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RIM Co-CEO Cries 'No Fair' On Security Question
bulled writes "When asked about letting governments in Asia and the Middle East into the 'secure' message service used by their BlackBerry devices, Mike Lazaridis, the co-chief executive of RIM, walked out of the interview and said, 'We've dealt with this, the question is no fair.' By 'dealt with,' we can only assume he meant: 'been paid handsomely to let governments read what they wish.'"
It's your right to walk away from an interview at any time. There's not even anything wrong with it unless you've specifically promised to answer all questions.
However, this was still pretty rude and even silly of him. Some choice information-poor statements would probably have been much more effective than this - now it's been on the Slashdot and more importantly on the BBC News front page. He could just as well have said "we're doing something shady you don't like."
"It is not fair to ask us why we are putting our profits ahead of our customers' security needs."
Palm trees and 8
Sounds like he was taking exception with the wording of the question, but it's a real issue and it affects a lot of people. Including the leaders, celebrities, and teenagers who need to know if their government is reading their email.
I think we can safely assume that Blackberry is about as secure as a wet paper bag in countries where the device has become "commercially successful" and the government is less than interested in maintaining privacy.
Mentioining "national security" at the end of the video is a clear sign that RIM has well and truly given in on their claims of absolute security for the sake of maintaining a moderately-successful business.
Never trust the security of communications where the keys are being handled by someone outside your organisation.
whats not fair is RIM backdooring their product to appease third word oppressive regimes.
You can't advertise a service or a device as being secure, and then sell the keys to the locks to the highest bidder. Fuck RIM. I hope they burn. My wife wanted a blackberry on this last go round of upgrades. Nope.
Goes to show that if you want security, use something you control. I don't want any government or corporation (benevolent or otherwise) with keys to my data.
There's just way too much room for abuse. You have to assume anything that a third party has keys to isn't secure.
Sent from my PDP-11
He'll just avoid the whole question. Instead of, perhaps, explaining why the word used was unfair, and what was being done about the situation.
Guess it's easier to just whine like a little kid about things being unfair, and when that didn't work, to pull out the "national security" trump card.
Not that I was seriously considering a blackberry, but there's no way I'll buy anything from RIM now. I don't like whiners.
Disclaimer: I'm Canadian but I own an iPhone, not a Blackberry. I saw the clip previously and didn't even know what he was talking about, and just thought it was exceptionally bad manners to walk out of a BBC interview. Now that I know that the question was about allowing foreign governments spy on foreign citizens, I find his response even more rude. Answer the damn question, man. If you are ashamed of what your company is doing then maybe you should find another job.
Well, sure. You have the right to walk away anytime. You have the right to walk out of class, out of work; unless you're in prison or the military, you always have the right to walk away.
But how can he not anticipate this question? Its been the number 1 question of RIM for the last 24 months, and he thinks its *unfair* he was asked about it?
He's either naive or an idiot. In either case, he was unprepared for an interview if he wasn't ready to talk about RIM's #1 issue.
If I was a major shareholder, he wouldn't impress me.
Honestly, if you're angry because RIM, or Google, or Microsoft, or whoever isn't trying to stick it to every dictatorship, you're an idiot. If the US government goes and tries to say a dictator is being too mean (perhaps by killing them), they're the terrible World Police. But if RIM refuses to do the same thing, you get angry. You're an angry, fickle group of people. Mod down if you disagree.
The question is "no fair" because it's singling them out as if they are any different than Google, Yahoo, or ANY COMPANY operating within a national boundary. Every company is bound to the laws of the nation in which it operates.
It's also "no fair" because it's misleading: it makes it sound as if the chinese and some of those other "evil" nations are the only ones reading people's private communications. The only differnce between the chinese and the US is the chinese have laws clearly stating their objective, and the us operates within the shadowy realm of "well, if there's no law against it..."
The RIM CEO called an end to an interview when he realized (after a minute and a half) that he was just being ambushed with a combative line of questioning. The interviewer had no interest in him answering the questions, he just wanted to make the CEO look bad in order to get ratings. This is, unfortunately or fortunately, rather common in british television. But in this case, it does seem genuinely unfair.
