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Mr Beard said Blackberry did not support "backdoors" that would grant open access to customers' information and had never complied with such a request anywhere

by po 11y ago

Mr Beard said Blackberry did not support "backdoors" that would grant open access to customers' information and had never complied with such a request anywhere in the world. I'm kind of confused by this. I mean we're talking about the company RIM that already handed over the keys to India, right? http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-02/news/33001399_1_blackberry-enterprise-encryption-keys-corporate-emails http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-02/news...

jackgavigan 11y ago
Perhaps in India, the solution was more targeted than what was being sought in Pakistan. The interesting thing about all this is that it raises the question of how companies like Blackberry will react if the UK's Investigatory Powers Bill is passed in its current form.
shawn-butler 11y ago
They don't even have the keys to turn over for BES (unless there are backdoors) This article refers to BIS... the consumer servers. Once the server is on foreign soil, its governed by local law. That's the way the world works.
- mtgx 11y ago
  Which is one of the reasons BlackBerry would rather leave the country than piss off its customers by telling them they can't use their own keys anymore. They're more than happy to give up the one and only consumer BBM key, as they've already done for India and Saudi Arabia, and possibly other countries as well that we don't know about. As the company's COO said a couple of weeks ago, BlackBerry supports "lawful intercept" for their products and services: http://fedscoop.com/blackberry-taking-balanced-approach-to-encryption-lawful-intercept http://fedscoop.com/blackberry-taking-balanced-approach-to-e... And by the way, the article is inaccurate/outdated. BlackBerry already said it will delay the exit (probably indefinitely) as the Pakistan government has already extended its BES shutdown by another month, and probably also indefinitely, as I don't think it wanted BlackBerry to actually leave the country, but it hoped it could scare it into giving it access. This also tells us companies (including BlackBerry in other countries) shouldn't be so quick to "pee in their pants" (as another famous executive quote once said, even though I know he meant something different) as soon as governments start threatening them with a shutdown unless they provide backdoors or stop using strong encryption. Instead, they should do the right thing and always fight for their customers (including regular consumers, not just enterprise customers), even if that means using the final option of leaving the country (but it often won't be the case).

by po 11y ago

jackgavigan 11y ago

Perhaps in India, the solution was more targeted than what was being sought in Pakistan. The interesting thing about all this is that it raises the question of how companies like Blackberry will react if the UK's Investigatory Powers Bill is passed in its current form.

shawn-butler 11y ago

They don't even have the keys to turn over for BES (unless there are backdoors) This article refers to BIS... the consumer servers. Once the server is on foreign soil, its governed by local law. That's the way the world works.

mtgx 11y ago
Which is one of the reasons BlackBerry would rather leave the country than piss off its customers by telling them they can't use their own keys anymore. They're more than happy to give up the one and only consumer BBM key, as they've already done for India and Saudi Arabia, and possibly other countries as well that we don't know about. As the company's COO said a couple of weeks ago, BlackBerry supports "lawful intercept" for their products and services: http://fedscoop.com/blackberry-taking-balanced-approach-to-encryption-lawful-intercept http://fedscoop.com/blackberry-taking-balanced-approach-to-e... And by the way, the article is inaccurate/outdated. BlackBerry already said it will delay the exit (probably indefinitely) as the Pakistan government has already extended its BES shutdown by another month, and probably also indefinitely, as I don't think it wanted BlackBerry to actually leave the country, but it hoped it could scare it into giving it access. This also tells us companies (including BlackBerry in other countries) shouldn't be so quick to "pee in their pants" (as another famous executive quote once said, even though I know he meant something different) as soon as governments start threatening them with a shutdown unless they provide backdoors or stop using strong encryption. Instead, they should do the right thing and always fight for their customers (including regular consumers, not just enterprise customers), even if that means using the final option of leaving the country (but it often won't be the case).