BlackBerry Service in UAE and Other Such Countries
As you may have heard, some countries (UEA and Saudi Arabia) will disable internet, email, internet messaging on Blackberries because RIM in motion has failed to provide the authorities there with access customer data for the purposes of national security. India has also been talking to RIM about the same. Now other regimes, like Indonesia are considering their own requests for the same. This will also apply to citizens of other nations visiting these countries. Now if you were planning to go to Dubai with your Blackberry, you should start thinking of making other internet arrangements or carrying enough Dhirams for use at the local cybers. Do I see a trend here? I think it is just a matter of time and all sorts of phones will be covered, and soon all regimes will be 'requesting' data for national security. Where does this leave us in KE? I can only imagine major players will be too happy to handover those email, websites and SMSs accessed through their systems. is the RIM setting a bad precedence?
This can only apply to RIM because of the way blackberry traffic flows. All blackberry traffic has to pass via the RIM NOC in the UK through a secure VPN/leased point to point connection before heading to the public internet.It is for this reason most countries' security agencies are uncomfortable with. Security agents can still request/sniff for such data via a Lawful Interceptio Gateway(LIG) installed at the operator. However, RIM uses a proprietary encryption and compression protocol that LIG can decipher; leaving them with no choice but disable traffic destined to RIM, hence affecting any local or foreign blackberry users in those countries like the UAE. ./bernard On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Philip Musyoki <pmusyoki@gmail.com> wrote:
As you may have heard, some countries (UEA and Saudi Arabia) will disable internet, email, internet messaging on Blackberries because RIM in motion has failed to provide the authorities there with access customer data for the purposes of national security. India has also been talking to RIM about the same. Now other regimes, like Indonesia are considering their own requests for the same. This will also apply to citizens of other nations visiting these countries. Now if you were planning to go to Dubai with your Blackberry, you should start thinking of making other internet arrangements or carrying enough Dhirams for use at the local cybers.
Do I see a trend here? I think it is just a matter of time and all sorts of phones will be covered, and soon all regimes will be 'requesting' data for national security. Where does this leave us in KE? I can only imagine major players will be too happy to handover those email, websites and SMSs accessed through their systems. is the RIM setting a bad precedence?
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*that LIG cannot decipher... On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:59 PM, Bernard Mwagiru <bmwagiru@gmail.com> wrote:
This can only apply to RIM because of the way blackberry traffic flows. All blackberry traffic has to pass via the RIM NOC in the UK through a secure VPN/leased point to point connection before heading to the public internet.It is for this reason most countries' security agencies are uncomfortable with.
Security agents can still request/sniff for such data via a Lawful Interceptio Gateway(LIG) installed at the operator. However, RIM uses a proprietary encryption and compression protocol that LIG can decipher; leaving them with no choice but disable traffic destined to RIM, hence affecting any local or foreign blackberry users in those countries like the UAE.
./bernard
On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Philip Musyoki <pmusyoki@gmail.com> wrote:
As you may have heard, some countries (UEA and Saudi Arabia) will disable internet, email, internet messaging on Blackberries because RIM in motion has failed to provide the authorities there with access customer data for the purposes of national security. India has also been talking to RIM about the same. Now other regimes, like Indonesia are considering their own requests for the same. This will also apply to citizens of other nations visiting these countries. Now if you were planning to go to Dubai with your Blackberry, you should start thinking of making other internet arrangements or carrying enough Dhirams for use at the local cybers.
Do I see a trend here? I think it is just a matter of time and all sorts of phones will be covered, and soon all regimes will be 'requesting' data for national security. Where does this leave us in KE? I can only imagine major players will be too happy to handover those email, websites and SMSs accessed through their systems. is the RIM setting a bad precedence?
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http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AopdHkqSqKL-dHlQVTMxU1VBdU1BSWJxdy1f... ------------ Skunkworks Rules http://my.co.ke/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94 ------------ Other services @ http://my.co.ke
Well, I was just making a point and I was just using the Blackberry example to illustrate it. I am arguing that the Blackberry case now 'raises' some Governments interest in monitoring citizen's communications, as has been demonstrated by countries which all over sudden want 'access' to Blackberry data when previously they did not seem to care. While today this is a BB issue, who knows where it will stop? As one of the CEOs of RIM said, these people do not exactly have PHDs or Degrees in Computer Science and they seem to be driven by reasons hard to imagine. And then there is the issue of personal liberties and privacy, even with Lawful Intercept Gateways, we need to have a system of making sure this is not misused. In the US, law enforcement agencies require to get a warrant to tap or intercept calls or data.
On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 2:11 PM, Philip Musyoki <pmusyoki@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, I was just making a point and I was just using the Blackberry example to illustrate it. I am arguing that the Blackberry case now 'raises' some Governments interest in monitoring citizen's communications, as has been demonstrated by countries which all over sudden want 'access' to Blackberry data when previously they did not seem to care.
While today this is a BB issue, who knows where it will stop? As one of the CEOs of RIM said, these people do not exactly have PHDs or Degrees in Computer Science and they seem to be driven by reasons hard to imagine. And then there is the issue of personal liberties and privacy, even with Lawful Intercept Gateways, we need to have a system of making sure this is not misused. In the US, law enforcement agencies require to get a warrant to tap or intercept calls or data.
I think the RIM CEO's position is wrong. State security cannot be left to anyone and MUST be closely monitored, but not used to abuse the rights of anyone. Well, back to reality, only RIM is affected by this crisis. The other manufacturers/providers can easily avail the data required. Wait a moment - I am not a Telecommunications Engineer. I am only commenting based on what I've read on this issue. The bottom line is that RIM, if they need to maintain presence anywhere, have to find means and methods to give state security organs access to whatever they want, now that some states have lifted the lid off the can of worms! So you are right, but it's not a precedence set by RIM, but rather the states. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "If you have nothing good to say about someone, just shut up!." -- Lucky Dube
On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Philip Musyoki <pmusyoki@gmail.com> wrote:
As you may have heard, some countries (UEA and Saudi Arabia) will disable internet, email, internet messaging on Blackberries because RIM in motion has failed to provide the authorities there with access customer data for the purposes of national security. India has also been talking to RIM about the same. Now other regimes, like Indonesia are considering their own requests for the same. This will also apply to citizens of other nations visiting these countries. Now if you were planning to go to Dubai with your Blackberry, you should start thinking of making other internet arrangements or carrying enough Dhirams for use at the local cybers.
Do I see a trend here? I think it is just a matter of time and all sorts of phones will be covered, and soon all regimes will be 'requesting' data for national security. Where does this leave us in KE? I can only imagine major players will be too happy to handover those email, websites and SMSs accessed through their systems. is the RIM setting a bad precedence?
You appear not to have read the whole story about the issues in contention. IIRC, data sent through blackberry is encrypted within the device, goes through RIM's own servers and only gets decrypted when it reaches the destination device. RIM uses proprietary encryption of this data and as such, only them can decrypt it. For govt security agencies to access this data (in the holy name of state security) RIM needs to "work with them" to give them access to the data but that means RIM will have to change their encryption mechanisms in order to allow these big brothers to watch what BBians are doing. All the other phones are not subject to this! As it stands Queen Bee (as someone calls it here), Zain (or whatever it's called now) and the like can give access to all your communication to state security agents who wouldn't have to put in any much efforts as they would on RIMs servers. You know why Obama uses Blackberry? :-) -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "If you have nothing good to say about someone, just shut up!." -- Lucky Dube
participants (3)
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Bernard Mwagiru -
Odhiambo Washington -
Philip Musyoki