France Bans BlackBerries In Govt. On Fears of Spying

DesertBlade writes "French government officials are no longer allowed to use BlackBerries for official correspondence. The reason? Fear that the US government will snoop out French national secrets via RIM's network. From the article: '"The risks of interception are real. It is economic war," daily Le Monde quoted Alain Juillet, in charge of economic intelligence for the government, as saying. With BlackBerries, there is "a problem with the protection of information," he said. Juillet's office confirmed that he spoke to Le Monde but said he would not talk to other reporters. Officials at the presidential Elysee Palace and the prime minister's office were not immediately available for comment. Le Monde said information sent from BlackBerries goes through servers in the United States and Britain, and that France fears that the U.S. National Security Agency can snoop.'"

Entirely plausible, even likely.

[Frosty Piss]

I'm sure there will be an avalanche of French jokes (looking forward to some good ones!), but as silly as it may seem, put that in the context of past and present behavior of our executive branch and their reach with the "Intelligence" Community. Entirely plausible, even likely.

It's not unreasonable

[rbanzai]

I don't think it's unreasonable for a foreign government to suspect that our government is not currently obeying any laws, morals, or ethics where snooping on electronic information is concerned.

Even when laws are obeyed they differ from country to country, and one country might not appreciate the latitude (or lack of it) in the way another country handles information and espionage.

isn't RIM Canadian?

[circletimessquare]

1. name a network that US Spy agencies can't spy on if they wanted to, regardless of national affiliation. why is RIM any different?

2. would a Canadian like to clear their throat and defend a Canadian company accused of complicity with US Spying? seems like France is insulting Canada more than the US here

i think the real culprit here is economic competition. it's not outright economic protectionism, but it's a shrewd effort at spreading FUD to protect the real goal: the nurturing of a Fench homegrown RIM alternative

maybe the French are just pissed that the Internet didn't grow from Minitel [wikipedia.org]

And they are right...

[mi]

Personally, I don't understand how/why these devices can be used by anyone, really, who cares for the privacy/secrets. The connection to your mail-server is not secured at all.

Even if device->RIM connection is secure (which is not certain, for they are using a proprietary protocol, AFAIK), you have to trust your privacy to RIM, a Canadian company foreign to most of its users.

Sure, they have a good incentive to keep your privacy, but it would be better still to just use an end-to-end secure connection directly to your servers (via IMAPS, for example). Devices capable of that are becoming available, and the wireless networks grow as well... RIM exploded in prominence because it did not use Internet Protocol and was able to deliver relatively light and power-efficient devices to do the job.

But technology is quickly eliminating that advantage — and the French may help create a better alternative, for a change.

Re:an indication of what the French are doing

[Anonymous Coward]

And Americans fear terrorists... Hummmmm.

Re:Industrial Espionage

[Mr Z]

Psychologists call this "projection. [wikipedia.org]" That's why adulterers are more likely to accuse their spouse of cheating, etc.

That said, we both probably spy on each other as much as possible.

--Joe

No surprises here

[patrik]

I am not surprised. The US Government does not particularly like them either. They are not considered secure devices by anyone's standard. I used to work at a large contractor and whenever some idiot manager had accidentally forwarded their classified emails to their to a blackberry there was always a lot of yelling and head rolling. The person had to basically give up their PDA for a week while the security guys sanitized the device. I believe the emails are actually stored on blackberry's emails servers so they even had to contact them to remove said emails.

If I were worried about security I wouldn't think twice about banning them, no matter what country the mail servers were in. That being said, our govt and I am sure the French govt have skiffs for the really higher classification stuff.

Patrik

RIM is Candidian. Those STUPID, STUPID frenchies

[Anonymous Coward]

RIM is Candidian. Those STUPID, STUPID frenchies !!

A FANTASTIC development!!

[erroneus]

Oh this makes me really happy to see this.

At the moment, it would appear that the US Government has been pushing onto US businesses to allow for this and other types of surveillance and snooping. Now businesses will have a clear example of why it is not in their interests to comply so readily. When the international market will no longer trust you or your business model because the US Federal Government is potentially encroaching, corrupting or otherwise tainting their bsuiness image, then there will be lobbying for less government interference with business.

I don't want to see lobbying affect government at all... don't get me wrong. That's where corruption largely begins and lives. But as long as this system is in place, at least now we can see where even those forces can be used against the current trends in government eroding our rights and privacy.

Re:This from....

[Goaway]

So, if you're spying... You're not allowed to protect yourself from others spying on you?

Re:isn't RIM Canadian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus spake circletimessquare (444983):

2. would a Canadian like to clear their throat and defend a Canadian company accused of complicity with US Spying? seems like France is insulting Canada more than the US here

..

Puhlease. Any company (particularly large ones) that wants to have a crack at the lucrative American market would do whatever the American government tells them to do. Whether it is a Canadian company or not, the fact remains is that is is a COMPANY. Companies have no country loyalty, but only loyalty to the "almighty buck".

I am a staunch Canadian, and there is no way I would defend RIM, or any company.

Re:isn't RIM Canadian?

[Midnight Thunder]

One of the issues that seems to be apparent is that the BlackBerry servers are out of country, on someone else's soil. I am not sure the USA would react any differently if the servers were on French soil instead? One way to reassure the French government could be by placing the BlackBerry servers handling French traffic in France. As to whether the USA or France spy on each other? Well I just take the cynical point of view that if national security matters you need act as if anyone could be spying on you. I don't mind that governments wear tin foil hats, as long as their policy of doing so does not effect Joe public.

How do you trust your computers?

[Colin Smith]

There's really only one way.

Build it yourself. Hardware and software. It kind of explains Bull [bull.com].

 

Re:This from....

[digitig]

So they know what they're talking about. Are there any countries that don't engage in spying? That doesn't mean that they roll over and let everybody spy on them. This is all part of the game.

Riiiight

[phorm]

Sorry, but your innuendo falls a little short. It's been pretty visible that the US has mass spy programs against its own citizens (which has long been held less acceptable than against foreign "competition"), and they've done very little to hide the fact that they have a strong interest in collecting and using whatever information they can.

Why do the french have to be up to anything? If I get new deadbolts because I see my neighbour burying bodies in the backyard, it doesn't mean I have any bodies in my yard, it just means I don't want to end fertilizing his...

Kill yourself

[dharbee]

"At least, the French are not afraid of being tortured by their enemies. I wonder what the CIA might be up to, with its black flights and secret prisons?"

And you don't have to be afraid of intelligent conversation and rational thought.

In all seriousness, WTF is wrong with you, how meaningless and empty is your life that you take a completely unrelated topic and wedge a CIA/torture/black flight rant into it?

Are you so consumed by your paranoia that you are totally incapable of discussing anything without force feeding us your views on a complete non sequitur?

Get a life, you fucking loser.

Re:It's not unreasonable

[justinlee37]

It is a very fine ethical line but as long as the focus is foreign governments, they are on the right side of that ethical line.

This is a great example of the philosophical and ethical quagmire that nationalism thrusts us into -- it causes us to see the world in terms of "us" and "them," where "we" have more rights than "they."

It causes "us" to go to war with "them," instead of identifying with the human race as one collective entity.

Which we are, and we ought to behave as such, considering that all we have in the big, scary universe is each other.