BlackBerry gets its emails crossed

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 30 October 2005 13:35

IT Industry - Strategy

A large corporate user of BlackBerry push mobile email service has abandoned the service after users emails wound up on the wrong BlackBerry.

According to report on 27 October in the UK's Guardian newspaper. "The BBC yesterday admitted that it had been forced to suspend its Blackberry email service after senior executives reported that portions of other people's electronic conversations were appearing in the middle of their own messages...Siemens, which provides the IT backbone for the BBC's email system, was asked to close the Blackberry network last week after...users compared emails and discovered they were receiving messages not intended for them."

According to the Guardian, "The decision left around 300 BBC executives and programme makers frantically checking their "sent" folders to make sure they had not inadvertently betrayed any confidences or criticised colleagues."

The problems were seized on by rival push email provider, CommonTime to draw attention to earlier reports of security concerns with the technology.

"The French ministry for Defense has been so alarmed by security breaches that the Blackberry has been the subject of debate at the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale (Institute of Higher National Defense Studies). Alerted by growing concerns over security many Government offices and French Enterprise Corporations have already prohibited their senior officials from using this system.

"The German Press Agency reported (05/10/05) that the Federal Office for security and information technology (BSI) in Bonn, warned against the use of Blackberry devices. "Due to uncertain architecture the Blackberry devices are not suitable in sensitive environments of the public administration and the espionage-endangered enterprises", stated the Federal Office."

However there was no suggestion that there had been similar incidents of email being misdirected.

The nature of the BlackBerry technology is such that all email from its corporate customers are routed via the servers of Research In Motion - the company which developed and provides the service - located in Canada. However, the company does it best in its published information to disguise this fact.