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Indian Government Has Access to BBM Messages
On Saturday an Indian publication named India Today reported that the local government has been given its way to tap into BlackBerry devices which will allow the monitoring of BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) messages. To be clear, RIM is not aiding the Indian government in tapping the phones since they never had the keys to BES decryption since each BES installation has keys specific to it.
BBM what has about one million users in India is not as secure as BES although it uses a 256-bit encryption and is also a lot more secure than a normal e-mail. But as opposed to BES, which has specific keys for each installation, BBM shares the same key across all the users so as long as the government has the key along with the encrypted message, it will be able to decrypt anything.
In RIM’s Q4 conference call, Thorsten Heins mentioned that consumers of the device do not value the security part of the BIS as much as the company thought at first. If that is true, then this whole thing is a moot-point since all the people who do not harbor ill intentions (like terrorism or anti governmental plots), don’t really have anything to worry about.
Are you still pacing up and down, being worried that you do not have a decent Valentine’s Day gift for your other half? Put on that thinking caps of yours – there surely must be something that he or she needs. Wait a minute – what if a new smartphone is long overdue? You might as well kill two birds with a single stone with word that the BlackBerry Passport is receiving a discount from BlackBerry themselves, where those living in the US would be the beneficiary of a $100 discount, while folks living in Canada would be able to bring home the BlackBerry Passport for $125 cheaper.
Of course, this will only be available directly on the Canadian manufacturer’s official online store, and the validity of this price cut would remain all the way through Monday, February 16. Better late than never, don’t you think so? Choose from black, white and red shades.
The country of Central African Republic might have achieved its independence in 1960, but this does not mean that they country has gone through a relatively peaceful period. On the contrary, the growing pains have been very real, and in recent times, thousands of people have lost their lives with millions getting displaced ever since a coup saw out the government of the day, with ethnic-religious tensions rising in the process. This has led to a ban by all four mobile networks in the landlocked country when it comes to text messaging, where anyone who tries to send an SMS would receive a notification “SMS not allowed.”
This could be seen as a move to stop any kind of planned continuation of violent demonstrations that have been happening in the capital of Bangui. Will this stop those who want to continue demonstrating and protesting? Most probably not, and it might just raise the ire of those involved even more.
Sign, sealed and delivered – I guess this is what you can say about BBM Video which is more or less confirmed to arrive alongside the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which is set to be launched at the end of next month. This would clearly sandwich it right between the Mobile World Congress that is happening in February, as well as CES which would kick off in the second week of January. Well, the BBM Video was first spotted in the form of a folder (bbm_video) in an update to the BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device, and this time around, an internal RIM document has confirmed that this feature does exist and is on its way alongside BlackBerry 10.
Imagine making use of BBM, where you kick off a chat session between a couple of friends, or to carry out a salesman and customer conversation that can be transitioned to BBM Video in a jiffy. All it takes is a simple button push, and you can then share a spreadsheet or presentation. Are you looking forward to the BBM Video’s debut?