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UN Telecom Chief Urges Blackberry Data Sharing
crimeandpunishment writes "The top man in telecommunications at the United Nations is weighing in on the Blackberry battle ... and he says share the data. The UN's telecom chief says governments have legitimate security concerns, and Research in Motion should give them access to its customer data. In an interview with the Associated Press, Hamadoun Toure said 'There is a need for cooperation between governments and the private sector on security issues.'"
I think I speak for all of us, when I say: FUCK THE UN!!!
It says it's an entertainment site. But I found a better source anyway; TFA probably cut and pasted from the AP (or from another site that paid the AP for publication) anyway.
Free Martian Whores!
WTF is this? Isn't an individual's right to privacy inalienable and shouldn't the UN therefore support it?
I can see there being a need for cooperation and information sharing when it comes to people actually suspected of crimes. I am not comfortable giving out information just because they want to go on a fishing expedition though.
Of course this could be covered in the article, which my work proxy is denying me access to.
Companies should trust all of their sensitive corporate data to the honorable developing and third-world governments for security concerns. I'm sure this will save billions of lives and no abuses of power will incur. Certainly none of the people in those nations have any right to information, privacy, or property.
Next will be government mandated backdoors into SSH and SSL... you know, to stop the terrorists.
Trolling is a art,
We don't need no steenkin' privacy. In fact, if we don't roll over and submit our every move for scrutiny to our governments, the UN, and the space aliens occupying the ISS, then clearly we have something to hide, and must be locked up for our own good and the good of society.
And these generally involve others not being able to read all their messages and mail, the desire to do so being the hallmarks of oppressive governments and other criminals.
Governments need to feel secure. Secure from attacks by foreign nations. Secure from attacks by its own citizens. Governments need all information about anyone they consider a threat. Getting all your information might be considered a breach of your privacy, but it's a safety blanket for the government. Oh, and remember, if you're not with the government, you must be a terrorist.
Enjoy!
I always assumed that people had a right to get information from their government while being able to keep information private. Yet these days it seems that most governments are of the mind that people and corporations have no right to any kind of private communication while the governments themselves do. I'm looking at you secret ACTA talks. I also find this amusing in the light of the many western governments that subtly encourage citizens being able to defeat electronic snooping by more restrictive governments. I suppose most governments are the same in believing that their government is righteous and thus have a right to protect itself by spying on anyone they wish.
Someone get the UN telecom to read slashdot.
Or, at least his nephew who walks him through how to reinstall MS Office.
The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is what punches workers in the nuts.
You gotta love an international organization that has no inherent and reliable method of enforcing it's orders and statements. It's like getting barked at by a Chihuahua in some blond chick's purse.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Fuck. That. Shit. (Yeah, yeah, mod me down for vulgarity. There is no other appropriate response.)
Here's what the "great prophet" Dave Mustaine has to say about the UN:
Within striking distance from Ground Zero sits a smoldering
International cauldron, the "United Abominations" as it were
Born to prevent wars, it froze in the face of disaster and
Stood silent while terrorization took hostage the world
In a mire of hypocrisy, the UN ignores sex crimes by its
"blue-helmets", and enables terrorism; so that in the end it's failed
And the UN is where our so-called "friends" get to stab us
In the back, and we pay 22% of their tab to host our enemies
Here at home. Ambassadors from countries, otherwise known
As a catastrophe, enjoy diplomatic immunity living in
Manhattan, while their children are turned into prostitutes
It's a complete and utter disgrace, a blot on the face of
Humanity, and they get away with it.
Poverty in their kitchens, held hostage by oil-for-food
Yet their own plates are full off the fat of their lands
There's no blood on their hands, right Kojo?
They promised to tell the truth, without leaving a fingerprint
They will lose the UN one way or another
The victim, I fear will be us, sisters and brothers
The UN is right; you can't be any more "un"
Than you are right now, the UN is undone
Another mushroom cloud, another smoking gun
The threat is real, the Locust King has come
Don't tell me the truth; I don't like what they've done
Its payback time at the United Abominations
A grave and gathering danger, the decision to attack
Based on secret intelligence it'll take years
I fear to undo the failings in Iraq, Iran, and Korea
You may bury the bodies, but you can't bury the crimes
Only fools stand up and really lay down their arms
No, not me, not when death lasts forever
Man: The UN writes resolution upon resolution.
