BOSTON: The BlackBerry -- renowned for the security of its messaging -- doesn't offer 100 per cent protection from eavesdropping. At least not in the United States.
US law enforcement officials said they can tap into emails and other conversations made using the device, made by Research in Motion, as long as they have proper court orders.
RIM's willingness to grant authorities access to the messages of its clients is a hot-button issue. The United Arab Emirates claims it does not have the same kind of surveillance rights to BlackBerry messages as officials in the United States. It has threatened to clamp down on some services unless they get more access. A similar problem exists in India as well.
The exact details of the dispute remain unclear, but security experts say that many governments around the world enjoy the ability to monitor BlackBerry conversations as they do communications involving most types of mobile devices.
"The ability to tap communications is a part of surveillance and intelligence and law enforcement all over the world," said Mark Rasch, former head of the computer crimes unit at the US Department of Justice.
RIM is in an unusual position of having to deal with government requests to monitor its clients because it is the only smartphone maker who manages the traffic of messages sent using its equipment. Other smartphone makers -- including Apple Inc, Nokia, HTC and Motorola Corp -- leave the work of managing data to the wireless carrier or the customer.
RIM's encrypted, or scrambled, traffic is delivered through secure servers at its own data centers, based mostly in its home base of Canada. Some corporate clients choose to host BlackBerry servers at other locations.
Rasch said that RIM may feel uncomfortable granting such access to officials in UAE. There may be concern authorities could abuse that access, he said.
"You reach a point where a company feels uncomfortable from the client perspective with what a government is asking them," Rasch said. "It may be a function of what they are being asked to do, or it may be a function of which government is asking."
US rules that govern wire-tapping are designed to avoid abuse of power. "It's a very complex process going to go about getting a wire tap. It's not something that is made easy for us to do," said Connecticut State Police Sargeant Shawn Corey.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
IMEI No.: Govt plans crackdown
NEW DELHI: National security and consumer interests are being compromised with the government discovering extremely poor compliance from telecom service providers over shutting down service to all handsets without a genuine International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number. The government is preparing to initiate strict action against all violators.
The Department of Telecom's (DoT) study of the compliance data reveals that every fifth call of certain operators, comes from a handset without an IMEI number, which is a high level of noncompliance. This is despite law enforcement agencies cracking down on service providers over this issue since 2008.
"In June, an Equipment ID Register (EIR) was set up. The EIR ensures that calls from invalid IMEI numbers do not pass through. The non-compliance level suggests that operators are disabling the EIR to allow these calls, which is quite a grave violation," a senior DoT official told ToI.
According to a DoT note, almost every service provider has been found guilty of noncompliance, demonstrating how lightly the telecom industry treats matters of national security and proving allegations of non-cooperation on security matters to be true. Even subscriber verification norms are routinely bypassed by telcos even in sensitive border areas despite checks and penalties imposed on companies.
India has over 650 million mobile subscribers and there are no available estimates of how many of these do not have genuine IMEI numbers on their handsets. A year ago, when the subscriber base was 500 million, GSM association COAI had estimated that 17 to 18 million of these did not have an IMEI number.
Law enforcement agencies find it difficult to intercept targets that do not have a legitimate IMEI. Accordingly, in November 2009, all service providers were instructed by the DoT not to process or to reject all calls from mobile handsets that are not available in the latest updated IMEI database of the GSM Association with effect from November 30, 2009.
Telcos were also asked to submit their compliance on this matter by December 15, 2009.
"The unsatisfactory compliance is the non-implementation of the instruction of Department in proper way which has implications on working of law enforcement agencies," the DoT note says.
When contacted, COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) director general Rajan Mathews told ToI, “Instead of disenfranchising legitimate consumers, the COAI had initiated an exercise to implant legitimate IMEI numbers on the handsets. This exercise was completed, however, the problem could be arising from the fresh influx of Chinese handsets into the country.”
According to Mathews, grey market retailers implant genuine IMEI numbers on handsets which do not have an IMEI number, which means multiple handsets could have the same IMEI number.
The Department of Telecom's (DoT) study of the compliance data reveals that every fifth call of certain operators, comes from a handset without an IMEI number, which is a high level of noncompliance. This is despite law enforcement agencies cracking down on service providers over this issue since 2008.
"In June, an Equipment ID Register (EIR) was set up. The EIR ensures that calls from invalid IMEI numbers do not pass through. The non-compliance level suggests that operators are disabling the EIR to allow these calls, which is quite a grave violation," a senior DoT official told ToI.
According to a DoT note, almost every service provider has been found guilty of noncompliance, demonstrating how lightly the telecom industry treats matters of national security and proving allegations of non-cooperation on security matters to be true. Even subscriber verification norms are routinely bypassed by telcos even in sensitive border areas despite checks and penalties imposed on companies.
