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BlackBerry CEO Promises To Try To Break Customers' Encryption If the US Government Asks Him To (techdirt.com)
An anonymous reader writes from a report via Techdirt that claims the company has "chosen to proclaim its willingness to hack into its own customers' devices if the government asks." From the report: From a Forbes article: "[CEO John] Chen, speaking at a press Q&A during the BlackBerry Security Summit in London on Tuesday, claimed that it wasn't so simple for BlackBerry to crack its own protections. 'Only when the government gives us a court order we will start tracking it. Then the question is: how good is the encryption? 'Today's encryption has got to the point where it's rather difficult, even for ourselves, to break it, to break our own encryption... it's not an easily breakable thing. We will only attempt to do that if we have the right court order. The fact that we will honor the court order doesn't imply we could actually get it done.'"
Oddly, this came coupled with Chen's assertions its user protections were better than Apple's and its version of the Android operating system more secure than the one offered by competitors. This proactive hacking offer may be pointed to in the future by DOJ and FBI officials as evidence Apple, et al aren't doing nearly enough to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement. Of course, Chen's willingness to try doesn't guarantee the company will be able to decrypt communications of certain users. Blackberry may be opening up to law enforcement but it won't be sharing anything more with its remaining users. From the Forbes article: "Chen also said there were no plans for a transparency report that would reveal more about the company's work with government. 'No one has really asked us for it. We don't really have a policy on whether we will do it or not. Just like every major technology company that deals with telecoms, we obviously have quite a number of requests around the world.'"
Oddly, this came coupled with Chen's assertions its user protections were better than Apple's and its version of the Android operating system more secure than the one offered by competitors. This proactive hacking offer may be pointed to in the future by DOJ and FBI officials as evidence Apple, et al aren't doing nearly enough to cooperate with U.S. law enforcement. Of course, Chen's willingness to try doesn't guarantee the company will be able to decrypt communications of certain users. Blackberry may be opening up to law enforcement but it won't be sharing anything more with its remaining users. From the Forbes article: "Chen also said there were no plans for a transparency report that would reveal more about the company's work with government. 'No one has really asked us for it. We don't really have a policy on whether we will do it or not. Just like every major technology company that deals with telecoms, we obviously have quite a number of requests around the world.'"
Isn't there a law or code of some sort that says not to murder, harm, sue, or otherwise ruin a paying customer?
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
Never trusted Blackberry... now we have proof.
just wondering
Who cares? Blackberry has been a has been for at least the last 5-8 years. And its probably been at least that long since I have seen anyone walking around with one.
I'm sure all eight remaining BB customers are totally freaked out. Best switch to Windows Phone to keep their niche player cred.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Not that I was going to seriously consider buying a Blackberry product before, but I can't think of any possibly way this would make me want to change my mind.
Is he just saying stupid shit like this so he can get fired and collect his golden parachute?
If he was asked to put in a backdoor "by court order", would he....
Thats the $64,000 question , and to be honest I and everyone else simply do not know. Unfortunately in this case that amounts to distrust.
BB is gone burgers
I guess that is the real news here. I can't believe they are still in business. Their setup is not business friendly in any way, it's completely fragile, thus email to the phones break on a constant basis. At least that was the case 10 years ago when I had to manage a few of them before corporate America jumped over to the iPhone and then finally mixed in Android. Why is anyone wasting time and money with RIM? Unless they want a rimjob, which looks like any RIM user would be in for by the feds simply asking, please.
Blackberry sold out to governments giving them access back in 2012
If you don't know me by now...
Blackberry Offers 'Lawful Device Interception Capabilities'
BlackBerry Hands Over User Data To Help Police 'Kick Ass,' Insider Says
BlackBerry CEO 'Disturbed' By Apple's Hard Line On Encryption
... then you will never never know me.
BUT FEAR ITSELF
Seriously.
They're so customer unfriendly it's not even funny.
"Yeah. We know you paid a lot of money for our products. But fuck you! Because we have an "in" with the gub-mint!"
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
... in return: Irrelevance.
