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RIM Reaches Temporary Agreement With India
Canadian_Daemon writes with news that India has granted a 60-day reprieve for their threat to ban BlackBerry devices while the government evaluates RIM's proposal for "lawful access" to users' encrypted data.
"The Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement it would review the situation in 60 days after the Department of Telecommunications studies the feasibility of routing BlackBerry services through a server in India. India wants greater access to encrypted corporate e-mails and instant messaging, though it remains unclear precisely what concessions Research In Motion agreed to in order to avert the ban. About one million BlackBerry users would have been affected in India. 'RIM have made certain proposals for lawful access by law enforcement agencies and these would be operationalized immediately. The feasibility of the solutions offered would be assessed thereafter,' the ministry said."
Is it the kind of agreement when RIM rims the Indian gov't and pays stacks of bribes and then all rim users are also forced to rim the Indian gov't?
well, judge for yourself
About one million BlackBerry users would have been affected in India.
"RIM have made certain proposals for lawful access by law enforcement agencies and these would be operationalized immediately. The feasibility of the solutions offered would be assessed thereafter," the ministry said.
You can't handle the truth.
for throwing blackberries.
Oh... this is about those BlackBerries. In India.
For a minute I thought this story was relevant to me.
code words for 'the current crop of criminals running the government want to see YOUR info, at will, with no warrants'.
see, if a government employs crooks (they all do, btw; unavoidable given human nature) and they OK some behavior, its automatically 'legal' even though its IMMORAL.
legal means nothing to many people, now. its a phrase that means 'some interest bought a new law' or 'the gov is expanding their powers. again.'
I just love how they brainwash you via repeated use of 'lawful' (like 'lawful intercept') to try to con you into thinking its moral to do such and such a thing.
remember, it used to be 'lawful' to own slaves.
do not put ANY belief that governments and 'laws' are aligned with good behavior. almost always its a sham.
I still have to stand behind my core belief: if you are a human being, you deserve the right of food, water, shelter, and also the right to communicate unfettered and without interference. from anyone.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
This is why sneakernets will never go away; perhaps they become even more valuable in this new era where the government must be able to know all of your communications... just in case, you know.
That was central to the plot of the Matrix; just replace machines with upper caste.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
India faces as much terrorism risk as any other nation, Indian security forces need to be able to access information that they need in order to prevent acts of terrorism. I can see cases where the information will be abused but such risks are no match for the benefits. I recall watching a documentary on the Mumbai terrorist attacks from 2 years ago where we can hear the chilling instructions to kill hostages being given to the terrorists on the ground from *our friends across the border*. Such evidence would be impossible to get if the intelligence agencies do not get access to communications data.
As an end-to-end encryption and validation. Then RIM is free to give access to that.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Is Indian also going to ban every phone that supports IMAP + SSL (which is basically all smart phones and many dumbphones with email support)? Or ban accessing webmail services that support HTTPS?
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
I don't think there is a right to keep crimes secret in any society in the world. In fact, I believe it is in society's best interest to allow courts to compel testimony and subpoena evidence. I also do not see how you can claim that 'lawful access' is the same as 'unlawful access.' Or are you claiming that all governments everywhere will always lie to their citizens? For your own sake I will caution you that when you claim that governments are completely corrupt and evil and always lie, you are veering off into territory where few rational individuals will follow. Most of us recognize that democratic governments, while flawed, are vastly preferably to the tyranny of the strong that would exist without them.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
RIM have made certain proposals for lawful access by law enforcement agencies and these would be operationalized immediately.
A bit of privacy invasion and kowtowing to the state is one thing but using the word "operationalized" is unforgivable. What the hell can it even mean? Best guess I can make is either "implemented" or "switched on". Maybe "introduced"?
See, this is exactly why device manufacturers shouldn't be making devices that are entirely reliant upon an external "cloud" service that is also controlled by the device manufacturer. If Blackberry was merely making devices that could be configured to talk to any server(s) using industry-standard protocols, they wouldn't get themselves into the kind of situation where 1 million deployed devices could have been turned into doorstops overnight. (Maybe my understanding of the way that Blackberries work is misinformed, and so my rant here could be completely groundless -- and just for the record, I'm open to correction -- but I am under the impression that Blackberries need to be in constant communication with the BIS servers that Blackberry themselves run in order to function.)