The interviewer knows that governments demand access to people's communications. All American telcos give call logs and e-mail histories pretty regularly to the government. Same with British ones. In this case, *we* don't trust the Saudi's with our communications, yet we somehow trust the US government with them.
Blackberry spent a lot of money building up a successful business in the middle east. Then they had to take their entire business offline while they added these backdoors for the government. When the king holds your entire business for ransom, with the requirement that you do for them what you do for every other government out there, you do it. Whining and complaining about RIM's "security problems" is just childish. And ambushing the CEO on film in an attack segment to make him look bad for something that he, and everyone else was forced to do, is definitely not fair.
The ______ Agenda
Does the person posting this really think that RIM is happy to hand over data to foreign governments? They make their money off of business users who will not be happy about this change. They simply have no choice when governments say give us access or we will ban you. I don't know hope anybody could think that it is in RIM's business interests to make its valuable business customers' data available to foreign governments.
Since they are still doing business, they are happy.
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It's your right to walk away from an interview at any time.
True. However if you are the CEO of a major international corporation and you cannot handle a reasonable, politely asked question from a major international media organization you are in the wrong job.
When the king holds your entire business for ransom, with the requirement that you do for them what you do for every other government out there, you do it. Whining and complaining about RIM's "security problems" is just childish.
what the fuck does the above even BEGIN to mean ?
so, if a king holds your business ransom, you can do ANYthing, and its ok, and those who question unethical doings, are 'childish' ?
'whine' word usage is attention-catching there. so, now when someone complains about unethical dealings of a 'business', it becomes a whine ?
what kind of fucked up reasoning is that ?
really. are you a fucking moron, or a troll ?
no, no, dont excuse the rough language. since you shattered the barrier to ethics on grounds of 'business needs', i had had taken the liberty of shattering the barrier to ethics of civil correspondence, on a random ground of my choosing.
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Most interviews give their subject a list of the questions which they will be subject to before they meet in front of a camera.
Perhaps the interviewer puilled this one out of thin air and blindsided the guy from RIM who didn't have a prepared answer.
For once, I will go against the flow and defend the big guy.
The fact is governments want the ability to wiretap data or voice. With Blackberry, they could not do it because data travels encrypted from the device to BBs servers in Canada. They asked Blackberry to provide the means, and Blackberry complied by granting (limited) access to the encryption key.
Why is that different than with Windows Phones, Android or iPhones?
Well, the difference is that with this other platforms, governments don't need the encryption key. The data is already on the clear.
The unfair question is to suggest that Blackberry has a security problem to allow governments access to data, when all other platforms allow access to data to governments, operators, ISPs and everyone in between.
It's been spoken to ad naseum. Let them in, or be locked out. They chose to stay in. It's not like people there don't KNOW it isn't secure. It would be different if they where doing this without any sort of notice to the users.
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
It isn't as simple as the "obligation to maximize shareholder profit regardless of ethics or human decency" anti-capitalists fantasize about.
It's really about conflict of interest. When the board manages the company for profit, it must be for the profit of all shareholders, not just for the majority that elected them (i.e. themselves). Otherwise a block that owns 51% of the shares could funnel all of the profits out for themselves with sweetheart deals and thinly-veiled gifts.
Ethical objections are a legally acceptable reason to pass up opportunities for profit.
His statement at the end of "this is a national security issue, turn that off" is the obvious smoking gun. This strongly suggests RIM are providing backdoors for Saudi and Indian governments (otherwise he could have just said they weren't), and clearly RIM either do not want to talk about it (or are legally enjoined from doing so).
In some sense, the CEO is being honest. He could have just denied it was happening. So kudos to him.
But the problem runs deeper. Saudi, for instance, has a corrupt government with a history of human right abuses. People could end up being tortured or killed for exercising what we regard as basic human rights, just because they trust RIM's platitudes about privacy. This creates a strong ethical obligation to ensure that these people know that their communications are subject to government intercept. I personally think RIM could and should do more.
