(Hi everyone, sorry I haven’t posted in such a long time. Moving cuts into valuable blogging time.)
Today I ran across an article in Bloomberg about Dubai and Saudi Arabia threatening to ban BlackBerry usage because of national security risks.
BlackBerries, through their push email and BlackBerry Messenger service, send encrypted data through proxy servers in Waterloo, Canada. According to some UAE representatives, this violates UAE legislation regarding hosting sensitive data offshore. (Many countries, particularly those in Europe, have similar rules about keeping sensitive data within the country’s borders. In my opinion, all of these rules hold back the tremendous economic, environmental, and technical advantages of cloud computing from being fully realized. This is not a smart move.)
But let’s dig a little deeper. Certainly Saudi Arabia and the UAE minsters couldn’t have just woke up this morning, and suddenly realized their BlackBerry data is in Canada. These are some of the most popular smartphones in these countries.
In an article in CIO, the whole statement from the UAE is printed:
“Certain Blackberry applications allow people to misuse the service, causing serious social, judicial and national security repercussions,” and because related data is potentially stored outside of UAE territory, it is “beyond the jurisdiction of national legislation.”
How interesting – notice that the first repercussion is social, not judicial or security related. Much of the media coverage around this issue has pointed to protests organized via BBM. There are, of course, the obvious issues surrounding the inability of nationalized carriers to invade user’s privacy when they use BBM rather than SMS. I have also heard that due to this same lack of carrier visibility, BBM is one of the few ways unmarried men and women can communicate and flirt in countries where such is frowned upon. In some of those Middle Eastern countries, a gray market for easy-to-remember BBM PINs has emerged. (I have reached out to a couple of people to find the link – I will update the post once I get it.)
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