It took two long years for India to (allegedly)
tap BlackBerry traffic, but Saudi Arabia may not have to wait nearly as long; the
Wall Street Journal reports that RIM has all but agreed to set up a local server in the country. While we've no details yet on what the deal entails, an unnamed Saudi telecom official said negotiations are already in the final stages. Sorry, RIM, but it looks like Saudi Arabia
called your
bluff. We imagine the company will
deny any potential for government snooping in short order... and both Indonesia and the
United Arab Emirates will start planning their own attempts to wrest away control. We'll let you know where this house of cards falls.
Update: Saudi Arabia has reportedly given its three national cellular carriers 48 hours to try out proposed solutions that "meet the regulatory demands" of the country, else the BlackBerry messaging ban will take effect as originally planned.
posted August 7th 2010 8:30PM
@facethefire
You do realize that RIM is actually Canadian and not American, right?
@FelisLachesis
Canada is in America, so RIM are (North) Americans as well.
All about the Benjamins
@PSIREX Actually, all about the King Abdulaziz Al Sauds
@PSIREX
You summed it up perfectly... As well as got "All About The Benjamins" stuck in my head... Now to search my mp3's.
Whatever, just make a blackberry app that supports RSA and it's over.
Hahahaha, wasn't the CEO talking some big game a few days back. Psych!
Governments > Corporations EVERYTIME
Can someone explain to me how this works.
Does Blackberry route all the international text messaging packets to the AMERICAN SERVER?? So does that mean if India or UAE/Saudi Arabia have access to these servers, it will have access to all the sensitive datas on the American side too? eg. If i remember correctly - Obama himself also use Blackberry which means US government themselves are open up to India/UAE/Saudi Arabia's monitoring?
@DeeeCoder it means saudi arabia can monitor all messages coming TO s.a. and OUT OF s.a.
it cannot monitor messages going from USA to USA or USA to EU and so on
@DeeeCoder Its a CANADIAN server.
Does a government have the right to open the hand written personal letters of its citizens? Suppose you keep a diary. Does the government have the right to break in to yoru home and look at what you wrote? The Internet is wonderful because it is borderless. I live in Florida, in the USA, and yet I communicate on Skype with a friend in Teheran. Our governments are in conflict yet I can talk to her somewhat freely. (Her internet acces sis also monitored). I have another friend in Baghdad with whom I chat. The Internet should be breaking down walls. Saudi Arabia is run by a family, a group of brothers. Do the citizens of a country have rights beyond the demands of the people who own, err....um... rule them? Should a people provide their own government? The problem with that idea is that in a place like Egypt, if there were free elections, the Muslim Brotherhood might win and then they would immediately stop any sort of free elections. Sort of like the Nazis. Men with guns and power will always try to run things and control things for ordinary folk. People with money will always be buying and selling and controlling the people with the guns. RIM folded because they couldn't fight a government. We here are lovers of technology and gadgets. If we argue silly things, then governments will use technology to control us. Maybe RIchard Stallman is a prophet. Maybe Richard Stallman should be as revered in Saudi Arabia as Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab (the founder of Wahabi Islam). Maybe Muslims should go back to the teachings of my name sake Al-Kindi and the other great medevial Islamic philosophers who were not afraid of knowledge and progress.
For those whining over loss of liberty, have you not heard of the Patriot Act? Our current leadership is actually extending the reach into every facet of America’s freedom. At the current rate, Saudi Arabia will have more rights than we do! ‘Change we can believe in’ I suppose.
@Saber
I don't suppose you are even remotely trying to attribute the Patriot Act to the current administration?!?! Even FAUX News isn't stupid enough to try doing that.
While I agree with your comment about this Saudi news being not all that different than what Homeland Security does, maybe you should put the origin of this where it's supposed to be.
Yay, stock tips for the King!
Because i cant imagine anything going wrong with that.
So wait...
BlackBerry's only competitive advantage: ultra tight security, is now being surrendered?
@pissshivers
it's been surrendered here in the U.S. for awhile now, call it a imaginary competitive advantage
lol i did not expect this to go on and on .. man my government sure knows how to get what it wants XD
anyway , as a citizen it didn't change anything , all are communications with the Western are monitored but we do have the latest technology and gadgets that you do .
they blocked the BBM just because of " security" and just to spy like any other country that do , engadget didn't say anything when France went the same way the rest did :/
@NAJMSAMA
France does not torture people. This is all you need to know.
@Mnemonija torture you say ?
i am sorry but what the hell are you talking about ?
you're thinking that my country is torturing us , if thats the case than you sir have wrong information about my country , stop watching FOX NEWS XD
BB users should have privacy on their phones, however, in theory I should just be able to setup a server just outside of S.A. and rim can contract me to use that server w/o the feds knowledge and send through some fake data packets through the Saudi server.
