back to article UAE looks to block BlackBerry mail, again

Small companies in the UAE will no longer be permitted to use BlackBerry email services, according to local reports, and access will be cut off in the next two weeks. The National, an Abu Dhabi paper, tells us that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has issued guidelines saying that any company with fewer than 20 …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    "Collections of Individuals"?

    ".....features disappear for the sake of national security as small companies become collections of individuals rather than aspiring enterprises."

    .....features disappear for the sake of national security as small companies become collections of suspected terrorists rather than aspiring enterprises.

    There, fixed it for you. You're welcome.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    What about roaming?

    Anyone know how this will affect non-UAE users with Blackberries who roam into the UAE?

    I have a BES here in the UK and quite a few users who work in several Arab countries, including the UAE - will their Blackberries be blocked from syncing when they are roaming onto the UAE's mobile networks?

    1. Bill Ray (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: What about roaming?

      Current thinking is that roaming users will be OK, but we're told that the regulations will be clarified later this week so we won't know for sure until then.

      Bill.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Black Helicopters

        If roaming users are OK

        If roaming users are OK, will that mean that wealthy UAE citizens will be able to buy a Blackberry and SIM from a non-UAE network and use it with a non-UAE BES on a permanent basis?

        I know I've had calls from users saying they can't get their emails when they're in Saudi recently and asked whether it's the Saudi government blocking them, so I am concerned that we're going to have to look at issuing EAS-sync phones (probably Androids) to anyone travelling to the Arab world on a regular basis.

  3. Piloti
    Thumb Down

    Perception from the rest of the world.....

    Not wanting to start too much of a flame war, but, is it really not too surprising when the rest of worlds sees some arab / muslim states as being a be bit , well, paranoid, pre-historic, backward thinking ?

    The life blood of any great country is usually the the small medium business, the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the philanthropist. And here is the UAE showing all the traits of a mis-trusting, paranoid Government that has fuelled the riots / protests etc across north Africa and the Middle East.

    Tony Blair was an arse, but he could be voted out. He was superseded by another arse, and, subsequently, by another pair of them. But, with actions like this in the UAE, will things ever /really/ change over there ?

    1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Don't forget the US

      The funny thing is that the US started it. It is no longer possible to pass a US border without a risk that your electronic equipment gets taken from you and cloned. As far as I know the UAE or even China have not been so blatant about their espionage..

    2. Adam Inistrator

      change over there

      s/mohammed/mohammed bin mohammed/

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    easy to get round

    Just sign up to 20 accounts and you're sorted!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Used to work in UAE and ...

    ... we hosted BES Server outside of UAE ... Job done ... !

    1. Matthew
      Grenade

      Unfortunately, hosting BES out-of-country doesn't work

      Our BES server is hosted in the UK with a handful of local users on local SIMs in the UAE. We've received notification from Etisalat that we will need to move our UAE users to Etisalat's BIS service.

  6. Hilmi Al-kindy

    Welcome to my world

    Welcome to the world of control freaks, welcome to the middle east. The wester world is heading in the same direction with all their anti-terrorism laws.

    The only reason you would want to be able to monitor every single thing that is being said is not national security, it is security of the person/ people ruling the country. Lawful intercept is just a polite way of saying that you want to be able to spy on every single person and you do not care about the concept of reasonable expectations of privacy.

  7. M7S
    Big Brother

    Was this the reason for the abrubt end to the "Click" interview on the BBC?

    As if RIM had prior notice, answering the question might have been "tipping off"?

  8. BeachBoy
    Coat

    Why does only 3rd world countries complain?

    Is it because their security services don't have the kit that the USA/UK et al have?

    After all can you seriously see the over paraniod UK intellegence services allowing a commercial encrypted service that they can't listen in to?

    Mines the one with the tin foil hat

  9. Steve Bush

    bb will just place its servers in uae

    then the uae spooks can spy on the small guys (aka potential terrorists) but not the big guys who are supposedly less

  10. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    Different answer..

    You can always install the App that makes it talk to an Exchange server directly..

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like