Published in Mobiles

Blackberry’s poor attitude to privacy will wipe it from history

by on20 January 2017

Edward Snowden’s blames Canada 

Blackberry has always traded on having tougher security than the next guy, but this might have been because the next guy was Apple, or Google.

Edward Snowden has blasted Blackberry’s security stance saying that the outfit is so poor it will be wiped from history.

Talking by a remote link to the Cantech 2017 Investment Conference in Toronto, Snowden called out Blackberry for its role in helping the government obtain customer data in exchange for regulatory benefits.

Last year, it was reported by Vice Canada that the Mounties had backdoor access to Blackberry since at least 2010, and decrypted more than one million messages.

Snowden claimed that while BlackBerry has tried to obscure its role in cooperating with government requests in North America, the company also cooperates in other markets, including India.

“They [Blackberry] follow the AT&T model which is that the customer is not really the customer, the state is the customer.

“India said ‘we’ll cut your market access unless you unlock these communications that we want for investigations that are going through your enterprise service, and Blackberry says ‘okay’,” said Snowden. “They follow the AT&T model which is that the customer is not really the customer, the state is the customer. That’s the only person they really have to please.”

Snowden had harsher words for Blackberry on its cooperation with the government agencies: “This is why they’re going to be erased from the pages of history. Apple is a very successful company, particularly as they make this pivot toward enforcing quite publicly the privacy rights. Ultimately, we’re not talking about privacy, we’re talking about the quality of society.”

Blackberry recently signed a partnership with Rudy Giuliani’s security consulting firm, Giuliani Partners, to use Blackberry’s Secure platform in support of government and enterprise customers. Giuliani is the cybersecurity advisor in the Trump administration and is famous for not knowing as much about technology as his boss knows about diplomacy.

Last modified on 20 January 2017
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