android, install encryption software and use webmail. I may even use anonymous proxies or TOR to access the email.

Falcon

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[falconwolf]

terrorism is such a big actual problem here

Is terrorism the problem or is the problem cowardice?

Falcon

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[cyberjessy]

I couldn't agree more.

To our left is Pakistan and Afganisthan (two of the most dangerous countries in the world).
And another on the north, which has a firewall on their entire population and doesn't even have a free press.

These guys are right next door, not a couple of oceans and a continent away.

Also, freedom of speech, dissent and media is reasonably well protected here.
It is difficult for the government to come up with any Orwellian scheme.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone needs to calm down it's a fucking cell phone. Don't want you privacy invaded? Don't do things you need to hide. If you don't have anything to hide, don't bitch because everyone else is doing so, too.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD parent up. And you forgot Bangladesh btw.

The way some Americans try to bring in an equivalence between India and its neighbours is nauseating. They really ought to educate themselves about other countries and cultures.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[gd2shoe]

In my view of viewing things terrorism is merely a symptom of far deeper underlying problems with government and society and with international affairs.

That much is true. The underlying problem may or may not exist in the country that is being targeted. It may have once existed, and later generations are feeling the echos. It almost certainly exists in some form in the nation producing terrorists.

(I don't know about terrorism in India, specifically. I suspect it ultimately stems from the separation from Pakistan in the '40s.)

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[vux984]

RIM is on my do-not-purchase list. Sorry, why? Which other provider offers end-to-end encryption a la Blackberry enterprise server? Does Android do a better job? Nope. Windows Mobile? Nope. Apple? LMAO. So basically you are boycotting RIM to support companies who never offered the level of security RIM -still- offers everywhere it can?

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a terrorist organisation worth your salt, getting alternate encryption on either a BlackBerry or any other phone is completely doable. This is not how you can catch your baddies.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, freedom of speech, dissent and media is reasonably well protected here.
It is difficult for the government to come up with any Orwellian scheme.

I wonder why then the Indian media seems to toe the government line on this issue?.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[illumin8]

I am not sure whether /. users appreciate the whole situation in India.
Terrorists using blackberry is an actual problem here.

I'm not sure whether /. users appreciate the whole situation in India. Terrorists using human language is an actual problem here. Therefore, we must now eavesdrop on all conversations. Furthermore, whispering is now forbidden, as you might be quiet enough that our microphones can't hear you. Speak loudly and clearly citizen - move along, nothing to see hear.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure whether /. users appreciate the whole situation in India.

Sorry, but that sounds like typical baseless rhethoric to me. A certain US president was also known for quips like "if you're not with us, you're against us" or "if you disagree, you haven't understood".

Terrorists using blackberry is an actual problem here

Is it? You are citing exactly one link. And quoting from that link: "The availability of news updates and live TV streams from Indian and foreign media is thought to have given the hostage takers an advantage" -- So remind me again: is RIM being targeted for offering a Mobile Internet Device?

Also, the threat of terrorists here is a real one

We haven't begun to dispute the (perceived) threat yet...

- unlike in most other countries -

...careful there...

with many countries actually pouring money in to push terrorism to India.

So... what's being done about that?

Before the current home minister came in with somewhat tight security and controls, we used to have a lot of terrorist attacks in India. The current homeminister radically decreased the number of incidents by overall increasing the security - while not too much impinging on the privacy till now.

Good on him. The rest of the world would do well to follow his example.

Most of the security was through surveillance, which was being hamstrung by the enemy using blackberry for communication.

Communication? Can you provide a source for that? Because so far, you haven't.

So by creating this hullaballoo and then RIM publicly accepting it, terrorist will stop using blackberry for communication, thus increasing the effectiveness of surveillance.

Not really. They will simply move to using less public means of communication. How about satellite communication, pgp, or simply radio piracy?

I do accept the view point of - those who gives up privacy for security deserves neither.

Ah yes. In this case, there is also the "those who give up their trade secrets to an emerging industry will find themselves irrelevant soon enough". There's also the case of protecting their international customers. Will India have access to all data belonging to every device that just happens to be passing through India? Will they have access to India-citizens only? What data will they be able to access?

But terrorism is such a big actual problem here - with more than 800 sleeper cells currently, people are going to accept this - otherwise there is going to be daily bombings and deaths.

You see, the problem with statements like these is, they are exactly what made the mafia so big: "nice demographic you have there. Would be a shame if something happened to it". It doesn't make the demands any more sound.

Can you provide any sources where RIM refused to cooperate with an official judicial investigation? Because for as far as I can see, the demands are about counterintelligence. Almost by definition, that means no checks and balances, no transparency and no judicial oversight. Without knowing any details about it, I would not dare to use a BlackBerry in Europe any more.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

Its isn't just Saudis

Its Russian , Chinese and Americans.

When it can make deals, what is moral high ground that RIM can take to not make deals with other countries?

When NSA can read almost all electronic communication in the world including Americans, what moral high ground are Americans talking about? Privacy.. yea right

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[pla]

PEOPLE (who deserve privacy) are your customers.

I would take that statement not as a fact, but rather, as a condition.

The medium does not equal the message. Okay, so the Indian government (just like the Sauds recently, and just like the US government since always) wants access to the medium. Good for the government, they get what they want, RIM gets access to a market that dwarfs the US, and the (few) the people who really do "deserve" privacy will use GPG or similar, and have privacy - The rest never cared in the first place, and "deserve" whatever they get. .

Yes, in an ideal world, RIM would have told every government (including the US) to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. In this world, RIM has a (legal) obligation to to choose the course of action most likely to maximize shareholder value - And since the number of people who sincerely care about privacy don't even appear as a blip on their radar, they have chosen, and will continue to choose, to roll over in order to gain access to new markets.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

Your statements about "corrupt govt officials snoop on anybody at will" is incredibly incorrect. I am very familiar with the process involved for an Indian govt. agency to snoop on a potential terrorist and it involves a lot of checks and balances to ensure that it is never abused at any level. Each and every such interception must go through several levels of clearance and therefore cannot be abused without someone noticing it or at the least leaving a paper trail to the person who authorized it.

In-regards to "before blackberry came, was there no terrorism in India?" Today, terrorists use Blackberry devices and therefore the Govt. wants to try and avail technology that will let them monitor and intercept these people. If they switch to SSH or something else tomorrow, they will work on MITM attacks and others solutions as and when.

In a country like India where we are constantly living in threat, surrounded by rogue nations that are constantly supporting and even encouraging terrorism; We need to give a decent amount of freedom (with appropriate checks and balances) to intelligence agencies. Either that or we need to accept that a bunch of us won't come back home alive today.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

Because large sections of the media agree with the Government line on this issue, you dumbass. As do several middle class Indians. Why the fuck is it necessary for the media to always be against any Government move, you moron? And for your fuckin' information, certain sections of the media are against this communication monitoring business.

And asshole, have you watched the way the Indian media takes the pants off the politicians every day? How they expose corrpution in stuff like the commonwealth games? How they give negative publicity to the ruling party politicians and the opposition with equal fervour? 'Toeing the government line'? The INDIAN MEDIA? You can suck it.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure whether /. users appreciate the whole situation in India. Terrorists using blackberry is an actual problem here. Also, the threat of terrorists here is a real one - unlike in most other countries - with many countries actually pouring money in to push terrorism to India.

I'm not sure you understand the technology here. Encryption is a concept. The blackberry is a device. Encrypted messages can be used on any device even if not supported. Any computer can encrypt a message and store it into an alpha numeric string to be sent over regular email. Governments banning privacy because terrorists use privacy are attacking the wrong issue.

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

India has been dealing with cross border terrorism since independence; people have died every single day for the past 63 years in these terror strikes, a reality that the US now faces in Afghanistan. However, considering that all it took was for one terrorist strike in the USA to enact the Patriot Act, and invade countries in the name of terror, I think the Indian government has done reasonably well in maintaining a balance between citizens' freedoms and their fight against terror.

