
Blackberry to 'exit' Pakistan over data-retention row - jackgavigan
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34962361
======
littletimmy
The Pakistanis just played this stupidly. The article says "The Pakistani
government wanted to be able to monitor every message and email sent via its
phones, it said." That's ridiculous, of course no firm would agree.

What you have to do instead is to say you want to have access to records that
may help against terror, everything approved by a court of course. Then create
a court, make it process as many requests as you want. You appoint the court
so it will rubber-stamp whatever you want (you must let 1% requests fail for
plausible deniability). Make Blackberry complicit enough that they have no
face-saving if they make it public. Viola! You have a spy system going.

~~~
nickpsecurity
That sounds like it would work in a fake democracy like the U.S.. I bet it
would barely get any media coverage unless half a dozen people on the inside
gave gory details. Even then, it would probably mostly fizzle out with people
watching stuff on Netflix while their government watches them.

------
po
_Mr Beard said Blackberry did not support "backdoors" that would grant open
access to customers' information and had never complied with such a request
anywhere in the world._

I'm kind of confused by this. I mean we're talking about the company RIM that
already handed over the keys to India, right?

[http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-02/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-08-02/news/33001399_1_blackberry-
enterprise-encryption-keys-corporate-emails)

~~~
shawn-butler
They don't even have the keys to turn over for BES (unless there are
backdoors)

This article refers to BIS... the consumer servers. Once the server is on
foreign soil, its governed by local law.

That's the way the world works.

~~~
mtgx
Which is one of the reasons BlackBerry would rather leave the country than
piss off its customers by telling them they can't use their own keys anymore.

They're more than happy to give up the one and only consumer BBM key, as
they've already done for India and Saudi Arabia, and possibly other countries
as well that we don't know about.

As the company's COO said a couple of weeks ago, BlackBerry supports "lawful
intercept" for their products and services:

[http://fedscoop.com/blackberry-taking-balanced-approach-
to-e...](http://fedscoop.com/blackberry-taking-balanced-approach-to-
encryption-lawful-intercept)

And by the way, the article is inaccurate/outdated. BlackBerry already said it
will _delay_ the exit (probably indefinitely) as the Pakistan government has
already extended its BES shutdown by another month, and probably also
indefinitely, as I don't think it wanted BlackBerry to actually leave the
country, but it hoped it could scare it into giving it access.

This also tells us companies (including BlackBerry in other countries)
shouldn't be so quick to "pee in their pants" (as another famous executive
quote once said, even though I know he meant something different) as soon as
governments start threatening them with a shutdown unless they provide
backdoors or stop using strong encryption. Instead, they should do the right
thing and _always_ fight for their customers (including regular consumers, not
just enterprise customers), even if that means using the final option of
leaving the country (but it often won't be the case).

------
kchoudhu
The entire Indian subcontinent is currently struggling with the transition to
a state of the world where citizens communicate freely and frequently without
going through an organization controlled directly by the government.

Bangladesh, for example, has banned Facebook, Whatsapp, Viber and a bunch of
other services for the last two weeks in order to prevent extremist responses
to a couple of very touchy executions. The telecommunications ministry has
reached out to "the Facebook authorities" and the US State Department in order
to "make a deal"...but the way they've gone about doing so feeds into the
narrative that the they have no idea what they are doing.

They'll learn to be effectively evil in time, I guess.

~~~
secfirstmd
Very true, we just launched an open source mobile app to help users manage
digital and physical security
([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.u...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.secfirst.umbrella&hl=en_GB))
and from the little that we know (Google Play Store unfortunately keeps data
on countries of download) India seems to be one of the places where we are
seeing most new users. I guess it makes sense with the nature of the current
government and also the crack down on media and NGOs.

------
hvalika
But really, what is this saying about the companies that are allowed to
remain? Does the Pakistani government have the ability to monitor every
message/email sent via phones through a domestic carrier? (I suppose all
carriers are domestic.)

As a business decision, is this really smart for Blackberry? There is a decent
market in Pakistan, after all.

~~~
abdullahkhalids
There are other carriers in the country, not all of which are domestic. They
have all provided 'lawful' interception capabilities for several years now
[1]. The government is currently pushing for a new cyber-crime bill that will
give it even more surveillance powers [2].

[1]
[https://www.privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/PAK...](https://www.privacyinternational.org/sites/default/files/PAKISTAN%20REPORT%20HIGH%20RES%2020150721_0.pdf)
page 13 of pdf file. [2] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/deeper-look-
inside-pec...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/11/deeper-look-inside-pecb-
pakistans-terrible-cyber-crime-bill)

------
Laaw
Two things about this:

1\. What does that say about the companies that are allowed to remain?

2\. What are the parallels to this and what the US does to its technology
companies? I've never heard of a company being "kicked out" of the US for
failing to comply with its laws, they're simply penalized.

------
rdlecler1
Alternatively, someone may be knocking out the competition to support a home
grown solution.

