Google has run into a privacy furore with its acquisition last September of carrier messaging company Jibe. Jibe is a messaging platform based on the GSMA's Rich Communication Services (RCS) standard, which kicked off back in 2007 as the telco sector's answer to the looming threat of over-the-top (OTT) services. That threat …

A new Microsoft patent points towards Skype becoming equipped for lawful interception, which could be important as the service grows up to challenge traditional telcos. The patent was filed back in 2009, but published* last week and picked up by Computerworld. Titled "Legal Intercept", it covers one way in which a VoIP-based …

Small companies in the UAE will no longer be permitted to use BlackBerry email services, according to local reports, and access will be cut off in the next two weeks. The National, an Abu Dhabi paper, tells us that the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority has issued guidelines saying that any company with fewer than 20 …

A German Green Party member has successfully extracted the tracking information stored by his mobile operator, and created a map that shows his every movement over a six month period. The map uses the 35,000 instances when the cellphone owned by Malte Spitz registered with the local cell tower, all of which were stored by T- …

India's government has given up pestering RIM and is now asking the country's network operators to provide lawful intercept capability, despite their inability to do so. Having demanded that Research In Motion provide access to BlackBerry communications, and seen several deadlines pass without the issue resolved, the Wall …

Dutch tabloid De Telegraaf reports that 12 Somalis picked up in Amsterdam over Christmas were located using secret SMS messages, apparently bouncing back their GPS coordinates for the authorities. The 12 suspects were arrested on Christmas eve following a tip-off that they were planning some sort of terrorist attack, but now …

RIM has only hours left to achieve the impossible, with the Indian government reiterating threats of retaliation if it's denied access to corporate emails tomorrow. The Indians gave RIM until the end of January to provide lawful intercept capabilities to emails sent from BlackBerry handsets, and since then has been pointedly …

RIM has put lawful intercept mechanisms in place for the Indian government. Anyone running their own BES remains secure - at least until the authorities confiscate it. The solution comes ahead of the end-of-month deadline imposed by India and backed with a threatened block on BlackBerry communications. However, various Indian …

Indian government sources are again claiming that RIM will provide lawful intercept of all BlackBerry communications, despite the technical impossibility of doing so. A "senior home ministry official" is quoted, by Indian daily Mint, claiming that RIM has "in principle agreed to provide us recorded data from their servers". …

The Citizen Lab, a Canadian privacy group run from the University of Toronto, is asking BlackBerry users to drop by and let them know how you got there. It‘s as easy as it sounds, and is explained here by IT Business Canada. Just drop by the website on your Blackberry device and fill in some information about where you are …

Apple's FaceTime enables any iPhone 4 to make video calls to any other iPhone 4, assuming neither of them were bought in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Egypt or Jordan. FaceTime was hyped by Steve Jobs as the application that would turn the world on to video calling, and Apple web sites proudly listed it as a key feature of the …

India won't ban BlackBerrys until next year, allowing RIM another three months to arrange lawful intercept, though the decision is not the good news it sounds. RIM's problem isn't time, it's the impossibility of providing a solution acceptable to politicians keen to be seen doing something, and enterprises reliant on RIM's …

The Indian government is claiming that RIM has offered it access to instant messaging conversations within hours of a request, though access to email remains unresolved with time running out. India told Reuters that RIM has offered to provide transcripts of instant messaging sessions, with real-time interception available by …

RIM would be happy to help companies hand encryption keys to national governments, according to CEO Jim Balsillie who reckons that's the ideal solution to the lawful-intercept problem. Governments should ask companies for their encryption keys, and keep a central register to enable legal interception of communications, …

The secretary general of the International Telecommunications Union has stepped into the lawful interception debate, saying that companies are just going to have to provide governments with access somehow. In an interview with the Associated Press, Hamadoun Toure said that governments had the right to demand access to …