Not that the Indian government has not tried to implement its own set of anti-terror laws; just that, even those did not subject every single person going in and out of the country on a plane to virtual strip searches, or authorize the government to perform unchecked surveillance of its own citizens without a warrant. And I am still to read of a case where someone has been found guilty of 'wiretapping' for simply videotaping a police officer in public (please note that I bring this up because 'the system' also includes the judiciary, and believe me, the Indian judiciary has done a remarkable job of upholding citizens' rights)

Like every other system, the Indian system too has its faults; i am more than ready to admit, that it has often failed to protect its own during some of the communal clashes, but In my opinion, their handling of the terror situation has been much more 'people friendly' than that of the US

Re:RIM Don't cave in

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you misunderstand how BlackBerry works. They're usually acting as an encrypted tunnel between your corporate servers and your BlackBerry device, so RIM, in the middle, can't read your email, end of story. They're not acting like an ISP with access to your IMAP mailstore or anything. They do as little storage as possible, and even then, they can't read what they've stored.

RIM needs to make a decision

[SteelRat]

Do they want to secure customer data, or provide a documented mechanism for institutional wiretaps.

They should pick one and stick with it.

Re:RIM needs to make a decision

[stephanruby]

No, they just want their emails/texts to stop being routed through the NSA's white-anglo Echelon program, they're just too afraid to say it openly. In 2007, France wasn't that shy about their complaints against RIM, the French government asserted that the US/UK/Canadian/Australian spying coalition was obtaining French corporate trade secrets that it could only have gotten through the RIM network (and considering the interesting anecdotes of the French leaking false information everywhere like the false plans of their planes and helicopters to everybody and their mother, it's not that far fetched to assume that (1) their claims against RIM are also completely made up (may be that's what they do, they're compulsive liars?) and they're trying to damage an Anglo-Canadian company or (2) that they identified the RIM leak by leaking easily identifiable false information through there as well and that's why they believe that the leak came from there.

So considering those two equally possible scenarios, and the fact that the European Union has also taken the prudent approach of also believing France's claims, it may also be prudent for other countries (that the US is also interested in) to also turn off all the traffic that gets unnecessarily routed through RIM's own proprietary servers on UK/US/Canadian/Australian soil (after all, phones like Nokia and Android can also do very strong end-to-end encryption, but it's not like those platforms force their traffic to go through any hub in particular). On those platforms, you're not forced to use gmail's/sms servers if you don't want to, and you're not forced to use Ovi/Nokia's mail/sms servers if you don't want to. And the same goes with the iPhone, the instant an SMS/email leaves your iPhone it's not absolutely necessary that it gets routed through Apple's own proprietary servers (just like for every email that leaves your Windows-powered computer, it's not absolutely necessary that all those emails go through Microsoft's proprietary servers either).

Am I missing something here?

[TejWC]

Ok, the Indian government can tell Blackberry to give up its keys for a particular encryption layer, but what is to stop people from using RSA 512-bit encryption with their e-mails? Wouldn't this force terrorists to pay attention to what encryption methods they are using?

Re:Am I missing something here?

[MightyMartian]

Look pal, are you some kind of terrorist? Decent law abiding non-terrorist people don't use encryption. In fact, they send the contents of their inboxes to the authorities to make sure that they aren't inadvertently planning terrorist acts. Only evil bastards want encryption. Foul wicked scum who should be, and will be I promise you, taken out and shot, but not before torture... oh blessed torture... we'll attach battery cables to their testicles and drop vinegar in their eyeballs... oh yes... and as we strip them and kick them and dump water on them... oooh aahhhhhh

Things are done differently here... I tell you... ooooh sooooo diffferently....

Re:Am I missing something here?

[bsDaemon]

The criminals and terrorists are probably already doing that. The corporate businessman might be. The casual user most likely just assumes RIM is taking care of it and doesn't worry, and its them that's going to get shafted by number 2, allegedly in the course of fighting number 1.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

Enough already with the scaredy tactics and mentioning of terrorists.

Seriously, what happened with people's right to privacy?

I'm sick and tired of this fear culture impinging on what I can and cannot do.

And yes, I've lived through the IRA bombings in the iron mile in central London, so I am aware totally of "idiots" out there.

I couldn't give a crap if they have encryption. Boo hoo if it makes the police's job difficult.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, yes you're missing something. The standard method of sending encrypted email such as tools like PGP or OpenPGP, GPG, etc, can encrypt the BODY of the email, but not the SUBJECT or WHO the email is being SENT TO. /Who/ you are emailing is at least as interesting as /what/ the content of the email is.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[0123456]

what is to stop people from using RSA 512-bit encryption with their e-mails?

I suspect the government would be quite happy to see people using 512-bit RSA because it's easy to crack... possibly even trivial with modern hardware.

4096-bit RSA, on the other hand, will still be secure for quite some time.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[rxan]

This is so true. In fact the BlackBerry already provides a breadth of cryptography APIs. Making an app that allows secure communication, even on an insecure network, is effortless.

Re:Am I missing something here?

[mehrotra.akash]

Here, if anything is encrypted with >40bits of encryption, the key has to be deposited with the govt.
Not sure how much it is enforced though..

Re:Am I missing something here?

[illumin8]

Ok, the Indian government can tell Blackberry to give up its keys for a particular encryption layer, but what is to stop people from using RSA 512-bit encryption with their e-mails? Wouldn't this force terrorists to pay attention to what encryption methods they are using?

The problem is that the entire Blackberry infrastructure is built around them never having your decryption keys. The keys are generated by the customers, and stored on their own Blackberry Enterprise Servers and mobile devices. So, even if they wanted to eavesdrop on their customers communication, the only way that would be possible would be to release new versions of the BES with built-in back doors. If that was the case, I think customers would just switch to Microsoft ActiveSync, which uses SSL and is secure.

I can't help but think that all of these lawmakers don't understand how public/private key encryption works. They must think it works similar to the old wiretaps where you just connect two wires onto their line and listen in. Is there no way to explain encryption to these lawmakers in a way that they can understand? Maybe we need to resurrect zombie Ted Stevens to break out his "series of tubes" conversations...

Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[sethstorm]

"With just days before the deadline, BlackBerry's maker was shot down by India in its latest effort to avoid having its services cut off for about a million Indian users of the device. Research in Motion's effort to broaden the debate over data encryption were rejected. The Indian government wants access to users' emails.

Keep their hands off the emails.

The head of a powerful industry group in India accused RIM of taking the wrong approach to negotiations, saying, 'It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'

So if they had to do something that was a crime that would be punished in Canada to be compliant with India, it's excusable?

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[mjwalshe]

"business is done differently here."

sounds like a shakedown for a bribe to me

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

So if they had to do something that was a crime that would be punished in Canada to be compliant with India, it's excusable?
--

absolutely, if it isn't a crime in the jurisdiction they'd be doing it, what is the fucking problem? societies differ, laws differ.

or is the ridiculous Pendostan idea that US law rules everywhere is now pan-American?

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. Business really _is_ done differently in India, especially with the Government. They ought to have agreed in principle and then taken matters forward. Instead they decided to begin with a disagreement and then things quickly started looking bad for them.

Bribes would have helped, but they would have helped in any country, not just India.

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[PopeRatzo]

So if they had to do something that was a crime that would be punished in Canada to be compliant with India, it's excusable?

I don't think for a minute that RIM wouldn't rather give it's customer data to any government that asks for it. Their only problem with it is one of public relations. RIM would prefer to be able to do whatever they want with their customers' data, including sell it to the highest bidder. They're just afraid that the people that give them money for their phones wouldn't like it.

It's a big mistake to try to paint any of these corporations as being anything but willing participants in any violation of personal privacy. If you were to ask a RIM lawyer, they'd probably say that they own any data that they carry. Sometime in the next five years, we're going to see this argument made by telecoms, too. Of course, they don't actually plan to use that data, until they do.

I would say the same thing applies to Apple and its iTunes and Google and maybe even Skype. Of course it's ridiculous, of course it's outrageous, but we live in an age where corporations are making more and more outrageous demands and getting away with it. They know the game is up and they're in charge. Governments are just speed bumps to the transnational corporations. Just look at how well BP is honoring its commitment to the Americans that it made after it took a shit in the Gulf of Mexico. We are going to live through an age of amazing changes to our concept of privacy and personal integrity and freedom, and it governments will only be acting as the agents of the transnational corporations. You only have to look at the way a handful of financial institutions have raided the treasuries of the US and EU countries. Call them "bailouts" if you want, but it was basically these bank holding companies saying, very nicely, "give us all of the money or else".

