Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Do they want to secure customer data, or provide a documented mechanism for institutional wiretaps.
They should pick one and stick with it.
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?
RIM will capitulate, like they have everywhere else.
"business is done differently here."
sounds like a shakedown for a bribe to me
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.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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.
> 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.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
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.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
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?
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:
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.
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.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
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.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
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
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
A vast majority of terrorists do not deserve the appellation of "freedom fighter".
Intentional targeting of innocent civilians is inherently at odds with freedom.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.