Blackberry gives UAE & Saudi Arabia two fingers
This issue looks as if it could turn very nasty.
Last week the UAE rulers announced that on October 11th it will block all Blackberry data transmissions in the Kingdom, citing “security concerns” the government has said that it cannot monitor BlackBerry communication because data is encrypted and handled through servers abroad.
Yesterday RIM the manufacturer of Blackberry cancelled its launch party for The BlackBerry Torch in the U.A.E. which was due to take place in the Burj Al Arab and in an even more bizarre move issued the below statement telling the goverment to forget it.
This has serious implications for business travel into the region and I am sure will reflect poorly on The Gulf as a whole.
RIM has spent over a decade building a very strong security architecture to meet our enterprise customers’ strict security requirements around the world. It is a solution that we are very proud of, and it has helped us become the number one choice for enterprises and governments. In recent days there has been a range of commentary, speculation, and misrepresentation regarding this solution and we want to take the opportunity to set the record straight. There is only one BlackBerry enterprise solution available to our customers around the world and it remains unchanged in all of the markets we operate in. RIM cooperates with all governments with a consistent standard and the same degree of respect. Any claims that we provide, or have ever provided, something unique to the government of one country that we have not offered to the governments of all countries, are unfounded. The BlackBerry enterprise solution was designed to preclude RIM, or any third party, from reading encrypted information under any circumstances since RIM does not store or have access to the encrypted data.RIM cannot accommodate any request for a copy of a customer’s encryption key, since at no time does RIM, or any wireless network operator or any third party, ever possess a copy of the key. This means that customers of the BlackBerry enterprise solution can maintain confidence in the integrity of the security architecture without fear of compromise.
Updated (thanks Aswath)
It appears that Blackberry operates some strange rules, it seems that they have given full visibility to the authorities in the USA
The UAE and Saudi Arabia have banned so many things like democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, justice, freedom to enjoy oneself and so forth, that I can’t see myself ever visiting either state/kingdom, let alone working there. Its another sign of how really unstable dictatorships are, even “benign” ones like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe or Gaddafi’s Libya.
Why is the tech world so concerned now – because they banned a gadget?
Interestingly though, the USA had versions of Windows with 128-bit security banned for export to many countries until around 2001 (for security [?]) reasons.
This one Blackberry/RIM feature is almost enough for me to give up my Nokia N900 for. Security, a prize worth protecting.
Fuck the UAE, Saudi Arabia and India, and add SSH tunnels to the Blackberry to bypass local censorship.
BTW: Encryption is easy, I can show you in 5 minutes, how to send a message, that can NEVER be decoded by a computer.
Branedy:
You can say “fuck” to any country/body. I will say RIM is man enough if it is willing to give the finger to US or other western countries and still gets wide support from their citizens.
1, 2, 10, 19,
Pat
The security features in Blackberry were key to its approval by large corporates in US (speaking as former employee and had lots of discussions with IT Security over years on this).
US Gov having a backdoor into it and not allowing other governments backdoor into it makes sense at a number of levels – its a Canadian company, it gets it approved by US government (lots of federal employees have one including famously current President). No way US gov wants anyone else to get in. And most large US corporates are major US gov supplier so don’t balk at US gov restrictions.