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[PopeRatzo]

"business is done differently here."

In other words, "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown".

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

until you get into the shoes of a company that sells equipment designed for deep packet inspection to a country that uses it to oppress it's people, then get sued by your own country for selling something that's perfectly legal in the country you sold it in.

unfortunately, you have to respect EVERYONE these days. or somebody will get a treaty signed that makes what you did illegal, and try to sue you for it anyways.

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also hookers and dancing girls. Which if my knowledge of Bollywood is correct are the same thing.

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

ololololo, fascinating, but not really. in fact, "business" even isn't done that much differently in the india.

just as in the us, or canada, the decision whom to sue (or prevent from exporting, etc.) has NOTHING at all to do with oppression of people, it has only to do with immediate political expediency plus what the other party can do to you in return.

if you keep yourself well-connected and informed on the political expediencies of your home regime, you can pretend to satisfy customers, give the government what it wants, and prosper.

i assume you're insinuating about the US cases against Iran (which are not by the government btw), but look ma, the Echelon countries, the Wahhabi Arabia, the Chinar and the ex-USSR (among many others) are doing the same thing wrt their populations, with gear from all the same Western companies.

anyone getting sued about it? nope, because sales are big, relations are good, and, in general, no one wants to rock the boat, or limit options on oppression.

the occasional outburst of condemnation against the designated enemy of the day (always a weak and isolated nation) happens just to placate you, the conscientious slashdotter, a bit.

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. But I infer you actually understood what he said. I didn't:
"So if they had to do something that was a crime that would be punished in Canada to be compliant with India, it's excusable?"

Who is "they"? Do it where? Punished by who? Compliant with who in India? Excusable by whom?

Really, that sentence was about as empty of content as it could be. Probably moonlighting as a fortune teller.

Re:Sounds like RIM is better than the governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bingo. You're right. Good job on the first correct answer

I'm going to make a wild prediction

[straponego]

RIM will capitulate, like they have everywhere else.

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they would serve their customers better by simply closing up shop.

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[straponego]

Yes, because the only alternative to instantly obeying any desire of any government is suicide.

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[causality]

Yes, because the only alternative to instantly obeying any desire of any government is suicide.

The desired outcome is that countries like India have a choice:

1) Fail to respect the rights and the privacy of your citizens
-- or --
2) Benefit from trading with first-world nations that are more prosperous and more technologically advanced

This is perfectly acceptable unless you are prepared to argue that a principled company should be forced to do business with foreign nations against its will.

Besides, India is not RIM's only market. No longer doing business in India would mean less profit. It would not mean no profit. It is not a "corporate suicide" scenario. It's more like a scenario of "which is more important to us: our integrity, or a few more points added to our stock price?"

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[causality]

Not crazy about replying to myself, but I wanted to add something.

What I'd like to see would not be bullying of India in any way. It's simply a mutual agreement or a lack thereof.

RIM could say "as a soverign nation, you don't *have to* respect the privacy of your citizens, just like we don't *have to* do business with you. You could always develop your own domestic industry that operates in a way you find more tasteful and we won't lift a finger to try to stop you."

It would not be bullying because it does not involve the use of force or fraud.

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[Lobachevsky]

I'm sure the argument works both ways.

1) Fail to respect the laws and regulations of a democratic country
-- or --
2) Benefit from trading with the 2nd largest mobile market in the world (635 million cell phones in India - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_in_India)

Besides, RIM is not India's only cell phone provider. No longer doing business with RIM would mean fewer choices. It would not mean no choice. It is not a "economic suicide" scenario. It's more like a scenario of "which is more important to us: our laws, or a few more phone models added to our stores?"

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[cabinboy]

RIM doesn't have the encryption keys to data traveling over individual BES servers, so they will not cave and couldn't even if they wanted too.

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[laughingcoyote]

Actually, they very well might.

If they're not willing to take a stand on this, most of their customers probably don't know the difference. If they do decide to stand up, they give India one of two choices:

• Behave like a democratic government instead of a tinpot dictatorship, in which case this quietly goes away. No, they don't get to monitor, but secure methods of communication exist anyway. One more makes no difference.
• Force RIM to stop operations over this-and explain to tens of millions of the most powerful and influential people in the country that you took their Blackberries away because RIM wouldn't allow invasion of your privacy.

So yes, in this case, they do serve their customers well by calling what's likely a bluff. India is desperate for development. They're not going to alienate their elite over something like this.

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[straponego]

Um, I'm not sure if you meant to reply to me or the parent. I do agree that there is substantial middle ground (just like Google's situation in China). That's what I was getting at. I was responding to the AC's sarcastic straw man in kind.

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[Some Bitch]

• Behave like a democratic government instead of a tinpot dictatorship, in which case this quietly goes away. No, they don't get to monitor, but secure methods of communication exist anyway. One more makes no difference.

They're only asking for the same as the US government required, or are they on your tinpot dictatorship list too?

Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction

[causality]

RIM doesn't have the encryption keys to data traveling over individual BES servers, so they will not cave and couldn't even if they wanted too.

In the case of the Saudis they found a way to come up with them. Maybe they changed the design of their system or built a new one from the ground up. Either way, they did in fact comply with the Saudi request that the government be able to eavesdrop by decrypting the communications. There's no reason to believe they couldn't do the same for India.

That's undoubtedly part of this issue. RIM has now established for itself a history of caving in. India has some grounds to expect that they can be convinced to do it a second time. That's why you never yield to bullies of any sort -- it only invites more of the same.

Greed vs Ethics

[decipher_saint]

I wonder which side will win...

Re:Greed vs Ethics

[dgatwood]

The only thing certain when it comes to dealing with businesses and government is that in the end, we lose.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Frankly, no, I don't understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

'Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'

Laws Of Physics, India Edition? What?

Re:Frankly, no, I don't understand.

[Meshach]

In India the government wants to have access to all communication to "obstruct and prevent terrorism". There is no "Bill of Rights" in India that grants the freedoms that exist in America and other countries. To do business in India you have to let the government have access. If you do not let them have access you cannot do business.

What is there not to understand?

Re:Frankly, no, I don't understand.

[saihung]

First of all, that's rubbish. Articles 19, 20, 21 and 22 of the Constitution of India guarantee most of the same freedoms that people in any other democracy enjoy.

As for this move, we understand their position, but we think it's wrong. Or is the concept of critical analysis too difficult?

Re:Frankly, no, I don't understand.

[webminer]

There are "Bill of Rights" in India. They are called "Fundamental Rights". Indian society in general is free and govt doesnt really invade privacy atleast not on the level that US govt does. Our enforcement systems might be lax but that doesnt mean there is a systemic effort to invade privacy. RIM was happy to comply with similar restrictions in US, China and Saudi Arabia. But when it comes to India, they had to show arrogance? India is a huge market. If RIM wants to survive in India, they better comply with Indian govt orders. Indian mobile users have tons of choices and India market is one of the most competitive markets in the world. India does not need RIM. OTOH, RIM does!

Re:Frankly, no, I don't understand.

[Skapare]

The US government is getting some info from RIM, but it does not include getting copies of email. BB is popular among foreigners coming to India to do business. If RIM is cut off, this will hurt India's ability to do business with the rest of the world that doesn't have this approach to government.

Re:Frankly, no, I don't understand.

[BangaIorean]

Do some research before spewing nonsense on slashdot, you nincompoop. India has as many freedoms as any other democracy. Check it.

Re:Frankly, no, I don't understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bloody fuckin asshole, set aside some time to educate yourself about the topic you comment on. The Indian constitution provides Indian citizens with all the rights that the American constitution provides to Americans. Motherfucker, almost all information is easily accessible via the www these days and yet you choose to talk out of your ass. Oh, but I forgot - you're a retarded piece of shit with a gigantic dildo shoved up your ass.

Asymmetric Encryption

[Nautical Insanity]

Why should RIM even have the encryption keys? If they really wanted their customer's information to be secure, wouldn't they implement RSA in their communications? That way when governments come knocking, they can just say "Sorry, but these aren't the encryption keys you're looking for."