If he'd been expecting it then maybe he could have given an answer like, "So why isn't the BBC reporting from inside North Korea? Oh, that's right, because it's against the local laws to do so."
Fail. That was laughable. He never once countered any claims of RIM having security issues, just got defensive. Whether you've been "singled out" or not, if you have a security problem, you have it. If you don't , you don't.
When he was asked if he could confidently tell users in the middle east that their data was safe, and responded by stating only that the interview was over, that was a pretty big signal.
The Blackberry's claim to fame in the corporate world is their willingness to hand back office operations over to its corporate customers. RIM can't read this data. It just passes it on to the appropriate server. Only personal Blackberrys use RIM servers (where the data presumably can be read). Data from corporate devices can be read by their respective back office IT staff (and frequently is).
Foreign countries can act just act like corporations. If they want to read the data, they can operate their own back end servers and RIM just hands them the traffic. As long as citizens of a country understand who it is that handles their e-mail, they can decide whether they want to send it or not. If RIM is approached by a gov't for data access, they should just hand the server function over to them, tell the customers who they are dealing with and step away.
If the people don't like the way their gov't treats their rights to privacy, they can revolt. We'll provide air cover.
Have gnu, will travel.
Honestly, now, let's just play the devil's advocate here.
Everyone knows now that RIM allows middle eastern governments to read whatever. Maybe that admission isn't such a bad thing- I mean, it's disclosure and it's honest. They're being open and honest about potential issues with their service, therefore allowing their customers to make an informed choice.
I mean, who would you rather trust? Company A, who says "Yes, with proper warrants and the like, your government- the one you chose either by democratic process or by inaction against tyranny- can read whatever they want. They have to ask us to provide it and we do. This means if you're planning to assassinate the King of Unspecifiedistan, it's probably not a good idea to SMS it to your friend, since you'll go to prison in short order."
Or Company B, who says, "Nope! Our stuff is 100% secure. Completely safe. No security holes exist now, nor will they ever. Your secrets are safe from the government if you give them to us! If you wanna shoot the King of Unspecifiedistan, this is the place to yak on about it!"
Let's be real about this for just one second. RIM is a very (very) large company with a huge legal team and a vested interest in their customers privacy, yet the governments in question still got to them.
Do you honestly think that other (smaller) companies haven't got equally bad, or worse, backdoors in their systems?
And if you acknowledge that fact... where would you rather make sensitive communications? On a very crowded, very busy, large network which presumably has millions of messages to filter- where one single message might slip through the cracks, or be accidentally labelled a false positive... or a much smaller network without such a (presumably) unwieldy system?
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Let's see, so if I sell bananas, but someone in the US decides to use my bananas to kill someone, I should pull out of that market even if there are plenty of people who don't use bananas to kill people? Since when is making even more problems for people a good ethical stance?
Any comments made by the owner of this signature should be disregarded as irrelevant, uninformed, and idiotic.
No, it's like you sell bananas, but the USA says you can't anymore unless you can tell the government how to remove the skin without the end user knowing. You damage the brand and the business model (security) by caving in.
By dealt with, we can only assume he meant 'been paid handsomely to let governments read what they wish.'"
Tell me why you get to assume that.
That's a hell of an irrelevant analogy for advertising secure private messaging and then quietly letting people listen in.
Research In (Slow) Motion is dramatically loosing market because their technology is getting old and obsolete. Can't believe you still need an "enterprise server" to get connected to MS Exchange these days. Well, it's out of my company simply because it's easier and cheaper to just get Android devices and not host a server for that purpose. The server was also kinda' buggy. Under the circumstances it's understandable why they need to make such compromises to get into some new markets. Crazy enough governments may just ban any other device from their countries if BBs allow them to eavesdrop on their citizens.
The main thing to remember is that this is a government, or two, asking for this information - not another company.
