BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,' insider says

Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by mikestew on Thursday June 09, 2016 @07:29PM (#11873168)

Man, this pisses me off so much I'm...I'm...I'm never going to buy a Blackberry! After Chen's comments on the San Bernadino case, I'm not surprised much. I should be outraged or something, but what am I going to do? Petition my government? BB is Canadian, I'm U. S. Not buy a phone I never stood a chance of even considering? Recommend to my boss that she not buy BBs for the team, like she was never going to do? Not write software for BB, just like I've been doing for, like, ever?

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by bpchaps on Friday June 10, 2016 @12:16AM (#11874266)

Start by whipping out clever FOIA requests to find information on it. Dig, dig, then dig more. Find a pro bono lawyer who can do a FOIA suit on your behalf. You'd be surprised by how much information you can get so long as you're patient and can cleverly avoid "unduly burdensome" rejections.

For example, you can now get the Chicago's mayor's phone records by requesting it through their IT department, who asks the phone company to parse their billing logs, which includes the phone records.

Two tabs, and still a work in progress (waiting for their dns resolution logs now for the next step): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hgG79eIr8MbkjYrCvcTR...

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by a_imho on Friday June 10, 2016 @06:48AM (#11875468)

I like your work, hope it gets traction. FOIAs could very well raise some much needed awareness and push back on mass data collection and surveillance practices when government is on the other end of it.

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by JumpCrisscross on Friday June 10, 2016 @01:40AM (#11874508)

> Find a pro bono lawyer who can do a FOIA suit on your behalf

How do you do this?

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by bpchaps on Friday June 10, 2016 @01:53AM (#11874544)

Wish I could help out here.. I found my lawyer through a friend. Though, in Illinois, FOIA pays out a decent amount if you win a FOIA suit. Finding a lawyer to help out might not be that hard if similar laws exist where you live.

If you can't find a lawyer, find someone locally who knows FOIA very well. Lots of activism and open data crowds have loads of experience with it.

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by AJ007 on Thursday June 09, 2016 @07:35PM (#11873190)

Based upon how narrow of a market they have left, this is probably a game ender for Blackberry branded devices.

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by LeifCarrotson on Thursday June 09, 2016 @10:56PM (#11873989)

The people who are still buying Blackberries won't hear about this.

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by daxorid on Thursday June 09, 2016 @11:37PM (#11874133)

s/hear/care/

BB users by and large consider government surveillance irrelevant.

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by noarchy on Friday June 10, 2016 @12:39AM (#11874336)

>BB users by and large consider government surveillance irrelevant.

And interestingly, every single BB user I know works for the government (I'm in Canada).

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by jugbee on Friday June 10, 2016 @12:01PM (#11877333)

I hear you

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by helb on Thursday June 09, 2016 @08:10PM (#11873343)

> I'm never going to buy a Blackberry

There soon won't be any Blackberry to buy anyway…

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by a3n on Thursday June 09, 2016 @08:26PM (#11873409)

And I'll still keep not buying Blackberry!

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by derefr on Thursday June 09, 2016 @09:43PM (#11873743)

Hopefully QNX can make it out alive.

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by uudecode on Friday June 10, 2016 @12:11AM (#11874241)

Call me cynical but I say this is doubtful. Microsoft will probably buy it and kill it. Or the QNX patents will go to a NPE ("patent troll").

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Re:BlackBerry hands over user data to help police 'kick ass,... by tn13 on Thursday June 09, 2016 @08:53PM (#11873528)

At this rate there wont be any blackberry. Also, it was Apple that had resources to fight back. If it was my startup I would have not choice but to comply or shut shop.

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