Re:Asymmetric Encryption

[Golddess]

As I understand it from some RIM stories in the past, an organization could host their own servers that their blackberries talk to, and RIM would have zero access to be able to decrypt the contents in that case.

Re:Asymmetric Encryption

[Nautical Insanity]

So essentially RIM advertises its phones on the basis of security, but they choose to forgo a better encryption scheme because they would not have exclusive control of the network the phones use?

Weak.

Re:Asymmetric Encryption

[sjames]

If they took the simple step of pushing that out to the device itself, none of this would be an issue now.

Re:Asymmetric Encryption

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

ummmnm, what?

have you ever owned a RIM device?
they do a pretty good job of security. but yes, if you have a blackberry with an e-mail account from your provider, the mailstore is at RIM. as much as you may not like RIM keeping your keys, they might need to get into your mailbox to repair/troubleshoot/help you.

if you really want secure BB's, host a BES server, and you control the end to end encryption between phones and server. (and if you do so in india, you STILL need to provide a method to the government to allow workers access to all your mailboxes. it's a punishable offense (read they will come take your equipment, some of your people, and hand the business itself massive fines) to withhold ANY information from them for any reason.)

Re:Asymmetric Encryption

[Skapare]

Put the servers in Sweden.

Huh? RIM needs to understand?

[Fallen Kell]

I think India needs to understand that for a service like RIM's if the people purchasing it can't trust it to carry their own private thoughts/conversations, then people won't pay for the service anyway. It isn't a matter of security or not, it is a matter of privacy vs big brother government. I can respect that India has issues with terrorist acts and is in a geo-political volatile area with respect to their neighbor nations. But shutting down RIM's business because India doesn't have cart-blanc access to any email sent over the devices doesn't really do anything in terms of actual security as there are thousands of other ways to send the same information securely, including but not limited to free internet email systems, to even setting up their own private email server (which takes all of 1 hour to do) and running it out of a home or even a laptop, using any of the dozens of free dynamic dns systems available.

Re:Huh? RIM needs to understand?

[Anonymous Coward]

* You need access to an ISP if you want to send email through your private mail server. ISPs are bound to give out customer information to governments
* Free email providers (Google, Yahoo, etc.) around bound to give out customer information to governments

RIM refused to do this under any circumstances. Now do you see the difference?

Re:Huh? RIM needs to understand?

[sjames]

Yes, but if they can choose their client software, they can use their own strong encryption. All the free providers would be able to turn over is a fake identity and strongly encrypted messages.

It's a bit of a hassle for the (theoretical) terrorists but it's hardly insurmountable. It's also a big PITA to business users that simply wanted a decent level of security and no Big Brother.

Re:Huh? RIM needs to understand?

[pankajmay]

I think India needs to understand that for a service like RIM's if the people purchasing it can't trust it to carry their own private thoughts/conversations, then people won't pay for the service anyway...matter of privacy vs big brother government... I can respect that India has issues with terrorist acts and is in a geo-political volatile area... there are thousands of other ways to send the same information securely, including but not limited to free internet email systems, to even setting up their own private email server...dozens of free dynamic dns systems available.

I agree with what you say. Coming from India, let me add the following perspectives:

1. What you say is absolutely correct, however the Indian bureaucracy is legendary for its arrogant and corrupt ways. In fact, the closing statement of the article "... business is done here differently." should provide an invaluable insight. This is why most outsiders scratch their heads about how India functions. Above all, following protocols is a big thing in India. You have to navigate things in a very particular way -- grease and please everyone along the way and in a very rigid protocol. Follow that, and the merit of your case actually plays a very small role in getting you the meat. Ignore it, and even if you are the most qualified by a wide margin, you will be left outside.
2. Finally, the actual issue of the case is left far behind -- the bureaucracy will convert this into a nationalist patriotic jingoism (for example: RIM is being arrogant towards India.. blah...blah... discrimination...), once this happens (it already has to a certain extent) -- the conservative people will take the stage with rhetoric. Logic, reasoning, and sane questioning will be thrown out of the window.

It is sad, but unless the intellectuals in India start demanding more share of limelight and direct the discussion for its merit, I can only see a couple of options for RIM -- bend to the will and follow the sick protocol OR butt out and be made a public enemy in the eyes of the populace.

Re:Huh? RIM needs to understand?

[Malc]

Or maybe it's just protectionism and they want to make things hard for RIM in an effort to develop some home grown alternative.

Re:Huh? RIM needs to understand?

[Skapare]

Another point that needs to be made is that foreign businesses doing business in India with Indian businesses will be at greater risk, and that can hurt the business. Sure, things are done different in India. They are different elsewhere when compared to India, too. It's the international business where one party is in India that will suffer. And there is also the perception that the corruption involved puts that very data they capture at risk, potentially leaking it to competitors for more of those handouts.

Re:Huh? RIM needs to understand?

[Fallen Kell]

As stated by the previous response, even if there is an ISP in between, if you are using your own server and have encryption running, the only thing the ISP has is the encrypted content that flowed through their lines, and even then, most likely do not even have that since it would be an enormous expense to log every packet that goes across the network to every endpoint on the system. So, all that means is the ISP only has a name, and possibly a fake name at that (or the name of someone else in the area who was paid well setup an internet connection). And again, if there is any internet cafe where uses are able to connect their own computer/laptop online for an hour or two, there is nothing that would stop them from having a secure/encrypted email service running on the laptop to send/receive messages, even with changing IP addresses, it would not be difficult especially if they used a dynamic DNS service like I mentioned previously. Then all they need to do is a little coordination with other people to setup timeframes when the email server would be online and accessible. Again, not too difficult, especially with a dynamic DNS, where they could have other people simply periodically ping the name to see if it is alive, and when it is know that they can send an email, or do an encrypted vpn tunnel to the system and put the message directly on the computer, or connect to a website run on that computer using secure sockets, and drop a message on a "forum" run on the system, or any of another hundred ways....

Re:Huh? RIM needs to understand?

[falconwolf]

Or maybe it's just protectionism and they want to make things hard for RIM in an effort to develop some home grown alternative.

The problem with this rests with the WTO. If India allows domestic businesses to provide a service it has to allow foreign businesses to provide that service too. We've discussed stuff like this on /. before, how Antigua and Barbados I believe sued the US in the WTO because the US outlawed online casino gambling but some states run their own online gambling. These countries complained that that was against WTO rules.

Falcon

RIM has to hold its ground here

[deisama]

Blackberry's biggest strength is its secure email. That's why so many corporations allow it. Assuring paranoid corporate people that their email is safe with them is practically their entire business model!

I can't imagine it would be worth ruining that reputation just to keep such a small part of their market.

Take away that, and all they have left is their little keyboards.

Re:RIM has to hold its ground here

[kevinmenzel]

To be fair, their little keyboards combined with unlimited push data is why I actually have a blackberry...

business is done differently there

[ciaran_o_riordan]

> business is done differently here.

Yeh, that's a funny thing. In Europe, we spent seven years building a movement and fighting software patents. In India, they were proposed, and fought over for three weeks, and discussed in the media for maybe one week, and the government retracted the software patents proposal.

The issue isn't over, but things are certainly done different over there. I discussed it with some locals there and they told me that foreign interference doesn't go down well. Not at all. Red Hat sent a letter to the Indian government saying that software patents are dumb. (Well done Red Hat! You were our only supporter!) Locals told me that Red Hat took a chance with that letter. Other companies that try too hard to pressure the government get kicked out.

The software patent battle there is still in progress there, but foreigners should be wary of their preconceptions of how lobbying is done.

• India
• EU software patents directive
• A talk I gave about ESP and lobbying

Re:business is done differently there

[insufflate10mg]

Are we going to start seeing your shameless self-promotion on every story now?

Re:business is done differently there

[Anonymous Coward]

If you mean "information from people directly involved", then yeh, I'm happy to say you'll see more of that. Enjoy yourself!

(Me, reply as anonymous because this topic doesn't merit the +1 modifier of logged-in posted)

Militants

[Anonymous Coward]

From article:

The government says it is concerned that militants could misuse the services to create instability.

Maybe that's a good thing, if the government is behaving like this.

