The hullabaloo over access to emails routed through Blackberry is consuming more and more newsprint and online space. So thought, "Let me also add my 2 cents (or more) worth" :-D
Firstly, I've never been a fan of the Blackberry. Let me apply the fine print to that point - I'm not a fan of the Blackberry being used for office email. Call me odd, but that's how I am. Use the Blackberry to check your gmail/your facebook - perfecto! But if it comes to your office mail - naah!
However, its not just been the personal vs office mails angle that I've thought of. I've also been thinking in a quite serious manner on the topic too. What I have understood is this -
Blackberry provides 2 types of services to clients - enterprise (large corporations having their own servers on their premises protected by their own encryption keys) and individual (those who get their Blackberry services via some service provider like Airtel/Vodafone etc
If, as Blackberry claims they cannot provide the encryption keys for enterprises; still what is the big deal? In any case in India lots of business is done via the crony capitalism route. So, how much time will it take the Home Minister to call up these enterprises and ask them to covertly share their keys with the IB or RAW?
That would solve the problem of enterprise users, and for individuals - call a meeting of the telecom head honchos and ask them to share. I know snooping is a debatable topic, with shades of gray; but is there ANYTHING that we can do to prevent snooping by the intelligence agencies AND avoid misuse of Blackberry services by troublemakers?
There are more serious and better thinkers & analysts on this topic. The Economist is one of them. What they are basically saying in the article is that either RIM will be forced to accede to the government's diktat or the government's will find a way out. Have a read it's a good article
3 comments:
My 2 paise: I am a fan of the BB and I am a fan of BB for office mail. Although I am worried about the govt having access to anything that they can mess with, I still think the security concern outweighs the need for privacy. I mean even if terrorists had not figured out they could use BB to communicate covertly, they would have by now and we cant have that can we?
Of course they would have learned by now atleast to the extent of making an effort to use the security viel for their nefarious activities!
Man you tricked me. I thought the post was about kalajamoon! I had this argument with Panda that kalajamoon is named so because it is black and it looks like a jamoon (the fruit), whereas he said that its the other way around. The ass!
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