There has been a lot of news coverage about the issue of RIM (Research in Motion) and their BlackBerry phones being disconnected in Saudi Arabia, UAE (United Arab Emirates), and perhaps even India.
The governments of these countries are demanding that RIM give the governments access to the messages sent from BlackBerry devices. The key point here is that BlackBerry uses encryption to keep messages private. This encryption is very difficult for governments to break so they want RIM to simply give them access to all of the messages, at the governments' choosing.
There are many issues here. First, is it possible? Second, is it reasonable? Third, what if RIM refuses to comply? Finally, of course, can this happen to TrulyMail?
Is It Possible?
This is a good question for RIM. It seems RIM would like to keep their own secrets on how they encrypt messages. We could get into a discussion about encryption techniques here but the main question is, when a message leaves a BlackBerry, is it encrypted to RIM or to the recipient? If the message is encrypted to RIM, then RIM can read the message. They would then have to re-encrypt the message to the recipient when the recipient picks up their messages. If this is the case, then yes, RIM could provide the access the governments want since RIM is able to read the messages sent over its network.
If, on the other hand, the messages are encrypted to the recipient then RIM would not be able to read the messages. If RIM cannot read the messages, they cannot give anything to the governments.
Which way does RIM's encryption work? That is unclear and it seems RIM wants to keep it that way.
Is It Reasonable?
This is really a value-based question. What is reasonable? What is fair and just? There are plenty of examples of governments wanting to spy on their citizens. Everywhere from China to Myanmar to the USA. If you say something, the government would like to know.
In some cases, especially in democracies (USA, UK, etc.) the governments cannot simply say 'we are doing this and there is nothing you can do about it.' The reason they cannot issue such an order is because those governments are (at least somewhat) responsible to their citizens. That is, the citizens can vote the government officials out of office if they become dissatisfied with their actions. So, the officials will often disguise a spying campaign in 'other clothes.' For example, they will claim that they must be able to read the contents of everyone's computer so they can make sure nobody is preying on children. Since no reasonable person wants harm to come to children, it is hard to object to this. Another thing they will claim is that they need to read all communications because if they cannot then terrorists will do something horrible.
Both of these claims are unfounded. If someone is ill enough to want to prey on children, they will find a way. If someone is mentally unstable enough to commit an act of terrorism, there is always a way to do it.
First, it is unclear that a single intercepted email message has ever been a contributing factor into the arrest of a terrorist. Someone tried to blow up a car in New York City. They were not caught via email. They were not caught by someone invading that person's privacy. They were caught by someone noticing something strange and notifying a police officer.
Some people remind us of an old quote by a founding father of the US, Benjamin Franklin. He said, those who give up liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security. His point is worth considering. Freedom must always be retained. Without it, we are all prisoners.
What if RIM Refuses to Comply?
RIM does find themselves in a very difficult situation. They can operate in various countries because those countries allow them to do so. BlackBerry devices are tied to a country's mobile phone network. It would be easy for governments to prevent BlackBerrys to be sold in their countries and this is exactly what some governments, like the UAE, are doing. UAE has said that RIM cannot operate in the UAE after October unless they give UAE access to the private messages of RIM's users.
Will this pressure be enough for RIM to comply? Of course, only RIM executives can answer that. It has, however, been an issue in the past with many companies and China. Someone in China said something the Chinese government did not like and China told the company (Yahoo, in one well known case) to identify the person who said it. At risk of being kicked out of China, Yahoo complied. Yahoo was certainly not the only company who found themselves pressured heavily by foreign governments. Sadly, many companies do end up complying.
Can This Happen to TrulyMail?
At TrulyMail, we are more open with how we do things. We are quite clear than when you send an encrypted message (via TrulyMail or email) that message is encrypted to the recipient. That means only the recipient can read the contents of the message. We cannot. We do not have the decryption keys to read the message. Even if someone threatened us with something terrible, we could not comply because we cannot. It is not technically possible for us to read the contents of encrypted messages. We designed TrulyMail like this for a reason.
We believe that people have a right to privacy. Whether you're talking about an personal health matter or your bank balance or which company you want to buy, what you write is your business. Keeping it private is ours.
There is an old saying, if two people know a secret then it is not a secret. Secret is really just another name for privacy, it is about keeping information out of the public eye. Secret, privacy, whatever you want to call it, is something that should be your choice.
We believe in the principle of need to know. That is, those who need to know, get to know. If you send a message to TrulyMail Support, then we need to know the contents. However, if you send a message to someone else, then we do not need to know the contents.
Some might say we are careless but we disagree. We are providing a service. Does the postal service know the contents of every letter which they handle? Of course they do not. It should be the same for anyone handling electronic communications.
So, if you are using BlackBerry and you think that RIM might start making your private conversations public, then consider using TrulyMail for more of your messages. Then, you can rest assured that not only do you know when your messages arrive, but you also know that someone else is not reading them.
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