Re:as if

[Anonymous Coward]

You make it sound like you had plans in the first place, fellow basement dweller.

Globalization - not understood

[X_DARK_X]

I think someone needs to teach these countries that Globalization doesn't mean you get to pick and choose those attributes of trade which fit your needs best. It's a model, get with it, or get off the train. Seriously, why are we sharing all our technology with these shady countries? Oh yeah capitalism, and slow as shit Pentagon. Don't complain the world is filling with despots when we aren't willing to regulate the chips supplied to North Korea, or the control over technology we give to shady governments like India and China.

Re:Globalization - not understood

[webminer]

You are sharing enough arms technology to despot and shady countries like Pakistan. NK acquired nukes thanks to Pakistan. US turned a blind eye to this proliferation because it needed Pakistan to continue their games in Afghanistan and central Asia. Every country looks out for its own interest. India and China are no different. If you dont like their laws, don't do business there. I would dare US govt. to try the sanctions on India and China that you are proposing. Lets see how US companies will react!

Re:Globalization - not understood

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup. and you guys need to realize that Globalization is a two way street and quit whining about losing your jobs.

Re:Globalization - not understood

[BangaIorean]

Frankly, it's the Indians who need to be telling you this. Globalization doesn't mean you get to pick and choose those attributes of trade which fit your needs best. When you understand this so well, why is it that we constantly hear angry voices from the USA about outsourcing, which is a direct result of globalization? Not a single India related post on slashdot is complete without an anti-outsourcing rant by some smartass. Why is it that I don't see guys like you replying to such people with something like: "Hey, this is globalization, deal with it"?

Re:Globalization - not understood

[X_DARK_X]

I have nothing against outsourcing. I my self have worked with outsourced groups many times. Very pleasant folk, if anything, they make me feel more confident in my market viability. But in return, please, don't tell me that we should be adopting any habits like corruption, and monstrous bureaucracy of a regime such as India.

Re:Globalization - not understood

[BangaIorean]

Nobody told you to adopt corruption, which by the way, is not a uniquely Indian/Chinese attribute, as you seem to imply. India does have a monstrous bureaucracy, but I'm really not sure what that has to do with 'globalization' in the context of this article.

RIM isn't doing India a favour by 'giving us their technology' as you put it. Had that been the case, they'd have shown the middle finger to the Indian Govt. as soon as this issue came up. They need India more than India needs them - fledgling Indian telecom companies like Micromax and Karbonn are waiting to grab the market, and RIM knows that.

Finally, the issue of whether or not the Indian govt. should monitor suspects (with a warrant, btw) is best left to us. We'll write petitions, vote out the Govt. or protest on the streets if we feel that the Govt. ought to stop monitoring suspected blackberry communication (even with a warrant). It is not RIM's job to decide for us, and they better accept the demands of the democratically elected Indian Govt. if they want to do business here. Leave it to us Indian citizens to take on the Govt. We'll do it if we want to.

Well there are two things to this

[Sycraft-fu]

One is that terrorism is kind of a bullshit excuse. India just wants the ability to easily monitor e-mails without any sort of oversight. It is an excuse not a reason to a large extent.

HOWEVER, you do find that people will often take the easy way out and just use what is included. I'm sure in your daily life you meet many people who understand fuck-all about security. Guess what? Terrorists are just people. They do not tend to have good central IT groups that enforce good standards on the organizations. They don't always know about this shit.

Re:as if

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that India openly says it wants a backdoor to the communication. In the US, the government will get one without all this fuss. So have you stopped doing business with the US? How about UK? Didn't think so.

Tough Call

[mandelbr0t]

As a Canadian, I'm happy to see RIM's success thus far, and obviously continued growth would need to take advantage of other markets, who have different laws. While it's not something RIM wants to do, I think they will eventually cave to India's demands.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, RIM is in business, not politics. It is not their place to try and change things in India, it is the Indians'. On the other hand, to be ethical, they cannot knowingly place responsibility on a different authority if it is known that they will then act unethically. Ultimately, I think it will be better for the Canadian IT market if RIM just holds their nose and makes it happen. This is simply not a battle they can, or should win. If Indians don't like the way their government treats their privacy, they need to change things themselves.

Re:Tough Call

[Shados]

The catch is blackberries in india are, i assume, used a lot for outsourcing. I'm not sure north american IT companies that do business with indians would be too happy about this, either. So in that case, it would be an issue that directly affects local business.

Re:Tough Call

[rsborg]

I'm not sure north american IT companies that do business with indians would be too happy about this, either. So in that case, it would be an issue that directly affects local business.

So RIM gets to lose all of it's business because it's customers want it to provide something that a regional government will not allow?

Perhaps those customers should think about outsourcing in general. The Chinese have been doing this forever, and I'm surprised RIM is going to wall here.

Re:Tough Call

[neuro-commando]

This is simply not a battle they can, or should win. If Indians don't like the way their government treats their privacy, they need to change things themselves.

I agree with you here. The governments concerns do sound legitimate, as far as terrorist groups go, but I'm not sure if it's to the point that they need to strip every blackberry owner of their rights. Personally, I'm all for privacy, and you're right, if the Indians want to have their privacy respected, they need to make a stand and be willing to take the risks associated with it.

Because it is e-mail to their servers

[Sycraft-fu]

Near as I can tell this is all about the Blackberry Enterprise Server stuff. While organizations can run their own, RIM also runs it and you can subscribe to it. It encrypts communications from them to your phone and back, but then they have to decrypt it to be able to send it via e-mail. It isn't an end-to-end setup, BES is just an e-mail communication link for Blackberries.

Re:Because it is e-mail to their servers

[rxan]

Yup, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Re:Because it is e-mail to their servers

[Skapare]

Does it use IMAPS?

Re:Because it is e-mail to their servers

[Sycraft-fu]

Apparently neither do you. I'm willing to concede I might be confused, as I don't actually use this feature of the Blackberry. However a statement of "You don't know what you are talking about," without any clarification, reference, etc implies that you are either just being contrary, or are not confident enough in your knowledge to state it.

Regardless, it is a completely useless post to just say "You are wrong." Fine, the present your reasoning and what you believe to be correct. If you make a habit of just yelling at people when they are wrong rather than trying to enlighten them, you have no cause to call them out on their ignorance since you are not willing to help fix it.

So let's hear it then.

Re:Because it is e-mail to their servers

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently neither do you. I'm willing to concede I might be confused, as I don't actually use this feature of the Blackberry. However a statement of "You don't know what you are talking about," without any clarification, reference, etc implies that you are either just being contrary, or are not confident enough in your knowledge to state it.

There are many services unique to RIM.

1. The most secure, requires a blackberry enterprise server (BES) to be installed at your office. The BES talks to your mailserver (exchange/notes/groupwise). The BES grabs the incoming email, strips out most of the html fluff, compresses it, encrypts it with AES, and forwards the encrypted message to RIM. RIM forwards the encrypted message to the cell phone carrier. The cell phone carrier forwards the encrypted message to the blackberry. The blackberry decrypts the message.

The way the BES solution is laid out, the encryption keys are only located on the BES, and on the blackberry. RIM does not have the keys to decrypt. The cell phone carrier does not have the keys to decrypt. The key exchange between the BES and the blackberry can be done by usb cable - hard to spoof that.

The BES platform has been tested, audited, and certified:

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/ataglance/security/certifications.jsp

2. For those of you without a BES or exchange/notes/groupwise, RIM offers Blackberry Internet Service (BIS).

With BIS, RIM connects to your pop/imap/hotmail/gmail/etc account for you, grabs the message, encrypts the message, and forwards it to the cell phone carrier. The carrier sends it to the blackberry. In this case, RIM does have the keys to decrypt, but the cell phone carrier does not.

3. And lastly, blackberry messenger. BBM is encrypted using 3DES, which is much weaker than AES. Further, the nice thing about BBM is that all blackberries have it by default. So how does BBM work? How can they all decrypt the BBM messages? Every blackberry has the same default BBM encryption key, and it is well known in the security community. In its documentation, RIM refers to BBM as "scrambled" and not encrypted.

(note that with a BES, you can replace the default BBM key with something else, but most people don't)

So, if you care about security, BES is the way to go.