I'd be FURIOUS if Blackberry opened any of my information up to a third-party without my consent, and I would expect all subscribers to feel the same way. But a government? They have the laws and the weapons. The only option would be to simply remove their product/service from the countries asking; which is lunacy.
Best to use your own encryption, if your privacy matters that much to you, and encrypt everything you send, so it's all equally important.
Lazaridis
Worldwide, a major focus, often the primary focus, of national intelligence services is economic espionage.
What is that foreign company's real negotiating position? What is that favored company's competitor's bid, technology? And so forth.
RIM still tells international business it's secure. And then whines at the BBC, don't you call us not secure, merely because a large and growing portion of our customer's threat envelope is bare ass and blowing the breeze. We're still "secure". For some increasingly worthless definition of secure. And we don't like to talk about it.
Your analogy doesn't make any sense. It isn't that their product is being used in a bad way once they've sold it, it's that the government is asking them to do something wrong and they're doing it. It would be as if, in order to have the right to sell bananas in the US, the government required you (an employee of the banana company) to kill an innocent person. Which is literally the end result of giving over this information to oppressive regime.
STILL wrong.
a corporation operating from, and enjoying the benefits of, and obeying the morals, ethics, rules and laws of a democratic country, cant go just ignoring any of them in a foreign country, just to make profit.
its as simple as that. you cant do slave trade in africa, but, be against slavery in america.
if not, then that corporation has to be sent over to the country for which it is violating the rules/laws/ethics of its own country. period.
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Yeah, you. You with the holier-than-thou attitude that a company should just fight unethical doings or whatever the flying fuck you're on about.
What the bloody fuck is unethical - UNETHICAL - about giving a government.. not some damn junkie on the street, not a competing industry, and certainly not YOU of all the worst damn cases, a GOVERNMENT, access to the data when that GOVERNMENT demands it so!
If is unethical if the U.S. government by way of the IRS raids your office and takes all your records and computers and leaves you thinking just what the bloody fuck you're gonna do with your business now, just because the IRS thinks you had some tax evasion issue? Where the shitfuck in hell do the ethics come in -there-?
Back when George Hotz reached an agreement with SONY, people here were all in praise of Hotz, defending the little fucktard by saying that he probably got bravado from people cheering him on, then got some life lesson - which he apparently failed to learn from by many prior examples, the damn moron - and stopped a proceeding that would have most likely ruined him, and good on him for doing so.
Oh, but now it's a BUSINESS and a business surely should stand up against whoever the hell, especially a government that wouldn't mind holding a few of your employees for questioning for a while.. a long while.. if you get my drift. THEY should certainly stick it to The Man out of principles. Or alternatively, leave the country entirely and take their losses. WHY they should take their losses when they can instead just make it clear to the people that their secure channels -could- be monitored by their respective governments, and let people who still want a BlackBerry anyway get one, is completely beyond me.
But hey, I'm just an IDIOT, a MORON, a monk from the middle-ages, and you'll probably put me on your red list. Have fun with that.
Oh yes, just a glance at your comment history shows what manner of conversationalist you are. And that liberty to shatter the barrier to ethics of civil correspondence? You took that many, many months ago as just about every post of yours starts out by calling people idiots, morons, assholes and more.
But congratulations on another - rather rare - post that's been modded up past 2 - or rather, not modded down from 2, I guess.
If - say - Charlie Sheen joins the cast of a Broadway show, and agrees to sit for an interview, he'd be an idiot not to expect questions regarding issues proceeding the show.
A large part of RIM's value-add is their security. That security was compromised in certain parts of the world. If the RIM CEO has new h/w to show off, and agrees to sit for an interview, he would be an idiot not to expect questions regarding that compromise. He had the option to address it directly, to talk around it, or to try to b.s. through it. Whether he was "ambushed" or not, cutting off an interview with the MSM isn't a good display of the value a US$1m executive is expected to provide.
