BlackBerry Battle In India Going Down To the Wire 176
crimeandpunishment writes "With just days before the deadline, BlackBerry's maker was shot down by India in its latest effort to avoid having its services cut off for about a million Indian users of the device. Research in Motion's effort to broaden the debate over data encryption were rejected. The Indian government wants access to users' emails. The head of a powerful industry group in India accused RIM of taking the wrong approach to negotiations, saying, 'It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'"
RIM Don't cave in (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope they stand their ground.
RIM needs to make a decision (Score:3, Insightful)
Do they want to secure customer data, or provide a documented mechanism for institutional wiretaps.
They should pick one and stick with it.
Sounds like RIM is better than the governments. (Score:3, Insightful)
"With just days before the deadline, BlackBerry's maker was shot down by India in its latest effort to avoid having its services cut off for about a million Indian users of the device. Research in Motion's effort to broaden the debate over data encryption were rejected. The Indian government wants access to users' emails.
Keep their hands off the emails.
The head of a powerful industry group in India accused RIM of taking the wrong approach to negotiations, saying, 'It need not have escalated to this level. Folks like RIM have to understand business is done differently here.'
So if they had to do something that was a crime that would be punished in Canada to be compliant with India, it's excusable?
I'm going to make a wild prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:5, Insightful)
like they 'didnt' for the saudis?
RIM is on my do-not-purchase list.
there is no ethical reason to give away your REAL customer's security.
the government is not your customer even though you sell a lot to them.
PEOPLE (who deserve privacy) are your customers.
Huh? RIM needs to understand? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope they stand their ground.
No joke. From the summary:
Sure. And if someone installed live cameras that monitor your bedroom and your bathroom 24/7, well that would just be "different" from the privacy you now enjoy.
It's like Aesop said: "any excuse will serve a tyrant."
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:5, Insightful)
A gov't ban pretty much ensures they will have no customers to protect. Their choices are "give it up", or "GTFO."
Also, why bother boycotting them? Are you saying they never should have tried to cover their customers asses in the first place, and should have stuck with their competitions decision of not bothering with encryption? I say RIM deserves points for trying.
Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Am I missing something here? (Score:4, Insightful)
Look pal, are you some kind of terrorist? Decent law abiding non-terrorist people don't use encryption. In fact, they send the contents of their inboxes to the authorities to make sure that they aren't inadvertently planning terrorist acts. Only evil bastards want encryption. Foul wicked scum who should be, and will be I promise you, taken out and shot, but not before torture... oh blessed torture... we'll attach battery cables to their testicles and drop vinegar in their eyeballs... oh yes... and as we strip them and kick them and dump water on them... oooh aahhhhhh
Things are done differently here... I tell you... ooooh sooooo diffferently....
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:5, Insightful)
like they 'didnt' for the saudis?
RIM is on my do-not-purchase list.
there is no ethical reason to give away your REAL customer's security.
the government is not your customer even though you sell a lot to them.
PEOPLE (who deserve privacy) are your customers.
If RIM caves, the correct response to this is to divest yourself of any stocks or funds that involve this company. If they cave, it will be because money is more important to them than the refusal to support institutionalized domestic spying, same story as always. If they cave, they would do it to preserve a profitable market. If the response to that causes their stock to be devalued and the company to have a very hard time retaining any capital, it would send the message that if you really care about profit, this is the wrong action to take.
So, like with so many things, it's up to us. It's a matter of what we will and won't tolerate, what we will and won't support and go along with. Any single-mindedness regarding profit can also be used to discourage companies from following this example. In that sense it is both the problem and a solution. Which it will be is ultimately up to us, up to We the People. If we don't care enough to back that up with action, neither should RIM.
Re:Frankly, no, I don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, that's rubbish. Articles 19, 20, 21 and 22 of the Constitution of India guarantee most of the same freedoms that people in any other democracy enjoy.
As for this move, we understand their position, but we think it's wrong. Or is the concept of critical analysis too difficult?
Re:Am I missing something here? (Score:3, Insightful)
Enough already with the scaredy tactics and mentioning of terrorists.
Seriously, what happened with people's right to privacy?
I'm sick and tired of this fear culture impinging on what I can and cannot do.
And yes, I've lived through the IRA bombings in the iron mile in central London, so I am aware totally of "idiots" out there.