India has over 650 million mobile subscribers and there are no available estimates of how many of these do not have genuine IMEI numbers on their handsets. A year ago, when the subscriber base was 500 million, GSM association COAI had estimated that 17 to 18 million of these did not have an IMEI number.
Law enforcement agencies find it difficult to intercept targets that do not have a legitimate IMEI. Accordingly, in November 2009, all service providers were instructed by the DoT not to process or to reject all calls from mobile handsets that are not available in the latest updated IMEI database of the GSM Association with effect from November 30, 2009.
Telcos were also asked to submit their compliance on this matter by December 15, 2009.
"The unsatisfactory compliance is the non-implementation of the instruction of Department in proper way which has implications on working of law enforcement agencies," the DoT note says.
When contacted, COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) director general Rajan Mathews told ToI, “Instead of disenfranchising legitimate consumers, the COAI had initiated an exercise to implant legitimate IMEI numbers on the handsets. This exercise was completed, however, the problem could be arising from the fresh influx of Chinese handsets into the country.”
According to Mathews, grey market retailers implant genuine IMEI numbers on handsets which do not have an IMEI number, which means multiple handsets could have the same IMEI number.
EU ditches BlackBerry for iPhone, HTC
BRUSSELS/HELSINKI: The European Union Commission rejected Research in Motion's BlackBerry in favour of Apple's iPhone and HTC smartphones, a spokesman said, amid a spreading row about BlackBerry security.
The EU's executive arm, which employs more than 32,000 people, reviewed its choice of smartphone against a number of criteria, including security and financial impact, when it deployed a new technology platform in 2008. A number of governments have recently threatened to curb use of the BlackBerry on security grounds, with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday joining the United Arab Emirates, India and Kuwait.
Governments are concerned they cannot monitor BlackBerry traffic, because unlike rivals Nokia and Apple, Research in Motion (RIM) controls its own networks, which handle encrypted messages through server centres in Canada and Britain.
"Following this evaluation, the HTC and the iPhones emerged at the most suitable platforms for voice/mail-centric mobile devices. As a result, the Commission currently supports these two platforms," the spokesman wrote in an email. Previously, the Commission had used PDAs made by Qtek, now owned by Taiwan's HTC.
The spokesman said about 2,500 staff were affected, and that all the criteria -- which also included resilience and administration overheads -- had weighed equally. RIM's Chief Technology Officer David Yach said on Tuesday he believed governments were unlikely to follow through on their threats because state officials themselves depended heavily on BlackBerries.
But the once-iconic devices are no longer the indispensable business tools they once seemed, with many corporations opening up to allow alternatives like the iPhone as staff demand the same performance from their work tools as their leisure devices.
British bank Standard Chartered said earlier this year it was giving its staff the option to replace the BlackBerry with the iPhone, a move that could eventually result in thousands of bankers switching. And many top French government ministers have been issued specially encrypted smartphones after a French security agency recommended that cabinet ministers and President Nicolas Sarkozy stop using BlackBerries due to security concerns.
RIM on Tuesday unveiled a new BlackBerry aimed at wooing consumers away from the iPhone and other rivals. Analysts said the Torch did not represent a major advance, but would help RIM catch up in terms of consumer-friendly features.
Nokia had 40 per cent of the global smartphone market in the second quarter, with RIM in second place at 19 per cent and Apple at 14 per cent, according to communications research firm Strategy Analytics.
The EU's executive arm, which employs more than 32,000 people, reviewed its choice of smartphone against a number of criteria, including security and financial impact, when it deployed a new technology platform in 2008. A number of governments have recently threatened to curb use of the BlackBerry on security grounds, with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday joining the United Arab Emirates, India and Kuwait.
Governments are concerned they cannot monitor BlackBerry traffic, because unlike rivals Nokia and Apple, Research in Motion (RIM) controls its own networks, which handle encrypted messages through server centres in Canada and Britain.
"Following this evaluation, the HTC and the iPhones emerged at the most suitable platforms for voice/mail-centric mobile devices. As a result, the Commission currently supports these two platforms," the spokesman wrote in an email. Previously, the Commission had used PDAs made by Qtek, now owned by Taiwan's HTC.
The spokesman said about 2,500 staff were affected, and that all the criteria -- which also included resilience and administration overheads -- had weighed equally. RIM's Chief Technology Officer David Yach said on Tuesday he believed governments were unlikely to follow through on their threats because state officials themselves depended heavily on BlackBerries.
But the once-iconic devices are no longer the indispensable business tools they once seemed, with many corporations opening up to allow alternatives like the iPhone as staff demand the same performance from their work tools as their leisure devices.
British bank Standard Chartered said earlier this year it was giving its staff the option to replace the BlackBerry with the iPhone, a move that could eventually result in thousands of bankers switching. And many top French government ministers have been issued specially encrypted smartphones after a French security agency recommended that cabinet ministers and President Nicolas Sarkozy stop using BlackBerries due to security concerns.