Serious question:
Sooo how is this all that different than what America does with Homeland Security?!?
what a title: "...RIM surrenders". RIM has surrendered to everyone whose made them surrender. When Israel demanded all this stuff RIM was alot more compliant, no news stories, no "blows to freedom" etc and all that hubris. A lot of excellent comments by the Saudi students and expats as well.
way to pussy out RIM
RIM did what had to be done.
Sadly, 1/2 the world does not enjoy the freedoms we have here in North America and Europe.
Can't believe in the amount of racism here!!! Ppl in US have their own lifestyle and ppl in SA have their own lifestyle... Ppl have their religions which they choose to believe in how much they want
While I don't believe BB should have capitulated and let governments decide their policies, I also don't think that companies should be able to control governments
Just unite and live to learn in peace regardless of race, caste or ethnicity... Is that so hard to ask??? Or is it because you haven't been listening to what so many in today's world has campaigned for???
One last thing, Islam is a religion and has it's laws, so do not hate because a country that is holy under Islam is trying to regulate laws in order to keep with religion and tradition just like it should be for Christians or any other religion for the matter!!!
Respect others and you will find how easy it is to live on this earth
@akmafaz
While i agree that companies should not control governments, i do believe that just like people companies have moral respobsibilities to choose wisely who do they do business with. I mean if you take the contract to build the death star, do not be surprised when rebels try to blow it up.
@akmafaz The problem with there is that equality and religion do not generally play well together. Logically a person sitting next to me( regardless of gender, race, wealth, or even philosophical beliefs) deserves every right that I do, and is, in every way that matters, my equal. Religions have a difficult time with that kind of equality. Assuming you come from a religion that does not deny equality on any of those levels, can you really view another person as an equal if you believe the life you live is right and the life that they live is wrong?
Blackberry shouldnt have blinked first.
They had to. The SHEER number of people using BlackBerry Messenger here is ridiculous. People are buy the 250 dollars 8520, while the VASTLY superior E72 is the same price. They pay $27 a month just to send IMs!!! It's insanely stupid. Arab kids are a bunch of sheep, if one person does or has something they have to have or do it to.
يا ليييييل مطولك
@sajd4000 Couldnt have said it better
I told you before, RIM will surrender!
How long til China and Venezuela decide to do this too?
@weekilter China did this a while ago
India claimed only to be able to intercept traffic to non-BB recipients, and they are still demanding RIM give them access - so no, India did not succeed at reading BB traffic.
You can be sure the US Government is monitoring all traffic going through RIM's servers. The Saudi Government is smart to force RIM to put servers in their own country away from prying eyes. This will kill 2 birds with 1 stone.
@wshwe This will also kill fredom of expression, and the expressions goingon Saudi Blackberrys are not political but rich kids flirting. This is all about Wahabi anxiety about adolescent and young adult sexuality and the feart of the Shi'ia
@Dr Yusuf AlKindi
If you think the government gives a rats ass about kids flirting on the BlackBerry you could not be further from the truth, if this were the case then mIRC and other chatting services would have been banned years ago.
After reading some of your comments, it is obvious to me that you harbor a lot of hatred for the Saudi government and/or the Wahabists and to you this is more of a chance to attack them than it is about violations of freedom of expression.
RIM trust factor = 0.
hehe, censorship on engadget, don't say anything about religion folks.
You guys are blowing this way out of proportion.
I will sacrifice a lot more than my "chatting" privacy with a bunch of my stupid friends if it means that my country can sustain the current peace. If the authorities claim it is for security concerns then so be it.
People here are not upset about the government's decision to monitor BBs traffic. Why would they anyway? I bet more than 90% of the users are in their teens using the service mainly for texting friends.
I believe people here are not waiting to be saved from the evil government so there is no need for all this anger and outrage.
@mform112
You think your government has the right to monitor what you say and what you do? Nothing to do with if they already are doing this (illegally I might add...at least in most developed countries outside the US)...
@lip
To me it's not about whether they have the right to monitor or not. If the government believes the way the service ran in the past is a threat to the security of the country then I am completely for it.
Again, I'd rather live in peace than keep my chatting with friends private.
I respect your anger toward similar violations of freedom but remember that other people react differently to such violations, while it is an affront to you, it's not a huge deal for me.
You might argue that I'm a stupid duck for not caring if I'm being monitored, maybe you're right and maybe you're not. I'm a realist, and when I look at it from a personal perspective, this change does NOT affect me at all.
"Military" value of the devices?!
@Eli Haj Haha! Nobody is scared of Arab armies!