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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.
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...
Why, when reading your post, do I have the urge to imagine a schizophrenic vagrant yelling it from a street corner?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
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]
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
all caps IMMORAL would be that, in a nutshell.
You know, as opposed to logical or legal arguments, it's just "it's immmoral and therefore bad!" you know, like rock music, file sharing, books, reading, etc.
you can scan the traffic from the ISP's. blackberries are encrypted at the phone itself along with 3G and other encryption
or in the real world a tiny minority of people are going to be using IMAP + SSL or HTTPS to check email. since this is outside the USA and there are less rights to worry about, just follow those people
Gmails defaults to HTTPS and gmail is the most popular one.
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
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??"
I'm having difficulty not picturing each line of the GP's post as a horribly scribbled missive on a sheet of cardboard.
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.
Yup, that is why you want your own layer of encryption where you have control over the keys.
Only a matter of time before such a thing is illegal again I fear.
Because you are a jackass and / or part of the problem?
There is a war going on for your mind.
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.
or in the real world a tiny minority of people are going to be using IMAP + SSL or HTTPS to check email.
Way to let everyone here know you are completely clueless.
There is a war going on for your mind.
If I remember correctly USA has access to every single blackberry email.
Is this actually the case? I was under the impression that RIM's servers are in Canada. It wouldn't shock me if the US government had access, but I didn't think that they did.
RIM does not have "Magic Keys" the encryption handshake has always, and continues to be, carried out when the HH is activated on the BES. It's like asking for the "master algorithm" to PGP or Trillian - it is in large part random, and has something to do with huge primes.
Please don't dominate the rap, Jack, if you got nothin' new to say.
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?
And most providers of mailboxes use imap, pop, and smtp over ssl. For the sake of keeping passwords safe from the spammers.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Thanks. I guess I had read some misleading information, now I have a clearer understanding of how it all goes together. It might have been that RIM has some of the BIS servers in Canada, which some individual users in eg. Saudi Arabia were using; the Saudis seem to want those servers located inside their borders, and I assumed that BES servers would be compromised too.
BIS servers are run by the service providers, (Rogers, AT&T, Telus, etc) All RIM really runs is the NOC which handles the switching from the BES to the carrier.
Please don't dominate the rap, Jack, if you got nothin' new to say.
control over the keys does not matter when you are being COMPELLED to give keys to authorities.
yes, they 'do that' these days. apparently you cannot just say 'I forgot' and get away with not giving the key to your encryption if some guy in a black dress and a hammer in his hand says so.
face it, all states/countries are not ramping up to deny privacy to its citizenry wherever they can! some are more bold than others but all are encroaching on their citizens' rights. they use fake explanations for why they need this power. they use fear as their main ingredient.
using your own layer of encryption is great, in theory. but since the state still thinks it has a 'right' to any/all communication it thinks it needs, your 'layer' may just land you in jail for a while to think about it.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
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!!!
What about Google and the Department of Homeland Security? I wonder why they're considered root CAs.
Scenario 1: you don't have control of the keys. Eavesdroppers read your email and you never know.
Scenario 2: you have control of the keys, someone says, "let me read your email or else," and you weigh the "or else" and decide to give in.
You don't see a difference? Control doesn't matter?! Scenario 1 can be used against a whole population, with the people who mention unhealthy things in their emails never knowing why their insurance premiums went up, people who RSVP to parties never knowing why their houses got burgled, people who talk about politics never knowing why their names got accidentally dropped from voter registration databases, etc. Even with gag orders, Scenario 2 can only be used against a few people before word gets out.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.