Also note that you can use PGP or S/MIME for additional email encryption on top of the regular email encryption.

Re:Because it is e-mail to their servers

[rxan]

Alright then.

BES is just an e-mail communication link for Blackberries.

BES and BIS includes the MDS (mobile data service) which also encrypts most data. There are certain exclusions such as streaming technologies which may not go through RIM's infrastructure. But it is an end-to-end solution.

Now when a company hosts their own BES I believe that non-email data will still go through RIM's servers. Not sure if a company can host their own MDS servers though.

So that's what I know. I know that most people on /. will tear you apart for the slightest bit of misinformation. So I decided to say little. Sorry if that ticked you off.

Difference in perception regarding terrorism

[webminer]

There is huge difference in the way Indians perceive terrorism when compared to Americans. Americans easily dismiss govt. efforts such as these in the name of privacy invasion. But, when you are closer to getting your ass bombed by a neighborhood terrorist, then privacy is the last thing on your mind. You will be actually grateful that your govt is pulling all stops to giving terrorist easy options to communicate and escape their radar. Terrorism in India is daily reality. Its more direct. US has not faced a terror attack on its soil since 2001. India, OTOH, faces a huge terror attack every year (remember 26/11 Mumbai), in addition to attacks in Kashmir every other day. So, when Indians look at this issue, its much less about invasion of privacy and much more about security and closing gaps for insurgents (Maoists) and terrorists from across the border. Most of the intelligence attack trawthed by Indian Intelligence agencies are through wiretaps and intercepts of mobile calls between terrorists and their handlers across the border in Kashmir. So, from the point of Indian Intelligence agencies, its very important to intercept RIM calls as well. When you are faced with fear that the daily metro train you take to office might be blown off or that restaurant you visit for dinner might be attacked by gunmen, privacy invasion is the last thing on your mind. I am an Indian and have gone through such moments in my life. And I very well understand what my govt. is trying to do here!

Re:Difference in perception regarding terrorism

[dgatwood]

There is huge difference in the way Indians perceive terrorism when compared to Americans. Americans easily dismiss govt. efforts such as these in the name of privacy invasion. But, when you are closer to getting your ass bombed by a neighborhood terrorist, then privacy is the last thing on your mind. You will be actually grateful that your govt is pulling all stops to giving terrorist easy options to communicate and escape their radar. Terrorism in India is daily reality. Its more direct. US has not faced a terror attack on its soil since 2001. India, OTOH, faces a huge terror attack every year (remember 26/11 Mumbai), in addition to attacks in Kashmir every other day. So, when Indians look at this issue, its much less about invasion of privacy and much more about security and closing gaps for insurgents (Maoists) and terrorists from across the border.

Has it ever occurred to you that the very environment of fear and distrust is what breeds terrorism in the first place and that one of the reasons that the U.S. has had few terrorist attacks is that the vast majority of the public as a whole doesn't feel like the government is out to get them? We get to know our neighbors, and for the most part, if a neighbor were hatching a terrorist plot, usually somebody would notice. We do that because we know that the only thing standing between us and anarchy or tyranny is ourselves. Historically, the closer any country has come to being a police state, beyond a certain point, the more problems they have had. It's a vicious cycle, and the harder you try to clamp down, the more violent the dissent, until it becomes uncontrollable. That's basic psychology, really.

Most of the intelligence attack trawthed by Indian Intelligence agencies are through wiretaps and intercepts of mobile calls between terrorists and their handlers across the border in Kashmir. So, from the point of Indian Intelligence agencies, its very important to intercept RIM calls as well. When you are faced with fear that the daily metro train you take to office might be blown off or that restaurant you visit for dinner might be attacked by gunmen, privacy invasion is the last thing on your mind. I am an Indian and have gone through such moments in my life. And I very well understand what my govt. is trying to do here!

It would take any competent user all of five minutes to get around this. All you have to do is use an IMAP mail service other than RIM's. The people who care about using push email are not the terrorists. They are the businesses that employ your citizens. The terrorists couldn't give a rat's ass about push email. They use it because it is there. The second they get wind that RIM is going to make all their email available, they will migrate their data to Gmail, delete all their email, and close their accounts. By the time RIM actually capitulates, any information the Indian government could possibly hope to obtain will have long since been destroyed. And when the Indian government goes after Gmail, they'll move to Yahoo Mail. And when they go after Yahoo Mail, they'll move to something else. It's so easy to change ISPs that it is utterly naive to think that what you're talking about will have ANY real impact on terrorism.

You can't stop terrorism by screwing over everyone else. That just makes your citizens angry and resentful of the government. And after long enough, those angry, resentful citizens decide to take up arms. Then, a terrorist cell is born.

Re:Difference in perception regarding terrorism

[Anonymous Coward]

Has it ever occurred to you that the very environment of fear and distrust is what breeds terrorism in the first place and that one of the reasons that the U.S. has had few terrorist attacks is that the vast majority of the public as a whole doesn't feel like the government is out to get them? We get to know our neighbors, and for the most part, if a neighbor were hatching a terrorist plot, usually somebody would notice. We do that because we know that the only thing standing between us and anarchy or tyranny is ourselves. Historically, the closer any country has come to being a police state, beyond a certain point, the more problems they have had. It's a vicious cycle, and the harder you try to clamp down, the more violent the dissent, until it becomes uncontrollable. That's basic psychology, really.

You have a point, but not enough of it to stand up against the daily threat of getting killed. Privacy is not the same thing for all people all around the world, so you need to stop seeing things through westenr glasses. Also, if you're thinking that the 'real democratic governments' do not indulge in listening in to your phones then you've been living in some hole all these years. The only difference is that the government does not publicly say it out loud. Now here are the *real* reasons why the US is safeguarded from terrorism:

• It is so frigging far away from the islamic nations
• It denies visas to a majority of muslim names. This is quite the opposite of Indian visa control. India itself has a massive number of muslims, so there is no sense in differentiatin against the muslims. It is only a select bad lot that causes this problem but heck, that makes a difference
• US denies visas to anyone who has been to some specific Arabic countries. India cannot afford to do that since many of its folk have been in those countries for business/service.
• US has a much much lower population than India, which makes their job of monitoring the population much easier

It would take any competent user all of five minutes to get around this. All you have to do is use an IMAP mail service other than RIM's. The people who care about using push email are not the terrorists. They are the businesses that employ your citizens. The terrorists couldn't give a rat's ass about push email. They use it because it is there. The second they get wind that RIM is going to make all their email available, they will migrate their data to Gmail, delete all their email, and close their accounts. By the time RIM actually capitulates, any information the Indian government could possibly hope to obtain will have long since been destroyed. And when the Indian government goes after Gmail, they'll move to Yahoo Mail. And when they go after Yahoo Mail, they'll move to something else. It's so easy to change ISPs that it is utterly naive to think that what you're talking about will have ANY real impact on terrorism.

You can't stop terrorism by screwing over everyone else. That just makes your citizens angry and resentful of the government. And after long enough, those angry, resentful citizens decide to take up arms. Then, a terrorist cell is born.

You're assuming that governments don't already have a backdoor into all these services that you mention. They have done so. Read your terms of use and privacy policy for gmail, yahoo, etc. They specifically mention the fact that they will not hand over your stuff to anyone _unless_ the request is backed by a government agency (subpoena, state orders, etc.). Of course, you're also assuming that terrorists are these highly efficient government run outfits. Surprise, they're not always that way.

Finally, the average Indian does not care about privacy in the same way that you might. Definitely not enough to 'come up in arms' in the way you suggest. You don't know the first thing about violence in the subcontinent if you think that privacy concerns are one of the factors contributing to it.

Re:Difference in perception regarding terrorism

[TheOnionMan]

I'm not going to take the time to respond to every point of the post above, because it is both ill-informed and steeped in colonialist garbage. Suffice it to say that the security challenges faced by the United States, a massive island nation with no meaningful rivals within several thousand km, and India, which is bordered by hostile states armed with nuclear weapons that have a long and proven history of sponsoring terrorist activity, are in no way commensurate. You can say what you want to about RIM, the right to privacy, or whatever, but the bottom line is that it is not an "environment of fear and distrust" which creates terrorism in India, but massive social/cultural/religious/economic tensions that simply have no analogue in the United States. Go read about the Naxalites, open a history book about the British Raj, and then come back when your opinion is worth something.

