[Skybird]

Blackberries manage all communication traffic via servers in foreign nations, namely the US/Canada, without security services in the UAE, saudi Arabia or other foreign nations having insight on what gets stored where and for how long, and who gets access to those data storages, also, even during transmission procedures eventual law enforcement or coutner terrorism operations are not capable to track and read the content of messages being send. But especially the servers located in nations beyond control of UAE/Saudi Arabia, and most likely being accessible to american intel services, is a mjaor concern for the UAE and Saudi arabia.

The producing company RIM refused to set up a proxy server inside the UAE.

China, Kuwait and India also see major security risks with Blackberries and the servers in foreign, pro-US nations.

For all these nations, it is of course also about internal supression and censorship options, but the argument that Wetsern intel services may be allowed to access the RIP servers in North America and thus getting intimate nowledge and complete data sets on communicationr ecors in, to and from these countries, is a valid argument. I vaguely remember that some governmenbt bodies int he US, and the Pentagon I think also forbid the use of Blackberries some years ago, for security concerns and the fear that sensible data could be transferred to unauthorised receivers too easily with these. But I do not know what became of this story.

If I were a company where sensible data could attract spionage, I would ban Blackberries and all kind of smartphones, too. I would also design my internal computer system as an island system (physically disconnected from the outside), with strict secueity control of for any computer access. Open networks are just an inviting prey for hackers. there is a reason why economic cyber-spionage has exploded in quantity in recent years. Today there is more spionage activity than there ever was during the cold war. And most of it is economy-related. The UAe and Saudi Arbaia may not be great inventors and industrial and scientific hotspots, but they are big financial traders, and terror is a clear and present danger in that region, posing a threat both to the so-called moderate and the tyrannic regimes, because both are seen as corrupted by Quranic terms.