Posted on June 19, 2009, at 1:32 pm .
New Canadian legislation is forcing Internet service providers to make it possible for police and intelligence officers to intercept online communications and get personal information about subscribers, in a “timely” manner without a warrant. This personal information includes names, address and internet addresses.
The bill will allow law enforcement officials to obtain transmission data that is sent or received via telephone and require telecommunications companies to keep data related to specific communications or subscribers if that information is needed in an investigation and requested via a preservation order.
While it is important for police and government officials to prevent the spread of illegal materials such as child pornography and arrest those involved in serious illegal activities, one must wonder how technically viable this bill actually is.
Regardless of whether the carrier allows the interception of voice and data coming from your BlackBerry, your device can be very easily encrypted, making it impossible to listen in. One such product that will do this, is G&D’s mobile security card. With this security card you can save data and have it encrypted in case of theft. The card also provides you with secure email, device protection and even voice encryption. With companies such as G&D, this legislation is quickly rendered obsolete.
[Via]
Posted on April 17, 2009, at 9:12 am .
Cellcrypt is a provider of secure mobile voice calling, and they are expanding to meet a growing demand for encrypted voice solutions from North American customers.
Cellcrypt provides end-to-end solutions for encrypted voice calling between smartphones that prevent private conversations from being compromised. This enables individuals within corporations and governments to converse in a highly secure manner without the need for specialised devices. In addition to mobile-to-mobile calling, Cellcrypt also supports secure mobile-to-landline calling.
Unlike traditional solutions that are based on older Circuit Switched Data technology, Cellcrypt uses the latest internet technology to provide unmatched voice call quality, international calling capability, high reliability across wireless networks and real-time encryption to levels specified by the US government. Cellcrypt technology is currently undergoing certification to the FIPS 140-2 standard approved by the US National Institute of Standard (NIST).
As Cellcrypt solutions operate on commonly available smartphones with an easy-to-use interface, rather than specialised equipment, Cellcrypt customers benefit from the latest features provided by leading mobile phone manufacturers on devices that they already own.
Currently, the product is only available for Nokia devices but BlackBerry support will arrive end of June.
Cellcrypt Mobile is the first enterprise-grade secure VoIP solution for mobile phones. Buy online for £2,500 per year.
Posted on January 22, 2009, at 1:44 pm .
While we have closely covered the back and forth between RIM and Canadian security specialist Certicom, we’ve never really taken the time to discuss why exactly RIM put forth the hostile bid after months of courting. Thankfully, James Rogers of TheStreet.com has done the work for us in a recent article:
Certicom develops a technology called Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), which is used to secure data on a range of devices, including smartphones. The National Security Agency uses the same technique, and Certicom licenses its technology to a range of companies, including IBM, General Dynamics, Motorola and RIM.
Certicom is also openly canvassing other suitors, which could increase the pressure on RIM. Last month, for example, Certicom granted a number of un-named parties access to its ‘data room’ in an attempt to drive up its valuation. “The information provided in the data room is intended to facilitate offers reflecting the fair value of Certicom from interested parties,” it said, in a statement.
So in effect, by failing to takeover Certicom, RIM has lost out in three different ways: saving money by eliminating the ECC licensing fees, making money from licensing the technology to competitors, and extending its competitive advantage on security. The question becomes how much this failure has hurt RIM in the long run. Post a comment and let us know what you think.
|via TheStreet|
Posted on December 12, 2008, at 11:22 am .
At this point, I bet RIM is wishing their attempted takeover of Certicom was going as smoothly as their purchase of Chalk Media. Unfortunately for RIM, Certicom isn’t playing along. One day after RIM filed a formal takeover bid for the encryption software company, Certicom brass released a statement claiming that the CDN$66 million offer undervalues the company, and urged shareholders to take no action until getting a formal evaluation from its directors’ committee.
Certicom said it has hired financial and legal advisers to assist the special committee of the board in reviewing the offer and examining other strategic options. It also said it will have a formal response to RIM’s bid by Dec. 29. RIM’s offer expires Jan. 15. Something tells me that we won’t see this resolved until then.
|via Reuters|
Posted on December 5, 2008, at 2:22 pm .
On Wednesday we told you that RIM had made a $66 million offer to Certicom’s shareholders in an attempt to purchase the encryption software company. The offer had been made directly to shareholders due to stalled negotiations with Certicom management.
Today, we can tell you that Certicom has refused a request by RIM for exclusive buyout talks, and is now inviting offers from other interested parties. Certicom says it has been in talks with other companies about a possible deal but mentioned none specifically. The company has formed a special committee of its board and hired TD Securities Inc. as a financial adviser to consider RIM’s proposal and seek other bids.
RIM is offering no new statements on the matter beyond what was made Wednesday, so we’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out.
Posted on June 18, 2008, at 5:57 am .
Although the Indian government’s ability to only decode 40-bit encryption has caused some serious headaches for RIM and carriers over the last couple of months, it sounds like they’re on the way to being able to handle 256-bit standards. BlackBerry messages go through the pipes at 128-bit, which means if the National Security Advisor follows through, standard service will resume. As for the decoding itself, there’s still a lot of talk about outsourcing to third parties, and it’s presumed that the government wouldn’t raise the encryption bar unless they had some way of getting into transmissions.
(via The Economic Times)
Posted on May 8, 2008, at 7:53 am .
After all the harassing the government has done to get Indian carriers or RIM to help them get a lock on BlackBerry communications, they’ve conceded that they might have trouble decrypting anything using a 40-bit standard or higher. BlackBerrys use a 128-bit standard (AES), putting it and plenty of other devices such as satellite phones, outside of their reach. Setting up servers abroad remains an option for RIM, but at this point, India’s entire internal security could see an overhaul before that even becomes a possibility. The Department of Telecom has requested carriers scale back their security to a 40-bit standard, but that pull-back has been slowed by existing infrastructures running at 128. When it comes to stuff like this, I’ll agree with the Canadian government – if the media learns about stuff like this, it really does become a security hazard.