We really need a new world order.
Woman: There is no order order. I don't believe it
I don't even listen to the talk of this new world order.
Man: They'll never do anything.
NATO invaded Yugoslavia to end ethnic cleansing
There was no UN
The U.S. invaded Afghanistan after 9/11
There was no UN
Saddam Hussein violated 17 UN resolutions
The U.N. was
Asked to join the war in Iraq: The US invaded
There was no U.N.
Libya bombed a discotheque in Berlin killing Americans
There was no U.N.
And Iran funds Hamas and attacked the US in the seventies
There was no UN
Facing War without end, looking into the future
There was no more UN
[Megadeth - 2007]
Someone is going to be deciding what to do with your data here, either the individual companies or the government. Personally, I'd rather that the government made the call (whether it be to keep data private, use it, etc) than maintain the current situation, where we have to beg companies to maintain our privacy, and then trust them to continue to do so. Those of us who live in democratic countries elect our government, and the theory is that they're accountable. We do not elect corporations and private companies. As with Google's "Do not be evil," promises that our privacy will be maintained are often made graciously, and perhaps with the best intentions, If your government isn't accountable, you can replace them. If RIM, Google, or anyone else decides to abuse your data... what then?
In most countries in the world, the government is far more likely to cause harm to the public, than the public is likely to cause any harm to the government. In my opinion, the Public certainly has more pressing security concern than any government has. The fact of the matter is, anyone with even the slightest interest in keeping their conversations private will be able to do so easily no matter what their respective government is monitoring. All this really does is give those governments access to the general publics mail which will then be used to stifle dissent, not protect the public.
Secretary Toure,
FYI:
Thought you should know.
Sincerely Yours,
Peter Hutnick
They have a history of not supporting an individual's right of privacy ( among other rights ), so why would they change now? They are just another governmental entity, and by nature don't like privacy.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yes, there is a need for cooperation between governments and the private sector to protect the people's privacy from invasion by either government or private sector entities. These security issues are far more common, urgent and important than any need for the government or private sector to invade our privacy. And without due process, like evidence/argument/decision in a legitimate court, neither government nor private sector has any "security" interest that should see cooperation by anyone, including people in the government or private sector.
--
make install -not war
There is already Tor for Android, let's get Tor for BlackBerry going and all the wiretapping governments can suck it!
What of the security of the citizen in the face of a corrupt government?
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Governments have ceased to be of the people and by the people and for the people. They are now entities in their own right, safeguarding their own survival. To say otherwise is to say that you're a revolutionist, a terrorist supporter. Because the government would never want *my* information... But yet the FBI has abused their "National Security Letter" privilege over 100,000 times.
Governments now exist to ensure the biggest corporations stay at the top, and those that are in government, have an easy ride to and through retirement. There was a time when making a living off of other people's taxes (at least in this country) was viewed as a bad thing. Now, government jobs are the ones to have, better pay, better benefits, and you can't get fired. The government is now a publicly funded corporation, with the ability to charge you whatever it wants by taxing you into oblivion. We'll see this November if we actually control our government or if some subliminal mindset does.
What the government does have a duty to do, is protect the rights of it citizens. Let's see if that happens here.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Crimethink is doubleplus ungood.
-- for the U.S. to immediately cease funding the United Nations. As in right f*cking now!
Isn't open source supposed to be about sharing?
What kind of anti-freedom people do we have here?
... you first, Secretary-General Toure. Let's give every government representing a member-state of the United Nations access to Mr. Toure's Blackberry (or the equivalent, if he has a different mobile device) data. ALL of it, since that's what India is requesting from Research In Motion. It would be interesting to see what discussions he's had with industry lobbyists, wouldn't it? Surely SOME nation would leak that information, like Iran if the "talks between satellite provider Eutelstat and the Iranian government" referred to in the article don't go the way Tehran wants.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.,
Let me correct that for you: Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps and dedicating a significant portion of time to explaining why only morons will collect stamps in the first place is a hobby. For a certain subset of people, atheism *is* a faith.
FUCK THE UN!!!
