What's this about Canada reading your BlackBerry texts?

– What's this about the Canadian Mounties hacking millions of BlackBerry messages or some crazy moose doodie like that? It's been reported today that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (aka Mounties, aka Poutine Po-Po) obtained a global decryption key for BlackBerry phones in 2010, and that they used the key to read intercepted …

[oolor]

Not only the Great White North...

That may well be so, but the same Canuck coppers also set up BES servers to track criminals. I'm am going to assume that they are not the only ones as I have read of a case when American authorities did the same. If they bothered to do this to catch drug dealers high up in organized crime, think of what else they must be up to.

[Ole Juul]

such excite

Sounds like Motherboard has a sensationalist slant on something not very sensational.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear the silence?

Is BES secure from government snooping?

Do you see all the governments banning Blackberry? No?

Do you see the FBI suing Blackberry for access to a phone? No?

Really, it doesn't take a genius, when the Chief Operating Officer says that Blackberry on encryption: "“We very much take a balanced approach ".

And then his PR department tries to fix it up with :

"“Encryption is very important to protect governments, business and individuals from hacking," read the statement e-mailed to FedScoop by a BlackBerry PR executive. "At the same time, no one wants to see terrorists and criminals taking advantage of encryption to evade detection. That’s why we have always strongly supported law enforcement around the world when they need our help. While we do not support so-called 'back-doors,' we and every other tech company bears a responsibility to do all we can to help governments protect their citizens.” "

http://fedscoop.com/blackberry-taking-balanced-approach-to-encryption-lawful-intercept

So Mounties = Dudley Dooright, Blackberry users = Dick Dastardly, and any expectation you have: that your government will come to you with a warrant for your private data under your countries judicial process, is gone.

They'll go to Blackberry who'll support law enforcement "around the world" (the LEA may not be your own countries police, or even have any jurisdiction or legal authority over you. They go to Blackberry not you, so they don't care about your jurisdiction, they care about Blackberry's offices jurisdiction). Would Blackberry comply with out of jurisdiction requests? Silence?

So FSA = Dudley Dooright, and Blackberry Users = Anyone revealing Putins stash of cash.

Or Chinese Police = Dudley Dooright, and Blackberry Users = Anyone from Taiwan

And this is not new, all phones sold in junta countries usually have some remote access in them. I've mentioned Samsungs "DSMLawmo / DSMForwarding" before. Go to "Applications/all" on your Samsung phone and see if its running... it's for 'support purposes'...just like CarrierIQ was for support purposes.

[eJ2095]

Re: Hear the silence?

So erm who still uses BBs in the UK?

[James 51]

Re: Hear the silence?

Me. I have a Q10 and am considering getting a passport. Wasn't BIS for BB7 for does BBM in BB10 stil rely on it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hear the silence?

Notice: Canada (= 5eyes) had the global keys.

That means all 5 eyes countries had the global keys.

And given the slurping nature of 5 eyes, that means we're not talking about just 1 million Canadian messages, we're talking about all of them, worldwide, regardless of jurisdiction. GCHQ alone had enough access points to get most Internet connections, so it got most keys.

And that's just 5 eyes, Putin, Jintao, Assad, all of them likely also had the key and grabbed as much as possible.

Welcome to backdoors. This is what you're doing, Feinstein, May. Happy?

[The C Man]

I wonder how they will overcome BBMs Private Chat which deletes messages from both ends. It's now included free of charge.

[The C Man]

How will they deal with BBMs private chat which deletes messages at both ends and can do it instantaneously? Private can still be private unless they are watching every moment of the day.