Luke, help me take this mask off
If I were a RIM shareholder, I would be dumping their stock and not looking back. The last leg that they had to stand on in the enterprise market was their reputation for security. It seems that more and more corporations are embracing ActiveSync for their Exchange to smart phone email conduit. Hell, even Apple licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft and incorporated into iOS. If that is not handing writing on the wall, what is?
I work for a pretty security conscious corporation that has a lot of legal liability for keeping client data secure. Our laptops are running PGP FDE, we have to use VPNs for practically everything, the only USB drives we can plug into the corporate machines are IronKeys, etc. I figured we'd be one of the last places to ever ditch BES, but the mandate just came down a couple of months ago. By 2012, everyone is going to be on an iPhone or Droid. RIM is going to be out about 5000 BES licenses. We can't be the only one deciding to ditch RIM.
What else does RIM have left? Some cheesy "Playbook" that they are hoping can compete against the iPad and Android? Yeah right.
On top of all of that, their top level executives cannot even handle a curve ball question during a televised interview. That ship is sinking, fast.
They are not the only corporation that has to give up encryption keys and deal with other nonsense to do business in foreign countries. The other day I was talking to a guy who used to work for Accenture. He was telling me that it was standard operating procedure to be contractually required to give up encryption keys for applications when doing work in Asia and the Middle East. It's like the dirty little secret of corporate America. If you want to do business overseas, you have to roll over on some issues.
As much as I rail against Google products as being hacked together and half finished the large majority of the time, at least their corporate officers have the balls to tell China to go fuck themselves, even when it cost them market share in the largest emerging market.
The question wasn't rude at all. He didn't ask, "So, why are you sacrificing the security of your customers to governments with records of human rights abuses?" Instead, he politely asked what the issue was and if it had all been sorted out. The guy got all offended, so the reporter pressed the point a little. The whole issue could have been dealt with more cleanly by saying, "Our company is committed to providing a secure platform for our customers. We have the best security and everyone uses our product because it is awesome. At the same time, like all other companies, we must comply with the laws of all of the countries in which we operate. This often leads to speculation about such things. Unfortunately, we can not comment on such rumors. Our enterprise security features are super great... blah blah blah."
bbc has a habit of asking hellish questions.
you think this single question asked by click, a i.t./internet show is hard ? wait until you see some dastardly figure get fried in hard talk - and its not frying as in the 'frying' of silly american shows -> they ask SO shattering questions that you may see politicians blabbering, speechless, and trying to talk by babbling in absolute silence, aghast at the weight of the question.
this is the blonde man that does the majority of hard talk though. there is a woman who occasionally hosts it, but she is apparently not witty enough as the blonde host, and instead tries to bog down her guests by talking too much, and being a prick by not letting them answer.
the blonde guy would ask something like "why did you compromise morals and ethics of the country you are based in, in order to do business in another", and the rim ceo would start babbling in this case, and when gets "but isnt it hypocrisy?" answer to his babbling, he would be dumbstruck.
few dare to sit on that chair. those who do sit, go through the hoop of fire and come out clean, get big p.r. points.
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In Soviet Russia All Backdoors ARE RIM(med)!
Be seeing you...
You're missing the key point: did Canada initiate any of those actions? No, they were just lending a helping hand to somebody else, because they asked them nicely.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Whatever deal they are in was made under some strict agreement, right? This is like asking "can you please break every non-disclosure agreement you might have entered into with their respective governments and assure all your users in various countries that there is no security compromise?"
They are basically picking on the RIM guy to spill dirt on these governments.
It's no longer an interview about RIM and their technology or company, but simply trying to use the interview as a way to get dirt about these governments.
Of course he feels that why should he be the one singled out for this.
= it's globally backdoored.
I'm a cryptographer. I won't state what I work on, because (a) it's not yet public, and (b) it's not yet ready for anyone to rely on. See? Even if I can't say its name yet, I can be honest about insecurity. My stuff will need to be finished and have significant peer review before I will be prepared to state it's secure.
