French government bans BlackBerrys: fears US and UK spying
By Thomas Ricker 
posted June 20th 2007 8:29AM
posted June 20th 2007 8:29AM
[Thanks, Rahul]
posted June 20th 2007 8:29AM
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I'd just like to add that it's not about RIM handing over data to the NSA. They don't have to. Look up the details of the ECHELON system, described in an EU government report. When the e-mail flows from a French Blackberry device to RIM's servers, it goes across the US and Canadian network infrastructure. That automatically puts it within reach of ECHELON.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/07/1246259
well that is unusual. you would think there would be some way to prove its security. then again, why are the french worried about being spied on? what are they hiding?
Are you serious. Every government should be worried about being spied on and every government has secrets. What they hiding? Lots of things, just like every other country. Do you want every country to post all there passwords to defence systems on the web or something? Come on!
Wow, it always amaze me to read those comments from short minded US fanboys who never put their feet beyond their frontyard, and believe the WORLD is the US and other countries are non existent on the World scene... You guys are the first victims of the manipulations of your own government and when someone is trying to open your mind, you just claim that these people can't think and don't exist... Try thinking outside of your narrow mind for once, try to think on your own just like other countries do, and you'll realize that US is not the only country in the world, and that if the French GVT is taking such decision, their may be more than baguette and Eiffel tower in France... Go and visit the country, realize it by yourself instead of through Fox TV, and then speak as a mature person...
nuf said...
Yes they get their weapons from Russia, China, and Iran. Is it worth mentioning that the Talebans were given millions of dollars by the US, and what about Saddam where do you think he got chemical weapons during the Iran/Irak war? Please Steve, think before you post.
Also, France is worth spying onto for obvious economical reasons. From Airbus to Gallileo to Ariane espace.
US and UK spying, they really think little of Canadians, Canadians can spy too :(
Frogs!! nuff said
Clearly the canadians HAVE been spying on france how else do you explain french canadians???? They've been tapping in for decades I bet.
"Of course, RIM responded with the usual assurances of security going so far as to say that even the US National Security Agency couldn't view the content of any Blackberry communicated data."
Yeah.... RIGHT... if you believe that one I have a couple acres of prime ocean-front property to sell you in Kansas.
All they are doing is limiting the number of sources that the NSA actually has to spy on - one less service to worry about.
Of course it's not really a slight to the US since the servers are in Canada anyway, I think what they are really saying is that even they don't trust the French Canadians.
For all the silly Airbus comments, the UK is 20% owners, even though they have been trying to sell their share.
Plus wireless data is easy to pick up regardless if you have access to servers or not, especially when you have a $60 billion budget. Sure it might be encrypted, don't they think we have the computers to break that? So now they are creating a false sense of security and the data will be easier to get!
Not anymore ... BAE System sold its EADS share (EADS is the company which owns Airbus) years ago ... the major shareholder are today german and french (Lagardère and the french state around 30%, Daimler Chrysler around 22%).
Source: http://www.eads.net/1024/en/investor/Stock_information/Shareholding_structure.html
That is the best picture ever!
I'm surprised they didn't just surrender to RIM.
If a mime yells in Paris, oh, wait, we'd never hear them any way.
It is clear from some of these comments that the readers have short memories. It is not so many years ago that the French secret service was found to have spied on IBM and Boing in order to gain industrial secrets for French companies. The spying went so far as to bug airline seats from employees of the above mentioned companies, stealing laptops, etc. Since the french have (and maybe still do) perform industrial espionage for partially nationalized companies, it is no wonder that that suspect that the other side does the same.
The US, Canada and Great Britian don't consider each other to be competitors and therefore have much less to worry about. Secondly, there companies are not nationalised so there is a much clearer differentiation bewteen the two. Continental Europeans doubt this because they have never experienced the other side, and Americans residing in Europe are amazed at the inter-woven relationships between the state and businesses and thus appalled at action such as these.
In conclusion, the French should not be cheered for their actions in this case.
-R.
It is clear from some of these comments that the readers have short memories. It is not so many years ago that the French secret service was found to have spied on IBM and Boing in order to gain industrial secrets for French companies. The spying went so far as to bug airline seats from employees of the above mentioned companies, stealing laptops, etc. Since the french have (and maybe still do) perform industrial espionage for partially nationalized companies, it is no wonder that that suspect that the other side does the same.
The US, Canada and Great Britian don't consider each other to be competitors and therefore have much less to worry about. Secondly, there companies are not nationalised so there is a much clearer differentiation bewteen the two. Continental Europeans doubt this because they have never experienced the other side, and Americans residing in Europe are amazed at the inter-woven relationships between the state and businesses and thus appalled at action such as these.
In conclusion, the French should not be cheered for their actions in this case.
-R.
the french were bugging Boeing and the rest, they got busted when they left grey poupon all over the seats.
Haha! I always knew the French are Nuts! But this really sums it up!
chrisC
would YOU trust the french canadians? I mean honestly, they can't decide if they're french or canadians. I think the french are just scared of them one day deciding their belgians. We know what great spies the belgians are after all.
Everyone is spying on everyone, this is not new. Americans are spying in Europe, European countries that have a descent service do it in the US and elsewhere. Since the end of the cold war, most of the spying agencies in the world switched from military spying to economical spying.
Um Andy, sorry for being a little over-inclusive but we were talking about the blackberry communications of people in France that go through US servers. Such communications are clearly international, no? Are you saying that the Bush administration would deem these communications off-limits to warrantless wiretap?
Oh and I was not trying to disparage anyone, I was trying to argue against disparaging the French for making a smart move.
You are recharacterizing my comments and then using this recharacterization to criticize the writer (me) as a lier rather than addressing the substance of the comments. I would point out that you have simultaneously used the logical fallacies known as "straw-man" and "ad homonym" attack.
It is obviously easier to discredit the speaker than to discredit the argument... when you are wrong.
Bottom line, engadget editors are idiots.
According to the Financial Times of London, the big French petroleum company Total has never allowed its personnel to use Blackberries.
For a hard-core capitalist outfit like Total, that is not a jingoist policy. It is simply recognizing the fact that NSA is capable of listening to anything that transits American pipes, and that no one knows to whom NSA may be passing the data they pick up.
Better safe than sorry....
Read other things than Engadget and you will be more intelligent.
The editors really have a negative bias towards european people (and also suck in geography).
For instance this article: http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/27/french-guy-reviews-105-power-supplies-teeters-on-insanity/
Americans are not the brightest people on Earth and we have proof right here on this blog.
They should spy on themselves:
PARIS (Reuters) - The French dislike themselves even more than the Americans dislike them, according to an opinion poll published on Friday.
The survey of six nations, carried out for the International Herald Tribune daily and France 24 TV station, said 44 percent of French people thought badly of themselves against 38 percent of U.S. respondents who had a negative view of the French.
Only 14 percent of Germans, 25 percent of Italians, 29 percent of Spaniards and 33 percent of Britons had a negative view of the French, according to the Harris/Novatris poll, which questioned more than 1,000 people in each country.
and they are right. anglosax intells are spying anything that moves.