Blackberry services to be discontinued in India?

[ItsMe]

Terrorists don't spend Rs30k on the latest Blackberry Bold, they buy second-hand Rs500 phones from some black or grey market dealer which has roughly two functions: to call and to SMS. I could be wrong here of course, but I'm merely going on plausibility... they have more important things to spend money on than flashy cellphones.


Absolutely wrong. Mumbai attacks were coordinated using blackberry.

One open question - why you are worried if government tries to see whats in your email? Are you afraid that they will black mail you?

 

[agantuk]

^ Not really. The worry really is that it will become 'public' property. Everyone will have access to it.

 

[warthog]

One open question - why you are worried if government tries to see whats in your email? Are you afraid that they will black mail you?


again ASS*** f*** the govt has no business to know what i am doing.this is not nazi germany.

those who give liberty for security neither deserve liberty nor security.


you have no idea what is happening.

 

[mgcarley]

Absolutely wrong. Mumbai attacks were coordinated using blackberry.

Learn something every day. But obviously being able to read blackberry emails didn't help in any way, shape or form, did it? I landed on the day that it all started and spent my first week in India more-or-less huddled up in the house with the in-laws because no-one wanted us to go anywhere.

So... big burden on providers for zero benefit, or is this the point where we start conspiracy theories that the government let it happen?

One open question - why you are worried if government tries to see whats in your email? Are you afraid that they will black mail you?

Uh... well several reasons.

Firstly, in case you hadn't noticed I'm a little bit anti-authoritarian.

Secondly, I come from a country which has strict laws on privacy, and so I grew up taking such things pretty seriously, which filtered through to my work life.

Governments are fairly notoriously stupid worldwide when it comes to keeping information secure.

^ Not really. The worry really is that it will become 'public' property. Everyone will have access to it.

Yes and no. Things that should be of public record should be of public record.

The government has *some* business to know what you're doing, but knowing what you ate for breakfast or that you have a cafe meeting at 11am with so-and-so are not included in the list of things the government needs to know.

again ASS*** f*** the govt has no business to know what i am doing.this is not nazi germany.

those who give liberty for security neither deserve liberty nor security.


you have no idea what is happening.

Surely if there is any suspicion of "anti-social behaviour", the people at that location could and should keep their eyes peeled and the local authorities should be sufficiently resourced to take care of the problem, not the central government.

All these systems that are in place clearly do not work. 2 of my SIM cards were purchased with my ID and 2 of them were purchased in my wifes name - what's to stop me (hypothetically) getting my wife in to serious trouble by sending threatening text messages to some politician? Stuff like that has happened before, so basically I'm saying that the system is a complete waste of time.

I'd still maintain that governments start getting all draconian the minute they start getting scared of the people (usually when they start doing stupid things and/or being wasteful and/or corrupt). I don't know how you'd do it in India specifically but like I said in my previous post, when the government is no longer working for you, time to elect a new one. I know you had elections only last year, but I don't think the leaders really changed and thus all the problems of old would surely be continuing... so you need to find new leaders.

 

[agantuk]

Yes and no. Things that should be of public record should be of public record.


Well, the problem really is in the way these things are handled in the country. Since they would want to be able to sniff what chaps are doing, they would need access to the data. Once that is available, there is no dearth of ways to find out what is being done on the phone. Pretty much like a couple of hundred bucks can get you the call records of just about anyone with an Airtel / Vodafone / or any other connection.

 

[madhusudhan7]

Damn & i paid for Blackberry annual services recently & man...is it expensive - hoping they don't just ban the service or something. From the discussion it appears no other country has a problem with Blackberry internet service then why does only the indian government consider this to be a security risk which should be banned if they can't monitor it - Can someone explain why other countries including US/UK or maybe even China didn't bother ?

 

---

[mgcarley]

Well, the problem really is in the way these things are handled in the country. Since they would want to be able to sniff what chaps are doing, they would need access to the data. Once that is available, there is no dearth of ways to find out what is being done on the phone. Pretty much like a couple of hundred bucks can get you the call records of just about anyone with an Airtel / Vodafone / or any other connection.

+1

Damn & i paid for Blackberry annual services recently & man...is it expensive - hoping they don't just ban the service or something.
From the discussion it appears no other country has a problem with Blackberry internet service then why does only the indian government consider this to be a security risk which should be banned if they can't monitor it - Can someone explain why other countries including US/UK or maybe even China didn't bother ?

Because your government is mostly full of a lot of greedy old dolts who take advice only from people born before the British left? I speculate, of course, but I've not met many very young politicians in India.

 

[Sushubh]

our government sucks. visited vaishno devi and golden temple in the last 3 days. i paid enough toll tax on the roads that could have paid for train tickets for all of us guys (At least one way). and most of the roads in Jammu are in pretty bad shape. punjab was very congested. security checks at both the places were laughable. blah. too tired.

 

[GeorgePB]

Ignorant babus and netas FTW. Even if email services provide access to the government, there is nothing they can do if "terrorists" encrypt their own email.I don't like the idea of my govt. reading my email without a court order. Time to move my email off Google Apps.

 

[mgcarley]

our government sucks.

visited vaishno devi and golden temple in the last 3 days.

i paid enough toll tax on the roads that could have paid for train tickets for all of us guys (At least one way).

and most of the roads in Jammu are in pretty bad shape.

punjab was very congested.

security checks at both the places were laughable.

blah. too tired.

You... were expecting more? Remember that security is a farce anywhere, and I'm a little sorry to say it, but there are fewer better places to half-assedly do something than India.

I've heard stories about crossing various land borders and how you can tell when you've arrived in India.

Ignorant babus and netas FTW. Even if email services provide access to the government, there is nothing they can do if "terrorists" encrypt their own email.

Whats the bet a politician gets upset if someone reads their email. Wouldn't you just love to make one of them feel as violated as you do when your own space gets invaded (such as if your house is robbed or something becomes public that shouldn't have).

I don't like the idea of my govt. reading my email without a court order. Time to move my email off Google Apps.

+1... Run your own mail server with SSL. No-one ever had a problem with me doing that on my non-BB devices or asked me to open it up. Fortunately everything I was organizing aims to have a positive effect on the country.