The IT Nerd

BlackBerry is heating things up this winter by offering amazing deals on the BlackBerry Passport, Passport Silver Edition and PRIV, in time for Valentine’s Day – don’t miss out.

From January 28 through February 24 via ShopBlackBerry, customers will receive a free accessory bundle worth up to CND$119 when they buy a BlackBerry Passport, Passport Silver Edition or PRIV smartphone, plus they get extra savings on the BlackBerry Passport Silver Edition now only CND$619.

The complete details on these promotions can be found via Inside BlackBerry.

Earlier this week, the news dropped that at least two police agencies have found ways to look at encrypted info on BlackBerry devices. BlackBerry has finally responded to this. Here’s what they said via a blog post:

BlackBerry does not have any details on the specific device or the way that it was configured, managed or otherwise protected, nor do we have details on the nature of the communications that are claimed to have been decrypted.

If such an information recovery did happen, access to this information from a BlackBerry device could be due to factors unrelated to how the BlackBerry device was designed, such as user consent, an insecure third party application, or deficient security behavior of the user.

Furthermore, there are no backdoors in any BlackBerry devices, and BlackBerry does not store and therefore cannot share BlackBerry device passwords with law enforcement or anyone else. In other words, provided that users follow recommended practices, BlackBerry devices remain as secure and private as they have always been.

Translation: Nothing to see here. Move along.

I was kind of hoping that BlackBerry would say something more convincing. But in the absence of the cops telling them how they pulled this off, assuming that they actually did, I guess a more robust answer isn’t possible. Pity. That still leaves unanswered questions and doubt circulating. My guess is that this is not over quite yet.

If you have a BlackBerry device because you want something that has a reputation for being secure, you may want to think twice about that. Cops in two countries are claiming that they can read encrypted data from BlackBerry devices. Here’s what Naked Security has to say on this:

The story originally broke when Dutch website Misdaadnieuws (Crime News) published documents from the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), a Dutch law enforcement agency, stating that police were able to access deleted messages and read encrypted emails on so-called BlackBerry PGP devices.

A representative from NFI confirmed that “we are capable of obtaining encrypted data from BlackBerry PGP devices,” according to a report from Motherboard.

On Tuesday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) also told Motherboard they can crack encrypted messages on PGP BlackBerrys.

The PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy, a program for encrypting and authenticating data that is often used to encrypt email.

There is one catch that I would like to point out:

PGP BlackBerry devices, however, are not sold by BlackBerry, but by resellers like GhostPGP, which customizes BlackBerry devices with PGP encryption.

So this might be a crack of software used on BlackBerry devices rather than the devices themselves. But even if that is true (which at this point it’s not clear), the optics suck. After all, BlackBerry markets itself using the security card. Take that away and what incentive does one have to buy one. Now the reasonable thing to do is to wait and see what details emerge so that one can get better understanding of this situation. But I am not sure that BlackBerry users and those who buy BlackBerry products may do that.

You might recall that late last year the decision was made by BlackBerry to pull their operations from Pakistan after the government wanted to monitor e-mail, BES and BBM traffic. Just before the new year the Pakistani government backed down and as a result BlackBerry isn’t going anywhere. Here’s what a blog post from BlackBerry had to say:

After productive discussions, the Government of Pakistan has rescinded its shutdown order, and BlackBerry has decided to remain in the Pakistan market.

We are grateful to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and the Pakistani government for accepting BlackBerry’s position that we cannot provide the content of our customers’ BES traffic, nor will we provide access to our BES servers.

We look forward to serving the Pakistani market for years to come, including introducing new products and services, and thank our valued customers in Pakistan for their patience and loyalty.

