RIM Installs Servers in Saudi Arabia to Avoid Blackberry Ban

EricMack 0 597 Views

Alcohol remains off limits, but it looks like Saudis will still be allowed to feed their Crackberry addiction after all. The Saudi government had said that it would begin blocking Blackberry's instant messaging services on Friday - claiming that by not being allowed to monitor messages, the popular devices and service from Canada's Research in Motion represented a national security risk to the Kingdom. That Friday deadline was extended to today, and then that extended deadline came and went without any reported disruption in service.

Then, just in the last few hours, that the Saudi government and RIM had reached a deal. It appears that RIM has installed three servers (one for each carrier operating in the country) in Saudi Arabia to meet the Kingdom's regulatory requirements.

If these reports are true, it would seem that RIM has acquiesced to the Kingdom's desire to essentially install a "Big Brother filter," allowing the government to monitor e-mails and instant messages in the name of preventing terrorism and other security risks.

Previously, RIM Co-Chief Executive Mike Lazaridis had expressed frustration in with the governments of Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region considering similar bans.
"This is about the Internet," Mr. Lazaridis said. "Everything on the Internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can't deal with the Internet, they should shut it off."

The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Lebanon, India, Indonesia, Tunisia and Algeria have all pressured RIM for access to Blackberry messaging recently, while Oman and Bahrain have said they will continue to allow unmonitored use. In the U.A.E a Blackberry ban appears to be a go starting in October , and word is that it applies to tourists and other visitors as well, so make alternate arrangements for texting on your next trip to Dubai.

No word yet on whether or not RIM has ordered any new servers to be shipped to the UAE before the October deadline...

Image by re-ality on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons license.

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Dani AI

Generated

As suggests, the technical headline should be translated into two practical questions: which legal system governs the servers, and who controls the cryptographic keys. Those two facts together determine whether messages are accessible to local authorities—even when transit looks encrypted.

A useful distinction is between server-mediated encryption and true end-to-end (E2E) encryption. If a vendor terminates or decrypts sessions on infrastructure inside a country, that infrastructure can be subject to local lawful-access orders. In a proper E2E model the provider only relays ciphertext and has no ability to decrypt without endpoint keys. For any sensitive use case, prefer solutions with provable E2E designs and independently auditable cryptography.

Recommended mitigations include:

  • Prefer messaging systems with open, audited E2E crypto and client-side key management.
  • For organizations, deploy messaging on-premises or insist on dedicated-hosting + BYOK (bring-your-own-key) so the organization keeps key control.
  • Verify where traffic terminates: inspect connection endpoints, TLS certificate ownership, and IP geolocation to infer hosting jurisdiction.
  • Use a combination of device hardening and current software; a VPN hides routing but does not prevent a provider that handles plaintext from producing it.
  • Require vendor transparency: written clauses about data jurisdiction, incident/response policies, and published transparency reports.

Local hosting can be a legitimate regulatory requirement, but it carries privacy trade-offs. The correct approach depends on threat model and compliance needs; high-sensitivity communications are best protected by technical key control, independent audits, and legal review. This note provides technical context and risk-mitigation ideas, not legal advice.

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