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Microsoft Warns Obama About Canadian Eyes Prying on BlackBerry Use

Categories: BlackBerry, Security
By: , IntoMobile
Monday, January 26th, 2009 at 3:00 PM

The U.S. President’s phone situation is still somewhat up in the air – he’ll probably be keeping the BlackBerry, and is eyeballing the Sectera Edge for more sensitive communications, but some think he should stick to the one device.

Microsoft, however, has questioned the wisdom of the president relying on a device whose maker is based in Canada. “You would be sending your data outside the country,” says Randy Siegel, a Microsoft enterprise mobile strategist who works on federal government projects. “We wouldn’t want the casual musings or official communications of the most important person in the world being intercepted by others.”

Yeah, I bet Jim-Dog is down in the NOC server room right now snooping through the ones and zeroes to find out if Barack needs to buy milk on the way home from meeting with international delegates. It’s true that all BlackBerry e-mails get processed at the Waterloo, Ontario RIM headquarters for compression and delivery, but it’s really in one ear and out the other. Countless of the world’s biggest corporations have been using this setup for years with the utmost trust, and although Obama’s situation is the exception rather than the rule, there really isn’t anything to worry about when it comes to low-sensitivity e-mails.

[via WSJ]

About The Author

Simon Sage

Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.

  • Chew

    Emails to and from a BlackBerry device on a BlackBerry Enterprise Server are encrypted with a key that only the device and BES know. Therefore, no one at RIM’s NOC can read the encrypted messages.

  • asdf

    OH come on, Because we Canadians are such a threat to you Americans. Right!! Come on, Microsoft do you have a better reason why anybody, especially the President of the United States, to be even remotely interested in using windows smart phones??