RIM on Tuesday unveiled a new BlackBerry aimed at wooing consumers away from the iPhone and other rivals. Analysts said the Torch did not represent a major advance, but would help RIM catch up in terms of consumer-friendly features.
Nokia had 40 per cent of the global smartphone market in the second quarter, with RIM in second place at 19 per cent and Apple at 14 per cent, according to communications research firm Strategy Analytics.
Apple becomes richest tech company in World
SAN FRANCISCO: Apple Inc Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer faces a dilemma that perhaps every finance chief wishes to have: obscene amounts of cash and no place to put it.
The iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac computer maker has accumulated a massive cash pile that totals nearly $46 billion, the biggest cash hoard among US tech companies and equivalent to one-fifth of Apple's market capitalization.
And yet, due to an ultra-conservative investment strategy and low interest rates, that cash is earning next to nothing for Apple, which rarely makes acquisitions and does not pay a regular dividend or buy back stock.
"Oppenheimer probably has the most enviable CFO job on the planet," joked Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin, who has been following Apple since the early 1980s.
Analysts say Apple's near-death experience in the 1990s helps explain why it likes to remain liquid by investing in safe but low-yielding US Treasury and agency debt. The company earned a mere 0.76 per cent on its cash and investments in its most recent quarter, down from 1.43 per cent in fiscal 2009, 3.44 per cent in 2008 and 5.27 per cent in 2007.
Despite these low returns, Apple does not face much pressure these days to put its cash to better use. Any dissenting investors are probably appeased by the meteoric rise in the company's share price, which has tripled since 2007.
"When a company is growing as fast as Apple, cash management is pretty far back in people's thoughts," said Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves.
"But that'll change at some point," he added, estimating that Apple's cash could hit a cool $65 billion by the end of fiscal 2011 if the company continued to generate free cash flow at the current pace. For now, Oppenheimer has a mantra that he repeats on every quarterly earnings conference call: He tells Wall Street that Apple's investment priority is the "preservation of capital" with a focus on "short-dated, high-quality investments."
Bajarin said Oppenheimer's cautious approach dates from his time at Automatic Data Processing Inc, but Apple's conservatism is also driven by Chief Executive Steve Jobs. Both Jobs, 55, and Oppenheimer, 47, subscribe to the Silicon Valley maxim that "only the paranoid survive," he said.
They remember the dark days when Apple was a struggling company to stay alive and had to lay off thousands to cut costs. When Oppenheimer joined the company in 1996 as its controller for the Americas, a series of bad management decisions had eroded profits and sent its share price diving to less than $5. Things got so bad that one of the first things Jobs did when he returned to Apple was take a lifeline in the form of a $150 million investment from Microsoft Corp in 1997.
The iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac computer maker has accumulated a massive cash pile that totals nearly $46 billion, the biggest cash hoard among US tech companies and equivalent to one-fifth of Apple's market capitalization.
And yet, due to an ultra-conservative investment strategy and low interest rates, that cash is earning next to nothing for Apple, which rarely makes acquisitions and does not pay a regular dividend or buy back stock.
"Oppenheimer probably has the most enviable CFO job on the planet," joked Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin, who has been following Apple since the early 1980s.
Analysts say Apple's near-death experience in the 1990s helps explain why it likes to remain liquid by investing in safe but low-yielding US Treasury and agency debt. The company earned a mere 0.76 per cent on its cash and investments in its most recent quarter, down from 1.43 per cent in fiscal 2009, 3.44 per cent in 2008 and 5.27 per cent in 2007.
Despite these low returns, Apple does not face much pressure these days to put its cash to better use. Any dissenting investors are probably appeased by the meteoric rise in the company's share price, which has tripled since 2007.
"When a company is growing as fast as Apple, cash management is pretty far back in people's thoughts," said Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andy Hargreaves.
"But that'll change at some point," he added, estimating that Apple's cash could hit a cool $65 billion by the end of fiscal 2011 if the company continued to generate free cash flow at the current pace. For now, Oppenheimer has a mantra that he repeats on every quarterly earnings conference call: He tells Wall Street that Apple's investment priority is the "preservation of capital" with a focus on "short-dated, high-quality investments."
Bajarin said Oppenheimer's cautious approach dates from his time at Automatic Data Processing Inc, but Apple's conservatism is also driven by Chief Executive Steve Jobs. Both Jobs, 55, and Oppenheimer, 47, subscribe to the Silicon Valley maxim that "only the paranoid survive," he said.
They remember the dark days when Apple was a struggling company to stay alive and had to lay off thousands to cut costs. When Oppenheimer joined the company in 1996 as its controller for the Americas, a series of bad management decisions had eroded profits and sent its share price diving to less than $5. Things got so bad that one of the first things Jobs did when he returned to Apple was take a lifeline in the form of a $150 million investment from Microsoft Corp in 1997.
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