I have to be able to state that if I published a system, I know it to have no intentional security vulnerabilities (be they back doors, key escrow, side-channel leaks or any other form), and I will state openly and honestly whether my system has any known security vulnerabilities, and what I estimate the probability that my system has security vulnerabilities which are unknown to me but practical to a conceivable attacker.
I have to state something like that regularly. If I can ever not state that, the people that I work with are briefed to assume that since the last time I have been asked that, I have been threatened, and will react accordingly.
National security is not my problem: the security of my cryptosystem is. There is no point in a cryptosystem which is insecure: asking anyone who works on the project I work on to do that is asking them to intentionally destroy years of hard work. That isn't going to fly. An approach of any form attempting coercion would be extremely unwise and would be met with a strong, prepared, organised defence (it is an attack on the cryptosystem which the infrastructure surrounding the cryptosystem has been designed to resist).
Don't give me crap about "working in their country, playing by their rules". These are my rules, and the rules of almost every independent professional cryptographer. Either you have a secure cryptosystem or you have a backdoored sack of crap. We now know which RIM's is.
Jargon file entry for "mu". Answering this way isn't going to work in most cases though...
In nearly every country there are legal means by which the authorities can get access either by asking for specific information or by actively moinitoring communications in real-time. The latter case is true for messaging and voice traffic in the EU, USA etc etc...
There are very specific situations in which these are activated and are all done within the confines of that country's legal system. Communication manufacturers and providers, eg: Lucent, Alcatel, Nortel, Ericsson,Motorolla, Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Nokia, Google, AT&T, Vodaphone, RIM, etc etc etc *all* have to provide mechanisms both manual and automatic to enable the authorities to gain this information. They can do nothing about this, it is the law, period.
If you don't like the above, don't use internet or any communication services whatsoever.
Some countries have different interpretations on personal communication privacy. Some countries actively monitor everything. If you don't like this, stop blaming the manufacturers and providers of the equipment but become a politician and change the system. Providing this stuff is very, very expensive and complicated.
In this situation you can not blame the CEO of RIM - the interviewer doesn't understand the law and the specific compliances companies must adhere to and was just looking for a fight - makes sensationalist journalism.
It's also his right to start crying and call his mommy, but not very co-ceo-ish really.
Basically: Buy devices that use a proprietary "security" system, and you're fucked. Gee, who would have guessed?
I'm still trying to fathom why you'd use a closed system on a device that's capable of IM, E-Mail and, well, pretty much anything a computer is capable of these days.
What's keeping people and companies on Blackberry? Other than force of habit?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So why not a Nokia portrait QWERTY device (E series, I think it was), or something similar from the Android domain (OK, battery life could be a problem in the latter case)? Is the keyboard on the Blackberry really that much better?
The hardware is one thing, of course - I just don't understand the BBM mania. My little sister got a Blackberry just because all of her friends have them and therefore use BBM... WTF? I just run a multi-protocol IM app (with push, of course) and, depending on the platform, either Android's version of push Gmail or an E-mail client with IMAP Idle push support... works anywhere! And anyone (even non-Android users, amazing how that works, isn't it?) can contact me via the communication channel of their choice (phone, SIPphone, IM via ICQ/AIM/MSN/Skype/FBChat/Gtalk, FB Message, E-Mail, whatever...).
Same thing with the iPhone users flocking to "Whatsapp" and those other platform dependent messaging services... WHY would you sacrifice interoperability?
It is a common thread, people on sites like slashdot will vilify a corporation which doesn't have power over state actors yet ignore the fact their own country trades or has other involved relations with the same country. As in, oh its wrong for RIM to allow monitoring of transmissions in that country but its okay for our government to sell them arms or even the equipment to do the monitoring.
The story summary makes this site come across as if it were staffed by a bunch of immature do nothings.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Claiming "cosi fan tutte"?
It's a valid question - he could have used it to to explain the reasoning to the general public.
But no, he walks away, similar to a child that covers the eyes with its hands, claiming that because it can't see you, you can't see it either.
Seriously, with an attitude like this ("If I walk away, the problem ceases to exist"), it's no surprise the company outlook is not great.
