Why the BlackBerry hate by gov'ts?

[earthpigg]

this story is the most recent in a recent string of similar stories:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10951607


The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was the first country to propose a block on the devices, saying they posed a "national security risk" in their ability to send messages and e-mail without the authorities having the ability to monitor the communications.

RIM sends this data to servers in Canada and the encryption used to secure this is virtually uncrackable.

Other countries followed the UAE's lead, including Lebanon, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

India is the latest country to enter the fray, with analysts expecting more to follow suit.


do some devices send the data in plaintext? Android? iPhone?

are other mobile outfits doing whatever governments ask?

edit: lets try to keep this discussion technical, and not political. my question isn't about "do you think such-and-such government is justified in doing this?", and discussing that will get the thread closed.

[Dustin2128]

Because they can't invade your privacy. At least the smaller ones.
A major selling point for blackberries is their security- that's why they're so popular with businesses. iPhones? Droids? Not so much. The blackberry is an excellent excellent filler for that niche, and despite the consumers eating up phones like the droid/iPhone, blackberries aren't going to go away any time soon. And this is a good thing. I like having a phone with security capabilities exceeding the cracking power of entire nations.

[earthpigg]

Because they can't invade your privacy. At least the smaller ones.
A major selling point for blackberries is their security- that's why they're so popular with businesses. iPhones? Droids? Not so much.

wasn't aware.

sounds like there is potentially a niche to be filled on android phones: app that allows text conversations encrypted with, say, AES256. assume both parties need to have the app installed, and some communication between the two parties where a mutual randomly generated password is generated for all future communications between the two.

[Dustin2128]

wasn't aware.

sounds like there is potentially a niche to be filled on android phones: app that allows text conversations encrypted with, say, AES256. assume both parties need to have the app installed, and some communication between the two parties where a mutual randomly generated password is generated for all future communications between the two.
hm, that'd be cool. I was planning on getting one of the older moto droids once my 2 year contract's up, and I'd love to develop such an app.

[neoargon]

wasn't aware.

sounds like there is potentially a niche to be filled on android phones: app that allows text conversations encrypted with, say, AES256. assume both parties need to have the app installed, and some communication between the two parties where a mutual randomly generated password is generated for all future communications between the two.

It was this that came to my mind when I heard the news .

[neoargon]

In a mass terrorist attack happened a couple of years ago,in India , the terrorists used google earth , satellite phone and other modern technologies . The ban is not unexpected

[Paqman]

Bascially the problem is that RIM routes all the data from Blackberries through their servers in Canada and encrypts it, so it's difficult for local authorities to monitor. Some countries obviously find this unacceptable.

[MJWitter]

Skype and Google services also seem to be in the firing line in India.

[rjbl]

As ever, Governments, of all flavours, like monitoring their citizens' conversations and in this globally communicating world have a huge capacity to intercept and process e-mail and voice/data comms.

The solution for our privacy is there, free for us all to choose to use as we wish. Phil Zimmerman's PGP and the FOSS implementation GPG are universally available for free. Each system is tried and tested in every version of each of the well known OS's - Windows(all versions); GNU/Linux (all distros) and Mac. Good e-mail encryptors are available, and have been for years, for all the major mail clients. There is no excuse to send unprotected email out of any Windows, Linux or Mac system.

The most widely used VOIP system, Skype, similarly encrypts all the users' traffic end-to-end. Their crypto is not open source, unlike PGP/GPG but is regarded as competent by them as specialise in these matters.

Yet, almost all the world's e-mail is still sent unencrypted. Why?

rjbl

[rjbl]

Interestingly the one major country which does not, apparently, try to block Skype or encrypted e-mail is actually the People's Republic of China. Maybe they have the telco's encryption keys for mobile / cellnet telecomms, Maybe they just ain't that bothered to resource the massive interpretation effort needed to deal with a billion conversations a minute 24/7. Who knows.

rjbl

[Khakilang]

Maybe this country are hotspot for terrorist. So the government do whatever they can to prevent any such attack by intercepting their messages. The reason why people choose Blackberry, Android and Linux is because of security. But the government don't think so when come to national security. I wonder if they will ban Linux if the terrorist start using the OS?

[neoargon]

I wonder if they will ban Linux if the terrorist start using the OS?
^^

[Spice Weasel]

This is why I don't have a phone - it's either lose your privacy or have the phone outlawed.