I don't get it. Isn't that exactly what the US have been for as long as the UN exists?
uhm, us citizens have 'security concerns' about our very own government!
before I hand over my keys to them, they first have to prove worthy of my trust. right now, they fail to have my trust. they need to first earn it.
you guys go first, ok? give us visibility in the so-called security and level with us and be honest with us what's going on out there.
then, after say 5 or 10 years of 'good progress reports' and no outright abuse, we'll THINK about it.
m'kay?
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
from the article:
The agency has no independent regulatory power, but Toure's comments are a barometer of sentiment among the agency's 192 member states, which are expected to re-elect him to a second term later this year.
so they have no power. as usual.
ignore the fuck-wad. he's just repeating what all others in power are *requesting* of their citizenry.
exercise for the reader: can you find ANY government who's NOT out for a privacy-grab in the name of terrorism? anyone, anyone? bueller? anyone??
the most popular bandwagon of our decade. "me too! I also want to be able to check out my citizen's emails and stuff. come on, I want that power too!"
sickening. a dark side of humanity is being shown in this kind of process.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Ok, everyone who can needs to start encrypting all emails - ALL OF THEM. GPG needs to be available on every platform from WinCE, ARM, iPhone, Android, Windows, Linux, 64-bit, 32-bit, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and that other OS .... Every email program needs to include GPG and provide a trivial setup for it. Even if physical access completely allows access to everything, at least network viewing wouldn't be useful to untrusted eaves droppers. - A random passphrase, automatically used.
Of course, if you want higher security levels, allow the setting of a passphrase for people like me.
Much like the UN, the ITU is a joke and an amusing waste money. The ITU would love to have controlled Internet standards but the world ignored them and went with the IETF. They would love to have controlled mobile phone standards but the world ignored them and went with the ETSI. They would love to control domain TLDs, but the world ignored them and went with ICANN.
Both Tory and Labour governments had their butt kicked when they tried first banning, and then introducing key escrow, encryption legislation in the UK. France had all encryption banned until they found the NSA were passing industrial secrets to their US rivals such as Boeing, and changed their legislation so fast their politicians almost got whiplash watching it pass.
I'm not sure it is relevant, but Toure is from Mali which has been a dictatorship for centuries and only recently gained democratic elections less than 20 years ago, from which he then went and studied his degrees at Moscow University. Maybe government intervention and control into people's personal lives seems more normal for him?
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
What about the security concerns of the citizens?
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
RIM's corporate clients run their own blackberry servers, and the encryption is end-to-end between the corporation's own server, and the Blackberry devices used by their employees. The encrypted traffic flows through the internet and through servers under RIM's control, but they can't read any of the data without the encryption keys which are generated entirely by the client and are never given to RIM.
This is different from their consumer service, where its RIM itself that runs that blackberry server and so they have access to all of the encryption keys on it and can help governments intercept the traffic at that end.
Because of this, I'm not sure how exactly they plan to comply with the public demands of India and a couple of other countries to let them decrypt and read all of the data. They've stated that they're going to give India what it wants, but I believe that is technically impossible right now. RIM will have to re-engineer their system, deliberately weakening it by adding the backdoors that the government needs (some kind of enforced key-escrow service, or something). It will require software updates on the corporate servers AND all of the blackberry devices, and more importantly, it might REALLY piss off some of their large corporate clients. We'll see.
Maybe we could apply the principles of the Miller test to intrusive government demands. How about this: would you feel more secure or less secure if the government was able to read all your texts whenever they feel like it?
As for Apple iPhone "crypto":
Tech Public Policy stuff
This is sad, but the rights of a dictator governing his country prevails to the rights of his citizens under UN laws. FUCK YOU UN.
Tomorrow is another day...
The UN's telecom chief says governments have legitimate security concerns,
And I have legitimate privacy concerns. So - this kind of empty statement is meant to "weigh in" on a debate? I always thought to "weigh in", you'd need some... you know... weight.
Saying someone has a legitimate reason means nothing if you only look at one side of the equation. Society is all about the balances we strike between the legitimate reasons of everyone involved.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
lol, and even when they get a "backdoor" key, you could always use S/MIME, RSA, PGP........ for gods sake, why do they dont ask their it ?
How in the FUCK is an intelligent song about the United Nations off topic in a discussion about the United Nations?
Seriously? Really?