I couldn't give a crap if they have encryption. Boo hoo if it makes the police's job difficult.
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:3, Insightful)
While I agree with you in principle, as the Indian government said, they do things differently there.
One of my other principles is to let others live their lives the way they want to. If India wants to revolt against its government to change the rules, I'll support them. However, if they aren't willing to change their governments rules or if they want the rules that way for some reason, then thats their problem not mine.
Who are you to impose you particular view of how the world should work on others? What if they are happy with their situation, even though you and I think its a raw deal?
Tough Call (Score:3, Insightful)
As a Canadian, I'm happy to see RIM's success thus far, and obviously continued growth would need to take advantage of other markets, who have different laws. While it's not something RIM wants to do, I think they will eventually cave to India's demands.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, RIM is in business, not politics. It is not their place to try and change things in India, it is the Indians'. On the other hand, to be ethical, they cannot knowingly place responsibility on a different authority if it is known that they will then act unethically. Ultimately, I think it will be better for the Canadian IT market if RIM just holds their nose and makes it happen. This is simply not a battle they can, or should win. If Indians don't like the way their government treats their privacy, they need to change things themselves.
Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure the argument works both ways.
1) Fail to respect the laws and regulations of a democratic country
-- or --
2) Benefit from trading with the 2nd largest mobile market in the world (635 million cell phones in India - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_in_India [wikipedia.org])
Besides, RIM is not India's only cell phone provider. No longer doing business with RIM would mean fewer choices. It would not mean no choice. It is not a "economic suicide" scenario. It's more like a scenario of "which is more important to us: our laws, or a few more phone models added to our stores?"
Re:Difference in perception regarding terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Has it ever occurred to you that the very environment of fear and distrust is what breeds terrorism in the first place and that one of the reasons that the U.S. has had few terrorist attacks is that the vast majority of the public as a whole doesn't feel like the government is out to get them? We get to know our neighbors, and for the most part, if a neighbor were hatching a terrorist plot, usually somebody would notice. We do that because we know that the only thing standing between us and anarchy or tyranny is ourselves. Historically, the closer any country has come to being a police state, beyond a certain point, the more problems they have had. It's a vicious cycle, and the harder you try to clamp down, the more violent the dissent, until it becomes uncontrollable. That's basic psychology, really.
It would take any competent user all of five minutes to get around this. All you have to do is use an IMAP mail service other than RIM's. The people who care about using push email are not the terrorists. They are the businesses that employ your citizens. The terrorists couldn't give a rat's ass about push email. They use it because it is there. The second they get wind that RIM is going to make all their email available, they will migrate their data to Gmail, delete all their email, and close their accounts. By the time RIM actually capitulates, any information the Indian government could possibly hope to obtain will have long since been destroyed. And when the Indian government goes after Gmail, they'll move to Yahoo Mail. And when they go after Yahoo Mail, they'll move to something else. It's so easy to change ISPs that it is utterly naive to think that what you're talking about will have ANY real impact on terrorism.
You can't stop terrorism by screwing over everyone else. That just makes your citizens angry and resentful of the government. And after long enough, those angry, resentful citizens decide to take up arms. Then, a terrorist cell is born.
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:3, Insightful)
People, S/MIME exists for a reason. India can't break it. RIM can't break it. The NSA can't break it. Get a free S/MIME cert and enjoy your privacy on ANY network.
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not sure whether /. users appreciate the whole situation in India.
Terrorists using blackberry is an actual problem [telegraph.co.uk] here. Also, the threat of terrorists here is a real one - unlike in most other countries - with many countries actually pouring money in to push [indiatimes.com] terrorism to India.
Before the current home minister came in with somewhat tight security and controls, we used to have a lot [wikipedia.org] of terrorist attacks in India. The current homeminister radically decreased the number of incidents by overall increasing the security - while not too much impinging on the privacy till now.
Most of the security was through surveillance, which was being hamstrung by the enemy using blackberry for communication. So by creating this hullaballoo and then RIM publicly accepting it, terrorist will stop using blackberry for communication, thus increasing the effectiveness of surveillance.
I do accept the view point of - those who gives up privacy for security deserves neither.
But terrorism is such a big actual problem here - with more than 800 sleeper cells currently, people are going to accept this - otherwise there is going to be daily bombings and deaths.
