Translated: BlackBerry CEO John Chen on cops-snooping-on-BBM BlackBerry CEO John Chen has responded to last week's reheated news that police can pull text messages from BlackBerry handsets. The chief exec's blog post can be found here, and our FAQ on the matter is right here. Basically, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) chats sent via BIS (the BlackBerry Internet Service) are encrypted and …
Where does it say Blackberry is deciding who is criminals on their own? The police provide warrants for the 86 people they were investigating. They cooperated with the law as they are required to do.
How do you know they looked at other people's data and why would they do that?
In fact the phone companies were sending messages from these particular users to a special server, so in fact, only the messages of the suspected criminals were being investigated. They don't have time or reason to read other messages. They get paid to get results not browse through haystacks of useless information.
Arguably you, as a customer, will generally want the company that you're dealing with - or investing in - to act lawfully.
Whether it's Apple, or BlackBerry, or Google, or Joe-Bob's neighbourhood computer store, you should assume that when the Feds arrive with the proper papers they'll be given what they ask for.
Although there may be the occasional company that is prepared to mount a million dollar court battle, or even close their doors, most won't be willing - or able - to do either.
If you really, truly need security that bad you need to make it YOUR project, not rely on outside suppliers to do it for you.
The whole point of our entire economy is that we don't all have to be capable of everything. We perform labour and receive money in return. We exchange that money for goods and services performed by people with different specialties. In this context it is 100% rational to tell the companies we buy our technology from that we want a device that meets our needs. Privacy is one of those needs.
Why is privacy a requirement? Because "if you keep your nose clean, you'll be left alone" if a fucking lie. It is flat out not true.
If it were true, you wouldn't have Jean Charles de Menzes, or Tamir Rice, or the quite literally millions of unlawful infractions and outright murders committed - unpunished, unsanctioned and thus condoned - by the powers that be against completely innocent people.
"If you keep your nose clean, you'll be left alone"?
Tell that to Cameron Todd Willingham. Oh, you can't, they executed an innocent man.
Maybe you can tell Ricky Jackson that he really deserved all those terrifying years on death row for a crime he didn't commit.
It goes on and on and on and on. And you think that giving our governments panopticon powers to observe every single thing we do is going to improve matters? Do you not understand that today's warrant-required access is tomorrow's warrantless mass surveillance?
What, exactly, do you think our governments, who allow their police services to convict and murder the innocent almost always consequence free, are going to do once they have achieved total surveillance and legislated away the requirements for the presumption of innocence?
Think that's a bridge too far? Maybe you should look into the rights law enforcement has in the US to ignore 4th amendment for anyone 100 miles from a US border (80% of their population) and how this is increasingly being used. Maybe it's worth reading the TPP, TTIP and dozens of other treaties on the table, or concluded in the past 20 years to see how they are pushing their laws on the rest of the world.
Maybe it's worth looking at how we adopt not only their broken laws, but increasingly their completely insane law enforcement practices.
"If you keep your nose clean, you'll be left alone" is demonstrable bullshit. So is the idea that if we recognize that we should have no recourse excepting building our own privacy and security from the ground up.
The only choice is to fight the authoritarians and continue doing so for all of eternity. It is the cost of freedom. And it is a war cannot win, but absolutely cannot afford to lose. Those in power will use every means at their disposal to root out and crush dissent. Thus the means at their disposal must now and forever be limited, to ensure that dissent is always possible.
Our only path to victory lies through unity. Which is probably exactly why you advocate isolation. If so, that makes you a traitor.
I'd want the company I'm dealing with to act lawfully if my government was doing so. They've proven they don't give a shit what the law or the Constitution says, and they'll just take whatever they want regardless of the law.
So fuck 'em, I want security for myself, if that means terrorist communications are secure I have no problem with that. Let them go back to actual police work, instead of collecting a giant haystack of information and using algorithms to look for needles - and when the needles aren't found decide the solution is to make the haystack much bigger.
The fact is this was all done lawfully. They are not going through haystacks of data looking for a needle. They are only looking at the messages of the suspects they are investigating. You can make up all the innuendo you want, however that does not make it true. You know for a fact if you heard that you were sitting on top of a dirty bomb you would want the FBI to find it any way possible. Saying stuff and meaning it are two different things.
"You know for a fact if you heard that you were sitting on top of a dirty bomb you would want the FBI to find it any way possible."
Entirely untrue. I would rather that I and everyone I care about die than that my government or any of my government's allies circumvent the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the national-level rights and freedoms documents of our nations.
Some things, you die for. The ideals of liberty, freedom and the universal application of the rule of law are among them. Nobody, not cops, governments nor corporations can ever be allowed to be above the law. And yes, if we have to lose a city or two every generation that is entirely, 100% worth it.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Not against scary boogymen terrorists, but against authoritarians and fearmongers who crave power and use fear to obtain it, suppression of dissent to keep it.
Learn from the past. Je me souviens. Do not let the horrors of our ancestors be replayed so that you can have the illusion of security.
"you should assume that when the Feds arrive with the proper papers they'll be given what they ask for."
Barry, sit down before you read the next bit, it might shock you.
Sitting comfortably? OK.
There are other governments in this world besides the US.
Some of them might not have human rights policies that you agree with. Who makes the call when one of those rocks up to $vendor with proper papers? Does $vendor let them all in? Or none? Or should they call you with your great powers of judgement of who's right and who's wrong?
Stay sitting down because the next bit might shock as well.
In addition to governments there are also criminals who might want to break encryption.
If you've given out the keys to legitimate requests (whatever those might be) how do you control them so that the criminals don't get them? Or if you tackle the issue by installing back doors you do you prevent the criminals from discovering them?
So, BB cannot be trusted with your private data.
So, BB cannot be trusted at all.
If they and their ilk were simply selling devices with no encryption at all, with a black box warning that just about anybody could access private data on it, secretly or openly, that would be OK, so long as the price was right. Like real cheap.
But, they want top dollar for a device that does not have top drawer security. And now we know they do not have top drawer management, either.
Price that out. I'd say a BB is worth about $18 if they throw in a free case and spare battery.
Or maybe not that much actually.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have a question:-
My understanding is that contract law cannot bind parties to an agreement where the contract involves breaking the law. Surely then, the parties involved - Blackberry and the user in this instance, can rely on normal contract law to protect themselves in their actions? It is my understanding that if the law is broken then this can nullify certain aspects of a contract.
The difficulty is if the law changes, and things that were not covered by contract law might become covered, and vice versa, leaving people feeling exposed when things move against them. But that's not the fault of the vendor, and people doing things that they know in their real heart of hearts is a "bit dodgy" need to bear this in mind. This is the case with other aspects of life, such as celebrity injunctions - where incidentally we're not talking about people who've broken the law, but whose behaviour may affect their public life.
' people doing things that they know in their real heart of hearts is a "bit dodgy" need to bear this in mind'
Do you, in your real heart of hearts, know that it's a "bit dodgy" to order you groceries online and pay through online banking? If not then, by your own arguments as far as I can follow them, you are entitled to best security to protect that transaction and your bank account.
Your phone, tablet, laptop or whatever can't have two automatically selected encryption modes, one for dodgy and one for not dodgy.
I thought if you ran a BES server you and only you had the keys. Therefore it wouldn't matter what law enforcement agencies asked for from BlackBerry they couldn't help - and is what Mr Chen I think is suggesting. I wasn't aware that BIS was ever claimed to be in the same class of security.
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