The folks working on the security-centric Android-powered Blackphone have posted a rebuttal to the criticisms made by BlackBerry recently. The piece focuses primarily on BlackBerry's poor market performance, dwindling stock price, and ultimate reliance on competing platforms.
The main selling point Blackphone CEO Toby Weir-Jones posited for their product compared to BlackBerry was encrypted peer-to-peer voice calling, though it continues on to describe the BES infrastructure as restrictive and ineffectual. He even goes so far as to say BlackBerry's previous tiffs with local governments over lawful interception resulted in betrayals of customers.
Here are a few key excerpts.
"Unfortunately, the world discovered in 2010 that RIM was willing to compromise its integrity if sufficient pressure was applied by governments intent on spying on the messages sent via the ubiquitous devices. Various statements from the Saudi, UAE, Indian, and other telecom regulatory bodies all confirmed the same thing: RIM made it technically possible for the formerly-secret encrypted messages to be decrypted and viewed. Much speculation surrounds exactly what was done, and whether it remains in place today, but if anything there was more than one approach which achieved the same basic goal: a betrayal of the objectives of privacy.""In the past five years, the drop is still almost 83%, and that's including the recent bump following Blackberry's announcement that, at last, they're opening up their own Blackberry Enterprise Server to manage the devices people actually buy: namely, iOS and Android.""This touches upon a key point: our approach is attractive because the technology and architecture of the Blackphone ecosystem is more flexible, more transparent, and more usable. Closed systems — like BES and Mr. McGarvey's beloved EMM approach — are not attuned to how most enterprises are deploying mobility solutions today."
Those are some strong words. Be sure to check out the full editorial at the link below. What do you guys think? Are there viable alternative infrastructures that maintain security? Does Blackphone actually stand a chance at addressing the security concerns that BlackBerry has traditionally met?
Source: Blackphone
