Bye-bye BlackBerry
By Maha Amin A LUMS graduate working as a sub-editor on the Life & Style pages of The Express Tribune. There are reports that the BlackBerry maker, Research in Motion (RIM), has come to an agreement in Saudi Arabia and the government will now have access to RIM’s communication service for BlackBerry Messenger. However, as of yet, RIM in the UAE has not agreed to give the government access, meaning that the plan to suspend BlackBerry services starting October may continue. The debate between governments and RIM is not new and the Indian government raised security concerns about messages shared via the BlackBerry in 2008, when they suspected militants used the phone to plan the 2008 Mumbai attacks where 166 people died. RIM has said that the security architecture on the phone excludes RIM or any third party from reading encrypted information shared via Messenger under any circumstances. But the government has now threatened to block BBM or Blackberry-to-BlackBerry messenger servic...