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Wireless

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Jun 20th 2007 6:44am





French Officials Can't Resist Their Crackberries, Even If It Means Giving Secrets To American Spies

from the must...-use...-crackberry dept

We've all heard the RIM Blackberry referred to as a "Crackberry" for its supposedly addictive nature... however, we never thought that it was true that anyone really couldn't do without their Blackberry mobile device. Apparently the French government has banned the devices for certain government officials who might email sensitive information. Since RIM has all emails run through its own servers, some of which reside in the US, the French government is worried (perhaps reasonably so) that American spies are snooping on their sensitive emails. However, apparently many French government officials just can't let go and are still using Blackberry devices on the sly... even if it means sending classified info. What's odd is that various officials say they can't find anything else that works quite like the Blackberry, even though there are more and more solutions that do -- and many of them don't require emails to go through special servers in the US.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Joe Smith, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 7:23am

    "serving" the customer

    A similar issue came up with the German Army. You would think that RIM would have established a secure server in Europe by now to serve French and German government clients.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    ReallyEvilCanine, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 7:48am

    Pointless

    Apparently the word Echelon has slipped from the collective memory. Airbus' bribery in Saudi Arabia wasn't caught through Crackberry messages.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    PhysicsGuy, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 8:53am

    of course i am french! why else would i talk with this ridiculous accent?!

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 9:24am

    Re: "serving" the customer

    Maybe they wanted to, but couldn't afford it after paying off Canadian tech companies who were too incompetent to utilize the technology, and the related legal fees.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    identicon
    Joe Smith, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 9:54am

    Re: Re:

    Maybe they wanted to, but couldn't afford it after paying off Canadian tech companies who were too incompetent to utilize the technology, and the related legal fees.

    NTP was an American company.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    Chronno S. Trigger, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 10:31am

    Re:

    We're not French, we're rude. It just sounds better with a French accent.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 10:36am

    Re: Re: Re:

    Way to miss the point, Joe-Irrelevant-Detail-Smith. If that IS your real name. At least I'm comfortable with my cowardice.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  
    identicon
    ignorant american, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 10:57am

    Like anyone cares what the French are doing...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  
    identicon
    Joe Smith, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 12:41pm

    chacun a son gout

    Way to miss the point, Joe-Irrelevant-Detail-Smith. If that IS your real name. At least I'm comfortable with my cowardice.

    And I am comfortable with my alias.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  10.  
    identicon
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, Jun 20th, 2007 @ 9:34pm

    Works both ways

    That's OK. As I recall, the digital radios that US forces were using in the Iraq invasion were French-made. Remember, this was after the dust-up over the French making it clear they would veto any Security Council resolution to invade Iraq.

    So if there's any leaking of important secrets through backdoors in equipment, it probably works both ways. :)

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  11.  
    identicon
    vicky, Jun 22nd, 2007 @ 4:33am

    Re: works both ways

    'So if there's any leaking of important secrets through backdoor' get rid of 'of important secrets'.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  12.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Jul 30th, 2007 @ 10:21pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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