Motherboard: How Canadian Police Intercept and Read Encrypted BlackBerry Messages

Jordan Pearson and Justin Ling, reporting for Motherboard:

The key, according to Boismenu, is so powerful that it could be used to “illegitimately” decipher any “prerecorded communications encrypted with that key” — so it’s striking that the RCMP had access to it.

Indeed, Crown attorney Robert Rouleau stated in an ex parte hearing: “So right now, with my device, if I’m not on the [Business Enterprise Server], I’m a dead chicken. That’s the reality of it, that’s what we don’t want the general public to know.”

And:

RCMP inspector Mark Flynn testified in a heavily redacted transcript that BlackBerry “facilitated the interception process,” however, Flynn also stated that facilitation could mean mere information sharing or a physical action to aid interception.

Flynn further testified that revealing the key would jeopardize the RCMP’s working relationship with BlackBerry, and harm BlackBerry itself, since “it is not a good marketing thing to say we work with the police.”

You don’t say.

★ Thursday, 14 April 2016