I even give him the benefit of the doubt that it's a decision he was and is not happy with (I watched the interview and while I'm an avid consumer of "Lie To Me", I cannot say if the negative/reserved body-language he has is because he hates the interviewer or the subject or the fact that a business-decision he didn't like had to be done for the sake of the shareholders).
Anything would have been less of a PR nightmare than just walking out.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
and now they're having temper tantrums.
I am from India and not a blackberry user. The perception here in India is as below. (1) The Indian government is worried that RIM will be used by terrorists. RIM tried to explain that the specific encryption keys aren't under their control. So it is on hold. (2) Given the compulsions of the market, it could also be other players pressurising the government to ban RIM so that they can step into the space.
Blackberry fits into the enterprise structure. The IT guys can lock down the device remotely - all emails/appointments/contacts are instantly synched (Iphone cannot synch appointments to MSexchange) - so that can remote wipe/reset the device if needed. A company knows exactly what they are getting for the device, and that lowers risk. And it is the COO & CIO who makes the decision to get these enterprise solutions - and this is the core of the Blackberry market. You can run your own Android/Gmail/IMAP/whatever "homegrown" solution, but can you convince the CIO of a 1000+ organisation to go with your solution? RIM can.
Simple... iPhones and Android devices can be added into the Enterprise. Blackberry devices were built from the ground up to be Enterprise devices and be very secure while working in that environment.
That's not what perplexes me - Blackberry is designed for enterprise, so it's not surprising that the IT department deploys Blackberries along with Thinkpads, EliteBooks and Latitudes... but why are people choosing to use Blackberry for their private device?
Ever heard of the saying, "Nation of Sheep"?
The question "wasn't fair" because I think the CEO's mindset had him believing that the word "interview" was spelled i-n-f-o-m-e-r-c-i-a-l. In America, our news is funded primarily (and often held hostage) by corporate interests which is part of the reason we often don't get real news. The CEO probably wasn't accustomed to getting non-softball questions...
Is the keyboard on the Blackberry really that much better?
Most BB users will tell you it absolutely is. We had a heck of a time getting people to move off of Blackberries on onto other devices for this very reason.
In my experience, the keyboard is really better than most other phones. The OS and navigation gimmick (whether ball, pad, or wheel) are only meh at best. But they do work, are pretty resilient, and the BES makes them great from an enterprise standpoint (though other phones can be managed via Good, Trust Digital, or other products as well.)
Or Company B, who says, "Nope! Our stuff is 100% secure. Completely safe. No security holes exist now, nor will they ever. Your secrets are safe from the government if you give them to us! If you wanna shoot the King of Unspecifiedistan, this is the place to yak on about it!"
Well, no, I don't trust that straw man at all. If he tried to sell me a security solution, I would ignite his straw so that he burned into nothingness.
Anyway what was your point?
He could have simple answered the question "As you know we built up quite a large network in XXX country. Our customers are very happy with the service we provide. Unfortunately the government of XXX country after we have spent millions on infrastructure forced us to do YYY. We would like to have not been put in such a situation however if we did not comply, we would have been forced out, and we would have lost those millions in infrastructure we have spent to government XXX. It really is unfortunate and If those countries were like the UK or the USA
Still not a great answer, however he could have saved face with an answer like that.
It's your right to walk away from an interview at any time.
Well, of course it is, but that's entirely beside the point now, isn't it? The point is that RIM abandoned any notion of ethics, credibility, and trust when they folded up and sold out. Not that that's anything new in the world of corporate-government relationships, but it's just a laugh when the head whore gets all indignant when someone points out that he'll lay down for anyone with money.
For the most part the hardware is decent (its underpowered, but the keyboards are pretty good). They're cheap; you can get the flagship blackberry for $99. RIM's actually done a decent job of shoehorning in more "consumer" features like media apps and the like (considering what they were beginning with). Also they're cheap. Prior to the iPhone, Blackberry was the image of smartphones for a lot of people too.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
(Iphone cannot synch appointments to MSexchange)
Wrong.