This is also why the whole push notification system that Apple came up with for the iPhone is stupid. If something goes wrong with servers that Apple controls, then suddenly that feature across every single phone that has shipped to-date is dead. Device features should not be wholly reliant upon a service that the device manufacturer controls...all you are doing is making a single point-of-failure when you do that.
-- Nathan
India now has the same deal the USA has, they can read whomever's emails they want. Although it appears India may only be able to read the emails that happen in India.
If I remember correctly USA has access to every single blackberry email.
I hate encryption with backdoors..sigh.
At least one article by an Indian journalist claims that nothing has been comprised and in fact summarises the exchange as: Govt of India: "We Won!", Blackberry: "Huh??"
In other news, some government officials have been accused receiving plenty of rimjobs in return for... Oh wait. Sorry. That's the same news story.
Well, I have a feeling that all of this in the various countries that are less free than the USA (India, Saudi, etc...) combined with the advance of smart phones in general (Android) spells an end to RIM...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Because it is all about the Government's right to read your personal mail.
It is nothing to do with your right to privacy.
The problem with doing it through RIM is that it allows the courts to keep secrets from the very people who are being investigated, thus denying them their due process right to challenge that subpoena. And that's exactly what India wants.
They can already subpoena the people in their jurisdiction for their email records if they want to.
Blackberry ensures end to end encryption between a user's mailbox and the device itself. From where I sit, the right thing for the Indian Government to do is to monitor the mail boxes and not the devices. If RIM bends to this demand, then you will start seeing this across the board from other nations. While it makes the job of the Governments easier, it's wrong to push RIM into a position where they have to comply. RIMs technology is sound and the implementation is excellent. The method by which the Indian Government is attempting to gain access to this information is stupid. Anyone know anything about how Good's technology works? Are they going to be subject to the same demands?
Don't sell the device as an email device. Sell it as a generic super-portable personal computer for which email just happens to be the most popular application -- and an application+servers for which you have no control. When someone comes after you saying they want to read your customers' emails, honestly tell them that your device is like any other PC: if the government wants to crack it, they'll have to crack PGP just like they do for everyone else.
This whole story should be about governments trying to ban escrow-less encryption, not specific devices.
I can see cases where the information will be abused but such risks are no match for the benefits.
Oh please. I'm an Indian and this is bullshit. What are the "benefits?" The chances of me dying in a terror attack are less than being hit by lightning. I'll take that risk and won't complain if I die thank you very much.
Try saying that to the kin of those who got killed in a terrorist attack which could have been foiled if the cops had access to the data you want to deny them
DUH, wakeup!
First, as an Indian, I am least shocked at what the government is trying to do. This is what bureaucrats in India do best, that is, fleece money from businesses by pulling up arcane/useless laws and regulations. Behind closed doors, RIM must have bribed dozens of bureaucrats in at least half a dozen government departments. My father worked for an Indian company and was in charge of setting up a power generation plant. He said he had to bribe a dozen different ministries just to get the paperwork moving on prospecting for the site. What's the value of Indian law enforcement agencies being able to tap into RIM? Zilch, squat, none, nada, nil, shunya! After all the circus around this issue, what brain-dead criminal will use blackberry to cover up tracks? This will mostly be used by politicians to settle scores, dig up dirt on each other and sell trade secrets of one business to other or harass them. As any Android or iPhone owner will know, just go to Android market place or iTunes store and there are dozens of apps for encrypting text messages and files. Not happy with closed source apps? Use openssl, gpg or half a dozen other opensource tools to encrypt communications such that no law enforcement agency can crack it in a timely manner to help with an investigation. Much less Indian law enforcement agencies that can barely use computers much less have access to super computers to do any cracking. As for Indians, they are mostly pro-government on this issue. Why? Because RIM acceded to similar demands by UAE and Saudi Arabia so now their national pride is hurt when a foreign company complies with laws of tiny Emirates but not their mighty nation. People in India are tired of a non-functional government that does not take foreign corporations to task for even mass murder (read Bhopal Gas leak). So when they see a government department screw a foreign corporation, they cheer like this will somehow help. It WON'T!!!