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BlackBerry CEO 'Disturbed' By Apple's Hard Line On Encryption (theinquirer.net)
An anonymous reader writes: BlackBerry CEO John Chen said he is "disturbed" by Apple's tough approach to encryption and user privacy, warning that the firm's attitude is harmful to society. Earlier this year, Chen said in response to Apple resisting the government's demands to unlock an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters: "We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good." During BlackBerry's Security Summit in New York this week, Chen made several more comments about Apple's stance on encryption. "One of our competitors, we call it 'the other fruit company,' has an attitude that it doesn't matter how much it might hurt society, they're not going to help," he said. "I found that disturbing as a citizen. I think BlackBerry, like any company, should have a basic civil responsibility. If the world is in danger, we should be able to help out." He did say there was a lot of "nonsense" being reported about BlackBerry and its approach to how it handles user information. "Of course, there need to be clear guidelines. The guidelines we've adopted require legal assets. A subpoena for certain data. But if you have the data, you should give it to them," he said. "There's some complete nonsense about what we can and can't do. People are mad at us that we let the government have the data. It's absolute garbage. We can't do that." Chen also warned that mandatory back doors aren't a good idea either, hinting at the impending Investigatory Powers Bill. "There's proposed legislation in the U.S., and I'm sure it will come to the EU, that every vendor needs to provide some form of a back door. That is not going to fly at all. It just isn't," he said.
Glad their insecure piece of shit platform is nearly dead
"We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good."
I guess Mr. Chen and Mr. Cook have very different ideas of what the greater good is.
Blackberry's CEO is just positioning itself as the cocksucker for governments.
Anything for some more contracts, I guess. They need whatever they can get.
John Chen is a bit like gun prohibitionists. It doesn't matter if government requires manufacturers to install back doors. Eventually someone will develop encryption software without a back door - and government will still not have a key.
Outlawing guns or encryption guarantees that only outlaws will possess those things.
Apple is smart enough to realize this. They understand that throwing their users under the bus now will not make us safer later.
I wish they could have gotten the CEO of Pan Am, Zenith, or RCA to speak up on the subject.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
I'm disturbed by BlackBerry's stance on the situation.
Under no circumstances should backdoors be allowed.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Blackberry's CEO is just positioning itself as the cocksucker for governments.
Anything for some more contracts, I guess. They need whatever they can get.
A bit ironic, as part of the reason for Blackberry's decline is that businesses can't trust they won't hand over their secure communications to whatever entity asks for it.
And they use to have such a good rep... oh well, someone flush the toilet.
Apple did what they should do for encryption. They refused to release a signed version of their firmware that would allow any phone with that firmware to be brute force cracked. Even if they took the actual phone into their possession and loaded the special firmware themselves only on that phone it would mean tens of thousands of requests from law enforcement and courts all over the world. They couldn't say no to any of them. A logistical nightmare that doesn't make Apple any money; break even at best but with lots of negative press.
It's a no win situation. And you can be sure that further into the future they will endeavor to make it impossible for even them to crack their own phones no matter what firmware the device uses.
Didn't you hear? The USA just bought a ton of apple phones for military special forces.
Pretty much. The only reason BlackBerry exists in India, for example, is because they gave the Indian government a backdoor into all BlackBerry devices. If they'd do it for India, why wouldn't they be happy to do it elsewhere? A company like that isn't trustworthy and it's no wonder their brand has tanked. Apple isn't going to go down the same moronic path.
"If there was a gay Afro-Puertorican Linux distribution, I'd give it a try" ~lucm
Every country will eventually NEED to get access to that data. It's far more likely to be used to squash liberty than to solve the cases for 3 or 4 bad guys. If you need to hack a phone to catch someone, you are fishing. The dumb criminals of course will leave the evidence there -- but also everywhere else. The terrorist cell however, will use a burner phone or a damn pigeon.
America will not get more secure by more spying, but by stronger communities and job opportunities. Every one of these attacks is coming from a loner.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
"I guess I won't be using this Blackberry any more." - Everyone in 2008
economically. Not at his income level. There's little doubt he's got a healthy golden parachute. Being afraid for things like surveillance generally requires quite a bit of economic insecurity. You have to believe the world can and will turn on you at some point, which is an odd thought to have if you've spent all or most of your adult life without worrying about money. It's an entirely different outlook on life you'd only get from a member of the ruling class. The 20th century equivalent to "Let them eat cake".
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1) BB just died with Mr. Chen's comments.
2) Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that Apple has integrity*. Not a huge fanboi, it pains me terribly to say that.
*on the matter of encryption/privacy.
Agreed!
It's obviously political grandstanding based on this quote alone: "We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good."
Apple has stated it puts all users ("greater good") at risk to find or create a back-door. Even if the BlackBerry CEO disagrees with the weight of one risk against the other (potentially solving crimes now versus creating more in the future), he should give Apple the benefit of the doubt in terms of internal motivation, and simply say, "I disagree with Apple's weighing of probabilities" rather than question Apple's motives.
It's unprofessional to publicly question motives unless you have solid evidence of bias. Disagreement about risk probability estimates does not even come close to that level.
If by chance Apple replies and says BlackBerry is just saying that to get gov't contracts, they'd be committing the same sin of guessing motivations instead of focusing the facts of differing professional assessments.
Hanlon's Razor.
Everybody probably has some degree internal biases, some they are aware of and some not. Human nature. Pointing that out doesn't tell anybody anything new, and is rude: it generates heat, not light.
Table-ized A.I.
But even governments are abandoning Blackberry devices, and since he's just turning Blackberry into an Android maker, he's lost most of what differentiated BB from everyone else. At this point, it looks like a guy with a horse drawn carriage who he's strapped a gas engine to shaking his fists at the sports cars.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"I think BlackBerry, like any company, should have a basic civil responsibility. If the world is in danger, we should be able to help out." ...
Chen also warned that mandatory back doors aren't a good idea either.
I'd like to hear Chen's idea of how he can accomplish access to encrypted data without the user's consent while not having a back door.
I suppose he doesn't count the vendor having the user's key and using it without permission as "unauthorized access".
My long time complaint has been that Blackberry was very abusive and disregarded the desires of its users. They would allow telcos to molest their products to maintain a "good" relationship with the telcos. They would allow IT departments to molest their products to maintain a "good" relationship with the IT departments, and now they seem to want the jackbooted thugs who run our secret police to molest their products, but for what?
They let other people turn their phones into turds an the market spoke.
Now he is whining because Apple won't turn their phones into turds on the behest of some bunch of assholes.
The telcos put blackberries onto the bottom shelf the second the iPhone came along, the IT departments switched to everything else, and the jackbooted thugs will probably treat BB with the same respect. This makes me smile.
For those who aren't Canadian, BB epitomizes everything that the rest of Canada hates about central Canada (where RIM is located). This unrelenting bowing to authority. This treating of the people as peasants who don't know what is best for themselves. A pseudo intellectual belief that the rest of the world will somehow come around to their delusions and make it their reality.
If any warrant can be trumped up, the logical end point is that you don't believe in warrants to begin with.
No, absolutely not. The logical endpoint is that a warrant is a tool that can be used for either good or evil. All tools should be evaluated on a case by case basis. If your logic was true, it would mean nobody could own a screwdriver or a frying pan. Those tools have been used as a murder devices, so must always be a murder device.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
And that is just it: Sucking up to the authorities in a police-state like the US is _not_ for the greater good. Apple has it right this time, what is demanded of them goes way too far.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We alienated our customer base by handing out their privacy and now they should damn well, too!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.