Remember 1973 Kingston Jamaica Joe Fraizer vs George Foreman the words of that fight echo in the minds of so many boxing fans. Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier! Well here we go Down Goes BBM! Down Goes BBM! Down Goes BBM! Ok not as exciting as the boxing match, but Saudi Arabia has lived up to their word and takend down BlackBerry Messenger. Considering Saudi Arabia will fine $1.3 million for any wireless provider that allows the service, I don’t see that service coming back up.
Oh for any one wondering (IE the younger crowd), Howard Cosell called the Foreman vs Fraizer fight.
This story is not going away anytime soon. Lebanon just joined in on the party of banning BlackBerry Services. Most of this is focused on BBM and Email but 5 countries is nothing to take lightly.
- India
- United Arab Emirates (UAE)
- Saudi Arabia
- Indonesia
- Lebanon
I don’t believe I have missed anyone, but I am sure this list will grow tomorrow. At some point you have to wonder what percent of RIM’s market is made up across these five countries. It is almost like a game of chicken, on one side your customer’s privacy on the other your revenue stream. Something tells me that this game will continue until RIM bows to pressure. Privacy does have a cost, keep watching this saga to see if RIM has to define the cost to the world.
So now Indonesia and Lebanon is now considering a ban of BlackBerry devices. The list is getting longer each day, but RIM does not see to alarmed. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis in an interview with the Wall Street Journal made a rather bold statement:
“This is about the Internet,” Mr. Lazaridis said. “Everything on the Internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can’t deal with the Internet, they should shut it off.”
[click to continue…]
It appears India is not the only country concerned with getting access to BlackBerry Messenger conversations. The UAE (United Arab Emirates) telco was unable to monitor what people are saying on their BlackBerry’s. The solution is to institute a ban on internet access, email, and instant messaging on BlackBerry devices starting in October. BBM is not going to make it until October, the UAE plans to block that service later this month. Now RIM can bypass this block by complying with the request, but that will have a serious impact on RIM globally.
RIM is in one of the worst situations. RIM likely will not comply with the request (demands) of the UAE or India, but what if 5 or 10 more countries threaten a ban? If they comply how many countries will ask for the same data. It is almost damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Time will tell how this play out.
The Home Ministry of India has asked telecom operators to halt certain BlackBerry services until an approved monitoring system that will allow the government to intercept and decrypt messages sent between BlackBerry devices and the secure network they run on is put into place.
The department of telecommunications (DoT) and Research in Motion have been going back and forth with proposed solutions to India’s security concerns for the past several weeks without coming to a general consensus and thus, the government has issued temporary ban on all PIN messaging, BIS email, and BES email.
Sources say that RIM has asked that the be given until the end of the month to address the security concerns. BlackBerry service is still working right now, however, the heat is on for RIM. India represents way too big an opportunity for RIM not to come up with an acceptable solution.
We aren’t going to run through the complete play by play, however, to make a long story short, Research in Motion still hasn’t adequately addressed India’s department of telecommunications (DoT) concerns about security on the BlackBerry and thus faces a potential ban in the world’s second largest country.
The DoT wants a monitoring solution that will allow them to read the encrypted messages sent between BlackBerry devices. RIM’s solution addressed BlackBerry to Internet communication, however, BlackBerry to BlackBerry messages are still encrypted. RIM had been given a 15 day deadline to come up with a solution, however, RIM and the DoT failed to come a consensus. Both parties decided to reconvene again on April 21st.
[Source]
Remember a couple of weeks ago when we talked about how India may ban the BlackBerry, then followed up a few days later and said the the ban appeared to be off? Well, the Indian ban on BlackBerrys is definitely not going to happen, however, BlackBerry email may still be if deadlines for RIM to give the Indian government algorithms needed to decrypt messages aren’t met..
Telecom companies supporting the BlackBerry have been give 15 days to enable monitoring of the content transmitted on BlackBerrys or they will be ordered to stop the service. There are about 400,000 BlackBerry users in India and the will no longer be able to send or receive email or PIN messages from their devices if the deadlines aren’t met.
[Source]