The Argentinean government has recently banned sales of iPhones and BlackBerrys.  So what’s the point? It’s all in best hopes to reduce price inflation and to stabilize the economy within Argentina.  Currently, Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, LG and Samsung have all opened up plants in Argentina and for that reason they do not fall under the ban.  Basically this puts Research In Motion on the spot to build a local plant in the country which will avoid BlackBerry smartphones from being imported in.

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There seems to be a lot of buzz on mysteries behind whether or not India is going to go through with the BlackBerry ban or not.  According to a senior official with India’s Ministry of Home Affairs, the country is not likely to put a ban on BlackBerry services, even though the deadline is passed.  So India still demands a solution to snoop on BlackBerry Enterprise Server emails, but nothing has been brought forward from RIM yet.

We can all pretty much say that India’s threat to shut down services was a front, as they even admit now that they are not likely going to ban BlackBerry services.

Source: Cnet

A few days ago, I learned from a news broadcast on BBC that Twitter services were blocked in Egypt due to the rioting and protests which have been occurring there lately.  Ronen from BerryReview got word from someone in Egypt that the whole country’s BlackBerry services have been blocked as well. Mobinil, Vodafone, and Etisalat are three carriers confirmed in the region where BlackBerry services are no longer active as of now.  It looks like all this is pretty fresh as the blockage started at around 11am this morning.

In best hopes when the protests and riots are over, the citizens will gain BlackBerry access again in addition to Twitter.

Image Source

According to a press release from Friday October 28th, 2010, the Indian government has called off the BlackBerry ban for the whole country.  You all guessed it right, RIM has given in to allow the Indian goverment to snoop on BBM services.

It seems to be the ideal and very obvious solution for all these countries threatening to put a ban.  After RIM caters the snooping to one country, it becomes obligated to do it to any other country that requests it to keep its customers alive worldwide. Hit the jump for the full press release.

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It looks like the United Arab Emirates and RIM have come to agreement and a BlackBerry ban will no longer take place.  This was a huge issue that sizzled over the gulf throughout the summer where we saw more and more countries go for the ban.

There is no word as to what exactly was done here to make the two come to agreement and keep BlackBerry services, but a state news agency WAM said that “the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has confirmed that BlackBerry services are now compliant with the UAE’s telecommunications regulatory framework.”  So we can sort of assume that RIM has given the UAE some sort of access to what they want to see.

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-by Otoniel Bruno

The BlackBerry Ban has been going around for a little over a month now as countries continue to threaten to shut down BlackBerry services.  The latest from the wire on India is that they will be testing out the monitoring solution for BlackBerry for a total of 60 days to see how it goes.  They’ll have full access to BlackBerry Messenger as well as enterprise email.  After the 60 day period is over, we’ll have to see if India is happy with they see which will either result in a permanent ban or extended stay.

India currently accounts for 2% of RIM’s 46 million subscribers worldwide.  The country is currently still trying to find ways to monitor VoIP (voice over IP) calling as well including Skype calls, but there’s something they can’t attack RIM for.  So what happens in the end of the 60 days? I think they’ll be satisfied with what the access given and keep  BlackBerry services going.

-by Mac Jadalhack

Source: Bloomberg

It looks like RIM is doing everything it can to keep other countries happy far enough that they’re allowing countries to snoop on email messages sent and received.  India put an August 31st deadline for RIM to provide a technical solution on having access to its people’s emails.  The response was immediate and according to sources, RIM will be sending out a technical team to India sometime next week to get the ball rolling.

Read the full story

-by Mac Jadalhack

With everything going on in the world with RIM and all the bans, ban lifts, “special servers” for specific countries, customers and businesses are of course questioning what exactly is going on, and attempting to seek further knowledge on how secure their email is, and will be for the future.  So RIM went ahead yesterday and released this official statement addressing everyone’s concerns.

In response to the statement published today by the Government of India, and further to RIM’s Customer Update dated August 2, RIM wishes to provide this additional information to its customers. Although RIM cannot disclose confidential regulatory discussions that take place with any government, RIM assures its customers that it genuinely tries to be as cooperative as possible with governments in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations. RIM has drawn a firm line by insisting that any capabilities it provides to carriers for “lawful” access purposes be limited by four main principles:

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So yesterday’s ban lift wasn’t so random in Saudi Arabia, and it looks like there has been some sort of arrangement made between Saudi and RIM.  It looks like the country will be getting “special servers” installed in the country by RIM.  After that, the proper authorities would have to be trained on how snooping on messages works and can be achieved.  So I guess we can say RIM gave in a little on this one as they did not want to lose a whole country of customers.  That leaves us with other countries including the United Arab Emirates who are going on the BlackBerry ban as well.  Will RIM continue its efforts in catering “special servers” to all these other countries?

-by Mac Jadalhack

Source: NY Daily News

It looks like the BlackBerry ban in Saudi Arabia did indeed take place, but according to Yahoo! News, services were then restored again 4 hours later.  Was the government expecting RIM to throw in their gloves then realized they weren’t which resulted in bringing it all back? Perhaps.  The ban just happened on its own, as many customers did not receive notification that it would be shut down.

The regulator in Saudi Arabia said “The way BlackBerry services are provided currently does not meet the regulatory criteria of the commission and the licensing conditions.” This was from a statement carried by Saudi Arabia’s official news agency SPA.

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