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I'm not a RIM fan by any means (I love my iPhone), but I think Lazaridis did the right thing in ending that interview. Of course, standing up to people isn't e

I'm not a RIM fan by any means (I love my iPhone), but I think Lazaridis did the right thing in ending that interview. Of course, standing up to people isn't enough. RIM's real challenge is to make competitive products. Will they do it? Showing spine in the interview seems to say yes, but what they actually have on offer right now seems to say no.

ianb 16y ago
Why do you think he did the right thing?
rdl 16y ago
The right thing to do would have been to be honest about exactly what arrangements they made months ago (at the time); if that was "we fully comply with the laws of nations in which we operate, including providing copies of messages stored on servers in those countries to competent national authorities", just reveal that. BESes hosted within a given country obviously must comply with disclosure (which is probably easier to effect on the exchange server itself, since there are LI products for Exchange already). The actual technical architecture of the BES blackberry product, as designed, should resist these threats; it was just the blackberry messenger product which was at risk. RIM's unwillingness to be upfront about this calls the actual BES architecture into question; they could trojan the BES servers or client devices if they really wanted, and no one would really know any better. It's possible that they agreed to sell a backdoored version of blackberry client devices in the affected markets, too, so even if you're talking to a strong BES in the USA or Canada, your communications can be locally compromised by intelligence/police agencies in your home jurisdiction. When it comes to security, you have to assume the worst; the onus is on the vendor to show that bad things aren't done, or ideally can't be done. This is pretty much representative of all the problems RIM has commercially (not just the security issue); they lack competent and effective leadership. They're pretty much the anti-Apple; multiple chiefs, none of whom are decent.

ianb 16y ago

Why do you think he did the right thing?

rdl 16y ago

The right thing to do would have been to be honest about exactly what arrangements they made months ago (at the time); if that was "we fully comply with the laws of nations in which we operate, including providing copies of messages stored on servers in those countries to competent national authorities", just reveal that. BESes hosted within a given country obviously must comply with disclosure (which is probably easier to effect on the exchange server itself, since there are LI products for Exchange already). The actual technical architecture of the BES blackberry product, as designed, should resist these threats; it was just the blackberry messenger product which was at risk. RIM's unwillingness to be upfront about this calls the actual BES architecture into question; they could trojan the BES servers or client devices if they really wanted, and no one would really know any better. It's possible that they agreed to sell a backdoored version of blackberry client devices in the affected markets, too, so even if you're talking to a strong BES in the USA or Canada, your communications can be locally compromised by intelligence/police agencies in your home jurisdiction. When it comes to security, you have to assume the worst; the onus is on the vendor to show that bad things aren't done, or ideally can't be done. This is pretty much representative of all the problems RIM has commercially (not just the security issue); they lack competent and effective leadership. They're pretty much the anti-Apple; multiple chiefs, none of whom are decent.