Saudi Arabia beats UAE to the punch, BlackBerry service to be ceased by Friday
By Ross Miller 
posted August 4th 2010 12:28AM
posted August 4th 2010 12:28AM
posted August 4th 2010 12:28AM
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seems like everything is working against rim these days... As if it wasn't bad enough their designers were killing them from the inside
Sucks to your totalitarian government!
@rhimbu Indeed. Saudi Arabia, China, USA, UK, Australia, etc., All totalitarian governments.
@mukatuna Me thinks you've never stepped foot in Saudi Arabia to make that dense observation.
One has to wonder how such snooping would work with a Blackberry Enterprise Server. I can understand how users of a cell providers BIS service could have their messages snooped on, since the messages are stored at the provider. but in the case of a BES, the BES server is usually run on a server which the provider or blackberry has no access to, usually somewhere in the companies IT dept/server farm and if the encryption keys are stored on the BES, then how can blackberry or the provider provide a means to the govt to decrypt?
Just another case of government trying to pry into the lives of their people.
Nokia will be happier than apple!
that's will be refreshing to Nokia's revenues in the area (ME) anyways.
Naughty, naughty naughty BB users. Having encrypted communications that the government can't read! Bad dog! Bad dog!
BlackBerry gave many government around the world to monitor the BB services EXCEPT to Saudi and UAE
So it is the best decision fro them
@808808
No they didn't. RIM doesn't have their customer's keys, and so isn't able to give access to ANYONE.
@grobbo
Not entirely true. PIN messaging uses pre-shared key (called global pin encryption key by RIM) , otherwise one would be unable to PIN someone else . So there are some keys that could be potentially shared with governments. Hope not.
Makes me want to buy a BB... lol..
Wow, what happened to the days when people had a right to privacy?...
@EagleyeSmith
This is for your protection, so shut up slaves. :P
Please people don't start talking up this freedom thing...it's a myth at best and a complete lie if you really look at it honestly. You better believe that some countries have access to RIM encryption tech, perhaps provided by them, perhaps not. In the case of these countries threatening or moving towards banning RIM, they simply want more power to prosecute their own agenda even if this comes at the expense of the individual freedoms of their citizens.
As technology intertwines itself more invasively to our day to day lives, I wonder at what point people will say to their respective governments that enough is enough. Perhaps we have already past the point where that is still possible, or maybe it is that we just don't care enough to do something about it.
It could get worse still I suppose. I live in Australia and we have our Federal Government proposing a mandatory internet filer with a secret government blacklist and mandatory internet usage history recording for every user of every ISP with open access to police...Greetings Comrades, welcome to the new revolution!
Anyway, I hope for RIM's sake they stick to their guns - it's just a pitty it wasn't MS, Apple or Google's clout they were taking on - may have been a different outcome.
Seems true, unfortunately.
Some things will be interesting to watch here:
First is RIM's reputation as having high security servers.
Second is the balance between PR backlash - perceived reputation and potential market gains & losses for both RIM and the Gulf states.
BlackBerry's functionality as a device is based its ability to easily integrate as a communication device on enterprise servers, allowing seamless push-email and independent pin channels. I'm not informed on the server structure, but I believe there are two forms: company independent enterprise servers and national internet servers. I believe the national internet servers are managed by RIM.
What's interesting is that the news reports don't specify what servers the governments want access to.
RIM has to balance their perceived gains in the Gulf by allowing authorities to access their servers against potential worldwide loss knowing that BlackBerry servers are now "comprimised."
Although UAE and Saudi's market is negligible at one million, BB has the potential to be a near nationally adopted form of communication, bringing the Gulf's market to a near 15 plus million. Blackberry has been taking the youth by storm. Should RIM play the right cards, they have the potential to be the computing consciousness of the region.
Potential worldwide customer loss due to their tarnished reputation is undetermined at this time.
I'm sure the Gulf States are a bit surprised at the level of international coverage the story is meriting. For all the resources they spend on public PR, the move makes them seem "back-wards" and "intrusive." Although they did a little study by allowing these rumors to rise in May, we'll see if the global backlash will pressure them to rescind their decision.
This is an interesting chance to see at what priority the UAE's momentum towards a global financial center has internally.
Both countries have legitimate security concerns. In the UAE, investigations into financial dealings will give answers as to the debt situation Dubai finds itself today. Irregardless of public perception, to turn towards financial scrutiny is the only responsible decision an international government may take.
Saudi Arabia has a solid record in acting towards the benefit of its people. Should secure communication become a potential harm to the populace, the government must be able to take an important decision. At times we forget that these devices are channels of communication, channels which have a real and effective potential.
I believe that Saudi Arabia gives genuine concern to the sense of dismay its inhabitants have about the potential ban, and will do its best to find every possible solution to avert it. It is a country which values the happiness of its citizens highly and will do what it takes with RIM to keep them so. Unfortunately, the general well-being of its people must take a higher priority.
Governments are not interested in the lives of its citizens, but are concerned in interception threats that have the potential to manifest into real harm. Their scope of responsibility is beyond ours. It is their role to be responsible for the lives of its citizens.
As a casual BlackBerry user from within the region, I will wait three more days.
It will be either the Torch or the Iphone 4.
@Razed
"Negligible at one million", you're missing a crucial point. Any businessman regularly travelling to the UAE and SA (yeah, that's a lot of businessmen) will need to get another phone that works.
i heard the problem is that data goes to foreign firm "RIM" and may contain harm, that other can use against the country.
Neighbor?
I find it funny that all the gov'ts are picking on RIM. So my droid is less secure. Oh well, big brother now knows everytime I watch a cat or justin bieber video on youtube.
@unf2011 your watching Justin bieber on YouTube, no wonder the goverments want to monitor people when they do such strange, unusual things on the Internet
We're all probably being monitored by big brother, the difference is they (Saudis/UAE) know they are!
I'm from Saudi, and it's actually a big loss for RIM; hence the majority of people use BB. This order will be revoked next week.
Blockage of BBM services to us residents of Saudi Arabia is a big shock. BlackBerry phones is (or should I say was) a big hype in Saudi, compared to US. People would have stickers of there BBM pin on the back window of their Lexus.
The only reason why I got a BlackBerry was because mostly everyone I knew had one. I was really looking forward to upgrade my 9700 to OS6.
While the security of BB seems great from this, their hardware and software lightyears behind Android and iOS as I would never be able to live with that. And with free texting apps, BBM is nothing special anymore and is actually annoying since your number is tied to your BB device (After about 50 FB invitations to "New BB - Need Pins" groups I figured this out :P)
and nothing of value was lost..
Use another phone
http://cheezburger.com/View/3863377152