BlackBerry have been forced to defend the encryption that protects their devices following claims from various government agencies in particular after the recent report from the Dutch police. The Dutch police force claim they managed to decrypt messages on BlackBerry devices which used PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption. The important point is the PGP, this is where BlackBerry devices sold by third parties customised with PGP encryption tools co-developed by PGP and BlackBerry, and connected via third-party BES servers.
The result from the Dutch police was 279 out of 325 encrypted messages stored on a particular PGP based BlackBerry device. The purpose was to prosecute a suspect in drug trafficking, as oppose to handset hacking.
BlackBerry posted a blog stating, “If such an information recovery did happen, access to this information from a Blackberry device could be due to factors unrelated to how the Blackberry device was designed,”
“There are no backdoors in any BlackBerry devices, and BlackBerry does not store and therefore cannot share BlackBerry device passwords with law enforcement or anyone else. In other words, provided that users follow recommended practices, BlackBerry devices remain as secure and private as they have always been.”
BlackBerry may seem to be fading away but they are sticking to their guns. Barack Obama still uses a BlackBerry, may be there is hope yet?