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, so you are basically saying, before blackberry came, there was no terrorism in India? Or blocking blackberry will somehow close all aveues of encryption(ssh etc.,?)
Its due to idiots like you that we hardly have any privacy left in India, and the corrupt govt officials snoop on anybody at will.
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not sure whether /. users appreciate the whole situation in India.
Terrorists using blackberry is an actual problem [telegraph.co.uk] here. Also, the threat of terrorists here is a real one - unlike in most other countries - with many countries actually pouring money in to push [indiatimes.com] terrorism to India.
Before the current home minister came in with somewhat tight security and controls, we used to have a lot [wikipedia.org] of terrorist attacks in India. The current homeminister radically decreased the number of incidents by overall increasing the security - while not too much impinging on the privacy till now.
Most of the security was through surveillance, which was being hamstrung by the enemy using blackberry for communication. So by creating this hullaballoo and then RIM publicly accepting it, terrorist will stop using blackberry for communication, thus increasing the effectiveness of surveillance.
I do accept the view point of - those who gives up privacy for security deserves neither. But terrorism is such a big actual problem here - with more than 800 sleeper cells currently, people are going to accept this - otherwise there is going to be daily bombings and deaths.
In my view of viewing things terrorism is merely a symptom of far deeper underlying problems with government and society and with international affairs. In the face of that, secure e-mail is barely a footnote. If a government can completely and totally monitor all communications by all people within its borders, it has succeeded only in addressing a means to an end. It has not and likely will not address why so many people want to become terrorists in the first place, what motivates them, why they do what they do, and how to actually prevent this phenomenon by addressing its root causes.
Nobody ever wants to really look at root causes. They're too busy making sure a good crisis "doesn't go to waste" as an Obama staffer put it (don't think for a moment that this idea is limited to USA politics). They just want to exert as much control as possible over the means to an end. They want to make terrorism as difficult as possible by those who wish to carry it out because that means more police power for them. No one seems to want to make fewer people consider becoming terrorists in the first place. Addressing the type of political and social unrest that makes once-harmless people consider such drastic measures might mean taking a hard look at foreign and domestic policy with a willingness to drastically alter the status quo towards a pro-freedom position, and no one in power really wants to do that. It would reduce their power.
I'm not saying that terrorists are something other than scum. They are. I'm saying that you are dealing with nations that, based on their actions, have the attitude of "well if we're going to have terrorism anyway, things like the USA's Patriot Act that we could have never passed without active attacks sure do sweeten the deal". That's part of the problem. Anyone who gets what they want due to terrorism, directly or indirectly, is part of the problem of terrorism. Unfortunately that includes many state actors.
Re:question: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Business here is done differently".
they didn't bribe and/or bribe the right person.
It doesn't even have to be money, a few hot chicks from Montreal would have done the job. Even take pictures to blackmail pricks causing a problem.
Re:Because it is e-mail to their servers (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently neither do you. I'm willing to concede I might be confused, as I don't actually use this feature of the Blackberry. However a statement of "You don't know what you are talking about," without any clarification, reference, etc implies that you are either just being contrary, or are not confident enough in your knowledge to state it.
Regardless, it is a completely useless post to just say "You are wrong." Fine, the present your reasoning and what you believe to be correct. If you make a habit of just yelling at people when they are wrong rather than trying to enlighten them, you have no cause to call them out on their ignorance since you are not willing to help fix it.
So let's hear it then.
Re:Globalization - not understood (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:terrorists (Score:2, Insightful)
"Freedom" fighters (Score:4, Insightful)
A vast majority of terrorists do not deserve the appellation of "freedom fighter".
Intentional targeting of innocent civilians is inherently at odds with freedom.
Re:RIM Don't cave in (Score:3, Insightful)
I couldn't agree more.
To our left is Pakistan and Afganisthan (two of the most dangerous countries in the world).
And another on the north, which has a firewall on their entire population and doesn't even have a free press.
These guys are right next door, not a couple of oceans and a continent away.
Also, freedom of speech, dissent and media is reasonably well protected here.
It is difficult for the government to come up with any Orwellian scheme.
Re:I'm going to make a wild prediction (Score:4, Insightful)
They're only asking for the same as the US government required, or are they on your tinpot dictatorship list too?