Re:Difference in perception regarding terrorism

[yuna49]

The terrorists couldn't give a rat's ass about push email. They use it because it is there. [...] It's so easy to change ISPs that it is utterly naive to think that what you're talking about will have ANY real impact on terrorism.

Or, perhaps, just host their own mail servers? For $20/month you can get a virtual Linux machine. You could just play a shell game hosting the mail on a succession of virtuals.

Re:Difference in perception regarding terrorism

[dgatwood]

Okay, I'll bite. What do you think social and economic tensions are, if not an atmosphere of distrust?

Re:Difference in perception regarding terrorism

[dgatwood]

You're assuming that governments don't already have a backdoor into all these services that you mention. They have done so. Read your terms of use and privacy policy for gmail, yahoo, etc. They specifically mention the fact that they will not hand over your stuff to anyone _unless_ the request is backed by a government agency (subpoena, state orders, etc.).

Turning over data in response to a subpoena is not the same thing as warrantless wiretaps, and turning over data in response to a subpoena from another country is not the same thing as turning it over in response to a subpoena from the country where ISP is. I would expect the latter. The former would be horrifying. If any arbitrary country could subpoena anybody's mail, then we would have some pretty serious problems.

Further, even if those particular companies have agreements with India's government, the near-total anonymity afforded by many of those services would make it very difficult for the government to determine much beyond what that one person knows. You can usually get that much from interrogation alone. If you're going to be spying on someone over a long period of time, it's usually because you're trying to find out who that person knows, and find out who the other players are. That's problematic if you're trying to get subpoenas against a dozen different ISPs in a dozen countries, only to come up dry because all the accounts were created under pseudonyms.

Of course, you're also assuming that terrorists are these highly efficient government run outfits. Surprise, they're not always that way.

I'm not assuming that terrorists are highly efficient outfits, but I am assuming that they have computer people among their ranks. That's a very safe assumption, from everything I've read on the subject. And even if I'm wrong, you have to assume that they're not complete morons. If they are aware that their communication channel is compromised, they won't keep using it as if nothing has changed.... It's not like phone wiretaps. The bad guys have to assume that the government has the ability to tap everything, filter it, and identify threats. So as soon as the government gets the ability to tap it at all, the entire use of that channel becomes immediately worthless, ensuring its swift replacement with something more secure.

And even if the Indian government managed to get EVERY ISP in the entire world to cooperate, there's still stuff like Freenet that makes encrypted email seem like a toy.

In short, tapping electronic communications can only work against VERY clueless bad guys, and the government can't possibly be clueless enough not to know this, so you have to ask yourself what they're really trying to accomplish.

Re:Difference in perception regarding terrorism

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't stop terrorism by screwing over everyone else. That just makes your citizens angry and resentful of the government. And after long enough, those angry, resentful citizens decide to take up arms. Then, a terrorist cell is born.

Right, I can just imagine those white-collar revolutionaries at Wipro taking up arms against the government and forming a terrorist cell because their Blackberry emails stopped working. And of course the legions of rich Indian kids who would start blowing up buildings if they lost BBM...

Here's Red Hat's letter:

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Here's the link to Red Hat's letter:

• REDHAT_INDIA_PVT._LTD._NEW_DELHI.pdf

Done differently?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Business is done differently here."

Baksheesh?

LOLWUT

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope people realize we should stop outsourcing to India then.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"Business is done differently here"

[cryokinetic2]

In other words, "you haven't bribed the right people yet." http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126199094

Folks like indians have to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks like indians have to understand that I might seem them something only on terms I find favorable. So if you don't want to buy what I sell at my terms, then I don't want to sell it.

With a few exceptions the indians should learn to accept other cultures not enforced on them by force (like the colonial times).

Re:Folks like indians have to understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Then don't sell it motherfucker - that's what the Govt. is saying. They're asking BB to get the fuck out if they don't comply. BB would have left by now if it was so simple for them. It'll fuck them hard if they leave a country of 650 million mobile users (and growing). They aren't doing us a favour by selling us stuff - WE ARE DOING THEM A FAVOUR BY BUYING THEIR STUFF. Understand that you fucking retard.

Sleeper cells..

[achyuta]

.. of terrorists who are planning attacks are embedded in every corner of India.

It is several times worse than all of the spy or terrorist networks in the US combined.

When you're in the situation India is, already with the incompetent politicians hindering critical issues like national security, you'll realize you don't want an external blocker to your ways of preventing terrorism.

Re:Sleeper cells..

[Moridin42]

If you think getting access to some Blackberry emails are going to solve any real national security problems, you're dreaming. But it can definitely be abused in the name of security.

There are already end-to-end encryption solutions for voice and SMS services. They're already available on multiple mobile platforms. And this isn't accounting for things like a secure shell or VNC client on a mobile device to get a protected machine with secured communications.

I mean, I get it. The indian government feels like it needs to do something, but don't fool yourself into believing this particular move is going to be effective.

Re:as if

[Anonymous Coward]

ah, a trailer? well, at least you're "mobile" ... or would be if you can re-attach the wheels that is.

RIM can die in a fire.

[RulerOf]

While I agree with you in principle, as the Indian government said, they do things differently there.

Sorry, but the Indian gov't needs to go fuck itself.

With respect to Blackberry, the India doesn't do things differently. India wants to do things differently, and quite frankly everyone at RIM is a bunch of fucktards for giving in to the first country that decided to publicly swing its cock in their direction.

I quite personally don't give a flying fuck whether or not any government listens in on what it chooses. But I'll say for damned certain that if something is touted as "secure" and "encrypted," having a man in the middle makes that statement 100% bullshit. RIM can go die in a fire or simply remove their encryption altogether. If anyone other than the sender and recipient can read an "encrypted" message, then the shit's not encrypted by the understood sense of the term. End of story.

If Indian businesses cannot operate securely ...

[Skapare]

... then lots of businesses outside of India will need to stop doing business with businesses located in India. It can hurt Indian business by doing this.

Re:If Indian businesses cannot operate securely ..

[lazycam]

I agree. Many US, EU, and Asian companies have joint ventures with Indian firms. If blackberry communications are no longer privileged, the government (and others) has a strong incentive abuse corporate information (trading trading stocks and bonds in London or the US). Companies count on Blackberry for the integration and PRIVACY. Guess Indian firms will have to rely on PGP encrypted email communication. I'm assuming this is not illegal in India, or is it?

"business is done differently here."

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it just means, "shoddily, inefficient, and copy/pasted directly from internet forums, without adjusting the indenting."

The end of India mobile developers

[alextheseal]

Here's a perspective that perhaps India is not considering. My company employs a fair number of mobile developers and QA staff in India. They work on BlackBerry mobile devices as well as others. If BlackBerry's are shutdown in India guess how long we will wait until we pull all that work back to the US and drop all our India employees. Hint: It starts with a D and ends in "ays".

Re:If Indian businesses cannot operate securely ..

[dooode]

Duuh....Chill Dude.

"If blackberry communications are no longer privileged the companies would do XYZ"

1. Blackberry communications are indeed not privileged. Its just that the dumb Indian security agencies cannot get a way around it like the US.
2. If blackberries goes away, companies would switch to Nokia, Apple or any other damn device...

But what's really gonna happen is that Blackberry would cave soon, and tell the government officials, "you nutjobs should have figured it out yourself without creating a big fracas, but lets help. Anyways thanks for the publicity !!"

Achtung Herr Ghandi

[hyades1]

I really, really hope RIM bites the bullet on this and either calls India's bluff or takes the hit and moves on. If they start selling the only real advantage they have (privacy/security) to any government that wants it, they'll all be begging for jobs at Apple within 5 years. They've already played footsie with the US, Canada and some other First World countries that at least go a little past paying only lip service to individual rights and freedoms. If they start allowing Third World countries to get into the party, they're screwed.

Re:Achtung Herr Ghandi

[dooode]

That's nice logic. You suggest it is right to suck it up to US, Canada and the other first world countries without a single noise....and when other countries ask for the same, its right to cry Privacy concerns...