Seeing as there’s a huge discussion going on right now about whether governments should have access to data on smartphones, this will surely get the attention of governments like the US who see this level of access to be a requirement. Thus I believe it is safe to say that this story is far from over.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen loves to make news via the BlackBerry Blog. This time, he’s joining the debate on encryption by first calling out a “powerful tech company”:

At BlackBerry, we understand, arguably more than any other large tech company, the importance of our privacy commitment to product success and brand value: privacy and security form the crux of everything we do. However, our privacy commitment does not extend to criminals.”

“One of the world’s most powerful tech companies recently refused a lawful access request in an investigation of a known drug dealer because doing so would ‘substantially tarnish the brand‘, of the company”.

The company in question is Apple who’s on record for being in favor of absolute user privacy. He also goes on to say this:

We reject the notion that tech companies should refuse reasonable, lawful access requests. Just as individual citizens bear responsibility to help thwart crime when they can safely do so, so do corporations have a responsibility to do what they can, within legal and ethical boundaries, to help law enforcement in its mission to protect us.

But at the same time he calls out politicians:

We also reject any notion of banning or disabling encryption. The hacking epidemic over the past couple years shows that we need more, not fewer, security controls for our sensitive information. Frankly, it is surprising and unnerving that some national political leaders think that an encryption ban could even work on a technical basis.

The whole blog entry, other than the shot at Apple, it well balanced and is worth a read. Perhaps all sides in this debate may want to take a look at this and re-evaluate their positions.

It seems that BlackBerry has some life left in it.

The company reported [Warning: PDF] a narrower third-quarter loss than analysts estimated as software revenue kicked in from its acquisition of Good Technology Corp. Shares soared in early trading.

The loss excluding certain items was 3 cents a share. Analysts predicted a loss of 14 cents. Revenue was $557-million compared with projections for $488.8-million.

So, while they didn’t make money, BlackBerry did better than expected this quarter. We’ll have to see if this is an upward trend that continues.

Just in time for holiday shopping, BlackBerry is offering complimentary accessories and free express shipping with select smartphone purchases.  Plus, special price discounts on the BlackBerry Passport and Passport Silver Edition devices.

From December 15, 2015 through January 5, 2016 via ShopBlackBerry (English / French), with any purchase of PRIV, BlackBerry’s secure Android smartphone, BlackBerry Passport and Passport Silver Edition, BlackBerry Classic or BlackBerry Leap, shoppers will receive a free Synch Pod and a device case. And with BlackBerry Passport purchases, shoppers will also receive a screen protector as part of this season’s promotions.

The complete details on this promotion can be found via this post on Inside BlackBerry.

BlackBerry has posted a blog post announcing that it is pulling the plug on Pakistan effective today. Why? Here’s a quote:

In July, the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority notified the country’s mobile phone operators that BlackBerry’s BES servers would no longer be allowed to operate in the country starting in December “for security reasons.”

The truth is that the Pakistani government wanted the ability to monitor all BlackBerry Enterprise Service traffic in the country, including every BES e-mail and BES BBM message. But BlackBerry will not comply with that sort of directive. As we have said many times, we do not support “back doors” granting open access to our customers’ information and have never done this anywhere in the world.

It is unclear how many customers will be affected by the Pakistan cut-off. But the number cannot be small as this affects both consumer and enterprise customers. But I will say this, from a PR perspective, this sends a clear message that will play well with those who want security and privacy.

BlackBerry announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Good Technology. The plan is that BlackBerry will integrate Good’s software solutions and services with its own software suites to offer the industry’s most complete end-to-end solution that secures the entire mobile enterprise, across all platforms and applications while protecting personal privacy.

BlackBerry anticipates the acquisition to be accretive to earnings and cash flow within the first year after closing. BlackBerry also expects to realize approximately $160 million in GAAP revenue from Good in the first year, including the impact of an expected write-down of certain deferred revenue of Good.

I for one will be interested to see what BlackBerry Enterprise Server looks like after Good’s offerings are integrated with it. Then the next thing I will be looking for is if this drives adoption the way that BlackBerry thinks it will. Both of those will be interesting to watch.