I wasn't aware Blackberry is even relevant anymore. Now I have even more reason to stay away ... as if there weren't enough reasons anywway.
The bulk of Blackberry's remaining business is government around the world. Why would any foreign government consider Blackberry now that its CEO is willing to sell them out?
You're wrong: 1. They can challenge them in court. 2. Here they aren't just overturning data but going out of their way to hack their software to spy on the user. Big difference. See 1. 3. Encryption should be unhackable by anyone. Suggests weak keys.
Chen is a loser and a moron. Every time he opens his mouth Blackberry looks even more stupid choice.
^ See title ^
... says 2008 me.
#DeleteChrome
They have always done this, even when they were Research in Motion. The only change is that they are saying it's hard to break the encryption. At least when they had their own OS and applications which interacted with the enterprise software the company had keys, on a regional basis, to decrypt the data. It sounds like they can't decrypt the phone itself easily, but are happy to try. I'm sure that they still have the ability to decrypt anything that goes through the enterprise software.
So obvious he came up with more... what an idiot.
That I have never heard of Blackberry / RIM being in the news for resisting or challenging a government order to reveal customer data speaks a great deal to me.
At least I have some public signalling by Apple that they think about whether they should or not. Maybe BB thinks about this as well, but I don't hear about it.
to blackberry's funeral?
You'll try to help police get into a protected phone? He should be fired for make that statement.
And we're forgetting that 'lawful court order' is anything Putin says it is in Russia and many other dictatorships.
Since BB spans several countries, including Russia, it could be served in any of those countries for data in any other country. If he's not prepared to make his encryption uncrackable, then it's only as good as the weakest legal protection in the most dictatorial country.
I've been repeating this for quite a while now, but I dunno for what reason, people have apparently forgotten all about the case involving the Canadian Mounted Police, a master decryption key for all non-enterprise accounts, and extremely crappy response from your same very own John Chen who was also the CEO back at the time.
Let me refresh people's memories:
https://www.theverge.com/2016/...
https://news.vice.com/article/...
http://blogs.blackberry.com/20...
https://www.computerworld.com/...
If anyone was stupid enough to fall into the obvious and very false statement that the new Blackberry had better costumer protection in place in comparison to Apple or other Android brands, it's on you for not doing very basic research.
It's like getting surprized with a new round of scandals of Lenovo laptops having malware pre-loaded on their bios. There have been enough cases to know what the position of the company is. If you are still throwing your money at them, you are just reinforcing the behavior and proving to them that it's acceptable.
John Chen has said nothing there that he didn't already say in the past. While he is the CEO of the company, such behavior is to be expected. Anyone who cares about their own personal privacy and about having proper standards on costumer protection should've already let go of the brand by now.
We all know you can ship a software update, and you got instant root.
Aside from petty criminals, I would be shocked that any decent terrorist was even bothering to rely on any kind of third-party to provide their encryption anyway. I mean, that's just stupid.
Use ANY communications medium you like. The same metadata would be present on just about all of them. And encrypt the message before you send it. It's not hard.
Then you know that only the guy with the key can decrypt it and it doesn't matter what Blackberry/WhatsApp/Facebook etc. record - they only get the same metadata anyway. And, also, you could send the message by carrier pigeon if you were that paranoid. It would barely matter.
What we're catching with such stupidity are not the master criminals, but the idiots. The idiots are easy to spot anyway, precisely because they give the game away from the metadata. While the master criminals aren't hindered in the slightest. Meanwhile, all our privacy is stripped away on the inference that we're somehow stopping the master criminals by doing so.
I object to the stupidity, dumbing down, and taking me for an idiot - much more than I object to someone claiming to help the government decrypt if ordered to do so.
And I own the Porsche Design Blackberry.
Niche? What niche?
Federal government employees with access to classified information are required to use Blackberries specifically because of the solid encryption.
Including the President.
What's a Blackberry?
How the fuck is BBM, a chat thing, considered your actual phone? It's no different than text, except that the whole world can access text messages through numerous ss7 holes. Fucking dummies.