It does smells hypocrisy...

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

'It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'

Am I the only one that read that as "you didn't bribe the right people enough"?

terrorists

[falconwolf]

I'm not saying that terrorists are something other than scum.

You might not, but I will say it. One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.

Falcon

Re:terrorists

[BangaIorean]

Does that apply to the 9/11 terrorists too, or does your statement apply only to anti-India terrorists?

Re:terrorists

[falconwolf]

Does that apply to the 9/11 terrorists too, or does your statement apply only to anti-India terrorists?

I didn't have those in India on my mind when I said that "One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter." Actually at the tyme I was thinking of Israeli Independence fighters, or terrorists. Irgun, the predecessor to today's Likud political party was even classified as a terrorist group by the new Israeli government after independence. Lehi, commonly called the Stern Gang, split off from Irgun, was another. Not only were these groups fighting the British with such acts as the King David Hotel bombing, but they were also in communications with NAZIs before and during WWII. In 1948 Irgun and Lehi attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin where 107 were massacred. Deir Yassin is still remembered. And guess who was an Irgun leader... Menachem Begin. Ariel Sharon led Israeli troops in the Qibya massacre. Here are more crimes of Ariel Sharon. And here's a list of more massacres in Palestine.

In 1956 David Ben-Gurion said of Arab Palestinians "Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country ... There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it is simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army."

But he wasn't the only Zionist that wanted to expell Arab Palestinians. The Jewish group and magazine "Tikkun", which I read regularly, has the article The Long Path Out Of Denial: Zionism, Heartache, And A New Vision of Israel and Palestine.

Hell Israel even attacked the United States, in attacking and sinking the USS Liberty on 8 June 1967. But don't let reality and facts bother you.

Falcon

Re:terrorists

[BangaIorean]

This article is about India, and about the threat of terrorists attacking India, thereby making our Government demand that blackberry allow intelligence agencies to monitor communications (and that too only after a proper warrant has been obtained).

You might, or might not, agree with these fears and the need to monitor communication, but when you make comments about 'freedom fighters' in this article, one would assume immediately that you're referring to anti-India Islamic terrorism. Not sure why you've written that long post about Israel and the Arabs as a response to this article that talks about India!

Re:terrorists

[falconwolf]

Not sure why you've written that long post about Israel and the Arabs as a response to this article that talks about India!

I answered as I did because I was asked "Does that apply to the 9/11 terrorists too, or does your statement apply only to anti-India terrorists?" I even included it, and only it, in my post. If you can't understand that, then I don't know what else to say.

Falcon

Besides, RIM is not India's only cell phone

[falconwolf]

provider

True but many Indians use Blackberries and they'd be pissed if they could not use them anymore. Others, who have and conduct international business, will find their foreign contacts less willing to do business.

Falcon

spying is wrong

[mike-seo]

This Govt thing on spying own citizens is not right.

"Freedom" fighters

[gd2shoe]

A vast majority of terrorists do not deserve the appellation of "freedom fighter".

Intentional targeting of innocent civilians is inherently at odds with freedom.

Re:"Freedom" fighters

[falconwolf]

Intentional targeting of innocent civilians is inherently at odds with freedom.

Ah, so you agree that those Israelis who took part in bombings and massacres in Palestine, such as Deir Yassin and the Qibya massacre were and are terrorists. Ariel Sharon led the Army unit in the attack against the village where 69 villagers were killed and most houses were blown up. He along with other Israeli leaders was a terrorist.

Fact is is many Zionists, not all Jews are Zionists but there are Christian Zionists as well, want a cleaned Israel for Jews, no non-Jew Arabs. Arabs are accused of wanting to push all Jews into the sea but that's what these Zionists want to do to Muslim Arabs.

Falcon

Re:"Freedom" fighters

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be called freedom fighters only if there is no democratic process through which they can prove that the majority of the population supports their viewpoints regarding freedom / independence.

If they can't be bothered to stand in an election, and if they just want to run around killing people, then they are terrorists and scum.

Democracy still is the best system of governance we have.

Re:"Freedom" fighters

[chrb]

Intentional targeting of innocent civilians is inherently at odds with freedom.

Like the U.S. and British bombers that deliberately targetted cities full of German civilians in WWII?

Re:"Freedom" fighters

[BitZtream]

Thats because you have a different meaning for the word Freedom.

You think of freedom as basically being able to live like you do in your 'free' country.

I assure you though, freedom has mean different meanings, and there are many different perspectives on the situation at hand.

Anyone who walks into a civilian hotel full of every day normal people and blows them up isn't a freedom fighter.

If however, a Sunni from Iraq walked into the white house and blew himself up, along with a bunch of government drones, I'd be more inclined to call him a 'freedom fighter'.

Neither of them is 'right', both are clearly wrong, murder never is, but its not like we're doing anything different than they are, with the exception that we do not INTENTIONALLY target their 'civilians', they do seem hell bent on targeting 'ours'. Both sides are murders though.

Re:as if

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't, fuckwit. You hardly matter. You can get your bottom two ribs surgically removed and suck your own dick all day long for all we care. Business will keep coming into India, India will generate more and more of its own business, and will continue to grow at a blistering rate, as it has for the last 10 years.

And you can be happy with your cock.

You're all mostly incorrect

[Anonymous Coward]

Background:

There are several offerings from RIM. One is the BES, which corporations can host on their own networks (VPN end to end from device to BES).

The other is the _BIS_, these are _like_ a BES, but for bigger customers (typically carriers).

I suspect the issue is not so much with the E-Mail, but PIM. PIM messages are sent and received between devices and are protected end to end. There is _no_ other device on the market with this (so all you iPhone users can suck it).

The other issue is likely encryption on the device itself. Again, few devices offer this and those that do, are a joke (*cough* iPhone).

You can spew as much crap as you'd like but the Blackberry architecture is built with multi layered security from the ground up.

Simply installing a wire tap type device would not be trivial (if at all), nor would giving their Government access to the keys.

I wouldn't be surprised if RIM had IP and Patent concerns with other countries as well.

Bottom line - If you want secure, the Blackberry with a BES is the only thing publicly available.

Having said all that, even if for some reason RIM decided to castrate the Berry, I doubt they could easily tap roaming international users from connecting with a corporate BES or BIS. So what then?

The answer to terrorism is not military rule.

"business is done differently here"

[Anonymous Coward]

Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'

>> right. Why didn't they try to bribe the appropriate politicians and bureaucrats? Some healthy infusions into their swiss accounts would have certainly settled the matter, and even reversed the sudden urge to red govt emails. It was so obvious what this sudden need came from.

Re:You're mostly correct

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect the issue is not so much with the E-Mail, but PIM.

I suspect that you're correct there (actually they're referred to as "PIN" or "PIN to PIN" messages (where PIN means Pager Identification Number, and dates to when Blackerries weren't phones).

Blackberry Messenger uses the same communications mechanism as PIN-PIN messages. Any number of shop-bought BBs can talk to each other easily without a need for a server.

More explanation is already above (look for "(note that with a BES, you can replace the default BBM key with something else, but most people don't)") but the statement "Bottom line - If you want secure, the Blackberry with a BES is the only thing publicly available." is absolutely correct.

Re:as if

[Anonymous Coward]

as if US doesnt have Patriot Act?! If you see facts, US is monitoring much more media than putting several countries together in competition with it. US would rank only next to China in those regards.

Who has been to India, who is an armchair critic?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many of you are just Western liberals commenting from the comfort of their office chair on abstract principles that RIM should follow, and how many have ever taken the time to visit India or understand its uniquely challenging security situation?

I am a Westerner who has been living in India for 2 years. Trust me, India isn't Canada. It has real security problems.

Long Road Downhill

[thisNameNotTaken]

When RIM gives in the India's security service it will become a world broker of user messages. How, just route user messages throught India. What India reads the world reads.

Welcome earthlings.

Why is RIM doing the citizens' job?

[Anonymous Coward]

A million customers will be affected? Seriously, that million people cannot protest against their government openly admitting to reading their email? Besides India should do what US does and instead of openly challenging RIM and taking it public, silently workout some wiretap deal *cough*AT&T*cough*