An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain
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India might still pull the plug on RIM
RESEARCH IN MOTION (RIM) has stumbled from one diplomatic row to another over the security of its Blackberrys.
After skating on thin ice with Saudi Arabia, RIM is now faced with India threatening to pull the plug on it if it doesn't meet the country's security requirements.
According to Reuters sources, the Indian government and local mobile phone operators had a meeting in New Delhi to discuss Crackberry security.
The government thinks that secure e-mail and messaging services could be abused by militants. Read that backwards and it actually says the Indian government's security agencies can't access user data sent to and from RIM's devices.
India wants the Canadian company to share encryption details but RIM said that will be hard to work out. There's no master key RIM can access on Blackberrys. It claims that each user builds their own security key and RIM doesn't have back door access.
"There definitely could be talk of some deadline and a proposal to take strong action on BlackBerry services during the meeting," an Indian government source told Reuters.
Strange that that this news comes out about the same time as RIM is bending over backwards to appease Saudi Arabia on a similar issue. We reported that RIM agreed to stick a server in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and funnel all Blackberry communications in the region through it.
Now Reuters is also reporting that RIM has agreed to share user codes with Saudi Arabia. These will include unique pin numbers that will enable Saudi security agencies to read encrypted text sent via Blackberry Messenger.
Why is RIM putting India off just days after caving in to pressure in the UAE and making a deal with Saudi Arabia? We expect that this story isn't over yet. µ
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That's beginning to crumble. Their ability to tap and decrypt no doubt applies to all services. The Reuters link above has much to trouble those who put their trust in RIM. It's clear that intelligence agencies simply won't allow communications to exist unless can be tapped, that's simply the nature of the beast.
Sounds like someone not only wants to spy on their businessmen, they want to carve themselves a bit of mobile phone business:
Step 1: Kill the competition to make a hole in the market.
Step 2: Fill said hole with 'home grown' product that does the same job, whilst having security holes all over.
Step 3: Profit.
Since the UAE and SA have been rattling cages (as repressive regimes, it no surprise), India can jump on the bandwagon and get away with a little chinese-like protectionism.
Anyone know if you can provide Blackberry like push email via an Android app? Preferably without changing the back end. Seems like there will soon be a ready market for a secure biz-friendly Blackberrish solution.