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Indonesian telecommunication authority threatens to block BBM and BIS service

Indonesian telecommunication authority threatens to block BBM and BIS service

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Indonesian newspaper The Jakarta Post reported on Friday that the government's telecommunications regulation authority, the BRTI, may shut off BBM and BIS service in the country because RIM "has not been cooperative."

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BlackBerry leather
BlackBerry leather

Indonesian newspaper The Jakarta Post reported on Friday that the government's telecommunications regulation authority, the BRTI, may shut off BBM and BIS service in the country because RIM "has not been cooperative." According to a BRTI member, "the data exchanged [on a BlackBerry] is not safe or cannot be guaranteed of its safety." The real source of tension may come from RIM's recent move to build servers in neighboring Singapore instead of Indonesia. It also seems plausible that the threat is the country's way of strong-arming RIM into letting it monitor data, something it currently can't do because data sent to and from BlackBerrys is encrypted and goes to foreign servers. We'll see if RIM bends to some of the nation's demands, as it did with Saudi Arabia and India earlier this year.