BlackBerry Hands Over User Data To Help Police 'Kick Ass,' Insider Says (www.cbc.ca)

Reader Dr Caleb writes: A specialized unit inside mobile firm BlackBerry has for years enthusiastically helped intercept user data -- including BBM messages -- to help in hundreds of police investigations in dozens of countries, a CBC News investigation reveals. For instance, citing a number of sources, CBC says that BlackBerry intercepted messages to aid investigators probing the political scandals in Brazil that are dogging suspended President Dilma Rousseff. The company also helped authenticate BBM messages in Major League Baseball's drug investigation that saw New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez suspended in 2014. One document obtained by CBC News reveals how the Waterloo, Ont.-based company handles requests for information and co-operates with foreign law enforcement and government agencies, in stark contrast with many other tech companies. "We were helping law enforcement kick ass," said one person.

Comments

All three customers will be disappointed

[Anonymous Coward]

RIP BlackBerry, again.

Re:All three customers will be disappointed

[Lab Rat Jason]

Yeah, a leak like this makes me think someone WANTS to drive another nail in the coffin...

Re:All three customers will be disappointed

[MitchDev]

Yeah, a bit too convenient in light of the public reaction to the FBI/Apple fight....

In before Blackberry shills

[LichtSpektren]

As difficult as it may be to believe, BlackBerry has an intense cadre of shills (or perhaps rabid insane fans) that pollute every Internet article they can find which sheds a bad light on BB.

For us normal humans with functioning brains, we're just waiting for when BB goes under, hoping they sell their patent for a physical keyboard to a respectable Android OEM.

Re:In before Blackberry shills

[geoskd]

They got praised for refusing to unlock phones but most ignored when people pointed out they gave up "cloud data" in a heartbeat.

People have no reasonable expectation of privacy with cloud data. Its is well understood that once you send your data out into the world, it is fair game. If you don't like it, encrypt it, or make sure it doesn't leave your private devices. That is why the push for encrypted communications. Third parties are legally required to hand over data, but there is no requirement that the data be decrypted if the third party doesn't have the tools to do so. Apple makes sure that they do not have the tools to decrypt, as do many other software and hardware developers. Blackberry *does* have the tools to decrypt, and they are waaaay too ready to do so.

Re:In before Blackberry shills

[PraiseBob]

Why not say- "People have no reasonable expectation of privacy with postal mail. Once you send the letter from your mailbox, it is fair game."

Except, there are federal laws that specifically make it illegal for another private citizen to snoop on your mail, and require a warrant for law enforcement to snoop on your mail.

Re:In before Blackberry shills

[theshowmecanuck]

Then, they got lazy

I call this "Novell Syndrome." Many people here might not remember that at one time Novell built the absolute best LAN server software around. But they got big heads and refused to improve. They wanted to keep LAN administration an arcane art and were killed by Microsoft. Microsoft was to area networks as Apple was to smartphones (and whether you hate Microsoft or not, their server software is now ubiquitous). People wanted certain features and Microsoft/Apple listened while [RIM|Blackberry]/Novell didn't. Now anytime I see a company die because they got too full of themselves, I call it Novell Syndrome.

Re:In before Blackberry shills

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, they got lazy

I call this "Novell Syndrome." Many people here might not remember that at one time Novell built the absolute best LAN server software around. But they got big heads and refused to improve. They wanted to keep LAN administration an arcane art and were killed by Microsoft. Microsoft was to area networks as Apple was to smartphones (and whether you hate Microsoft or not, their server software is now ubiquitous). People wanted certain features and Microsoft/Apple listened while [RIM|Blackberry]/Novell didn't. Now anytime I see a company die because they got too full of themselves, I call it Novell Syndrome.

It's not that Novell didn't improve, in fact a lot of modern AD copied a lot of the feature from Netware 4's NDS. In the late 90's/early 2000's, Netware 4's directory services were miles ahead of Active Directory in terms of both performance, functionality, reliability and scalability. It wasn't until XP that AD even became a contender, and, realistically AD didn't reach NDS's versatility until server 2008, and there are still aspects of AD that don't match the versatility NDS.

Novell's biggest problem was that they were hampered by the fact the Netware 3 rocked. DOS and Windows 3.x/9x clients (aka: The DOS client) were solid and reliable. The servers were bullet proof. Sure, it was "only" a file server, but at the time, that's all the vast majority of people needed. When companies started looking at replacing Netware 3, they were probably looking at Netware 5 or Active Directory.

Which brings us to Novell's 2nd biggest problem: Netware 5. It was based off of SuSE Linux, so the servers were stable, but the core of NDS was not, it was a good thing that NW5 had good clustering capabilities because something would crash all the time. They abandoned all of their native tools for NW4, and rewrote them in Java for NW5. And they sucked, as they were both slower they were not feature complete. you still needed the old NW4 applications to configure the server the first time out of the box. And, to add insult to injury, if you had a problem with getting the licensing files to work, you needed to go back and use a NW3 tool to get it to take. And unless you were an old hand at NW3, you would not know about said tool.

Another thing was that a Netware server by itself, couldn't do anything other then host NDS functionality. You couldn't get on the machine, set up NDS and then run Quake on it. Windows 2000+ you could, so it was easier for people to learn on (Remember, at the time you really needed to spend about $1,000 for a machine that approached usability, and to have to buy 2 would be out of most students reach)

Speaking of reach, Microsoft also let you get the server versions of the OS for a 60-180 day trail period. Netware? You had to spend around $1,000 for a 5 user license.

bad plan

[geoskd]

It is simply amazing that the folks calling the shots at Blackberry cant see how downright idiotic this policy is.

From a PR standpoint, its a miserable failure: Every news cycle for the last year, there has been some story or other implying that Cops are out killing innocent people in scores and droves. If you're blackberry, you get up and cheer on the killers.

From a monetary standpoint, this is a miserable failure. Lets just advertise that we hand out your information to every two bit despot and charlatan that asks. Thats a way to instill confidence in your product as a secure device fit for the leader of the free world. I wonder how sales of their newer devices is doing?

From an ethics standpoint, this is a miserable failure. "Those who will give up fundamental data security for a little perceived safety are morons" -Abraham Lincoln 1859

Re:bad plan

[QuietLagoon]

..."Those who will give up fundamental data security for a little perceived safety are morons" -Abraham Lincoln 1859...

"Don't believe everything you read on the Internet" --- Abraham Lincoln 1854

Re:And why is this wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

We know it's on the up-and-up because they make the police sign a letter

...The cover letter demands police sign a confirmation that their request is legal in their home country and affirm that it is "made in connection with the enforcement, investigation, or prosecution of violations of publicly promulgated criminal laws and not the control, suppression, or punishment of peaceful expression of political or religious opinion."...

I'm sure that's about as effective as the US Constitution has been for our own police force.

Re:And why is this wrong?

[geoskd]

police can ask other people about you without a warrant.

The problem here is that Blackberry has deliberately built their system in such a way as they will always have access to, and subsequently the ability to divulge, your secrets. If you don't want blackberry decrypting your communications and giving that information to anyone who asks; Don't use Blackberry. That is the lesson they are trying to teach their customers.

Blackberry has deliberately set themselves up as a third party to every conversation such that you as the individual no longer have any reasonable expectation of privacy and as such, the police don't even need a warrant to get at your information. Apple by contrast has gone to great lengths to ensure that they *are not a party to your information*, and as such Apple can't be compelled to give away your secrets because they don't have them.

As always, all bets are off if you use cloud services, but then that just makes you a moron.