RIM's double standards while dealing with Asian and Middle East countries
By By Ravi Kunder | 09 Aug 2010
The November 2009 terrorist attack in Mumbai, the January 2010 assassination of Palestine leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai by Israel's intelligence agency Mossad and the series of bombings of American military assets in Saudi Arabia by groups affiliated to the Al Qaida, have forced the governments of these countries to demand access to its encrypted data from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM).
The UAE threatened to block certain BlackBerry services from 10 October 2010, Saudi Arabia has temporarily put off its 6 August ban after RIM seems to have agreed to set up and test three proxy servers for the country's Blackberry operators.
Indian security officials have warned the company that it would have to cease operations in the country if it failed to adequately address security concerns.
India has declined the latest sops offered by RIM of providing certain information of the message sent through Blackberry such as the IP address of BlackBerry enterprise server and PIN and International Mobile Equipment Identity number (IEMI) of the BlackBerry handset.
The BlackBerry Messenger is said to be used by more than 25 million of its total 46 million subscribes worldwide. It has nearly a million customers in India, about half a million in the UAE and around 700,000 in Saudi Arabia.
Apart from India, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, other countries like Bahrain, Lebanon, Algeria, Kuwait and Indonesia have also voiced concerns over BlackBerry's encrypted data that can be misused by terror groups and cannot be monitored by security agencies.