The fact of the matter here is that in these countries, this kind of access is lawful for the government. The people of these countries are responsible for fighting for their privacy rights, not foreign corporations. I also believe that by "dealt with this already", Lazaridis is talking about RIM having made concessions (which were announced to the press long ago) but assuring customers that BES traffic would remain as private as 3DES or AES256 encryption will allow. Until the people of these countries decide they want privacy this kind of access will remain lawful and foreign corporations will have to concede to their demands. From what I've heard, they want the government to have this kind of access to prevent attacks. Who are we (as the rest of the world) to force our ideas of privacy on societies that value something else more highly?
...and be very secure while working in that environment.
Ummm... apparently not. So the advantage is what, again?
As others have pointed out, it works well in the enterprise. My understanding is that, as long as you're using your own Blackberry server, the data is encrypted. The ability for governments to read the data comes from using your phone company's Blackberry servers, in countries that won't allow BB to operate without a backdoor. My understanding may be wrong, but that's my impression.
You don't have the right to refuse USA access to private information if you are within reach of extraordinary rendition of the USA. Given that, it seems somewhat churlish to ask them about Asia and the Middle East without including the USA totalitarian regime's access to private conversations...
Ah gotcha, that makes sense.
No fair, I'M TELLIN!
At the very end of the interview he let's slip, "Come on, this is a national security issue..."
So, there you have it! It's a national security issue in the middle east that RIM is handing over access to their "secure" network. Unfair? Unfair? I hope the interviewer caught that slip and nails your ass with a follow up on whether or not RIM has any backbone, or is it Google (thus Android) who rather walk out of China than hand its corporate control over to a government. Yes, RIM is in Canada and Google is in US. What's that matter when we're talking about China and India wanting to break into technology both countries rely on. The President of the United States relies on a BlackBerry for our discussions of our highest security. I hope the NSA tossed out all the RIM crypto and replaced it when they built that phone.
I8-D
You're missing the key point: did Canada initiate any of those actions? No, they were just lending a helping hand to somebody else, because they asked them nicely.
By that logic, the US invading Iraq is ok since some Iraqis asked them nicely. It's silly.
Also, I'm not sure how you define "initiate". When the US goes over to invade a foreign nation, and brings along a coalition of partners, I guess it's ok to take part as long as you're not American? So, the US is evil for invading Iraq, but the Brits, Aussies, Polaks, etc are all guilt free good-guys because they didn't start it? What about Afghanistan? Same thing there? Big Bad Yanks started it, and us Canadians just tagged along for the ride? It's not our fault, they made us do it?
I don't think you've really thought this through.
Correction: the keyboards USED TO BE pretty good. They keyboard on my new BlackBerry 9780 (Bold) sucks compared to my old 8320 (Curve). The Curve keyboard was nice, with each key separated from its neighbors by a plastic cutout in the face of the phone. The 9780's keyboard is completely mushy and the keys are all bunched together with no separation.
so, if people shatter ethical barriers IN GROUP, 'as a company', its ok.
or, if 'shareholders' start complaining, you are allowed to shatter barriers to ethics.
is that it ?
Read radical news here
That's where you're drawing the line in the sand? In my browser, the title doesn't get smellchecked. So, you telling me you can't guess at the word I meant to smell when it's a letter off? Your use of idiom suggests you're not an ESL writer.
Luke, help me take this mask off
His big problem now is that it's not like taking the fifth. We now have the right to draw inferences of guilt.
I can't imagine he wouldn't expect that, the truth must be really bad.
Like it or not, the US is the sergeant. The UK and Canada are just privates. Unless the US leads, they wouldn't follow.
P.S. when you develop some comprehension skills you can presume to lecture me on whether I've thought things through. Got that, you arrogant wanker?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Thanks for the confirmation!
Let's see, so if I sell bananas, but someone in the US decides to use my bananas to kill someone...
That scenario would be far more plausible in the UK than the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piWCBOsJr-w
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide