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Europe

French officials want their BlackBerrys despite security warning

2007-06-20

Top French government officials are ignoring warnings to ditch their cherished BlackBerrys -- smartphones with e-mail capacity -- despite warnings their messages may be intercepted by US spy agencies, a report said Tuesday. "They tried to offer us something else to replace our BlackBerrys," an unnamed official in the prime minister's office told Le Monde newspaper. "But that didn't work and some people use their BlackBerrys in secret."

I'm surprised they didn't come up with a totally French solution. Made by EADS. Delivery starting in 2014. It's overweight.

French security officials are worried that e-mails sent by government officials from a BlackBerry might be picked up by the US National Security Agency because the servers for BlackBerry mail are located in the United States and Britain, according to Le Monde.

They first notified the government of this risk 18 months ago but have had to reissue the warning, the paper said. "The risk of interception is real, it's an economic war," Alain Juilllet, a senior French economic intelligence official, told Le Monde.

Research in Motion, the Canadian firm that makes BlackBerry, is the market leader for mobile e-mail devices with more than seven million users of its smartphones in use worldwide.

Posted by:Steve White

#8 Lots of people fail even to password protect them.

Posted by: occasional observer 2007-06-20 20:23

#7 Crackberry - they don't call them that for nothing.

Posted by: OldSpook 2007-06-20 14:47

#6 The French have already invented the soluesheown for this problem. PeeMail?

Posted by: Shipman 2007-06-20 13:10

#5 They flatter themselves by imagining that we give a rat's ass what they do.

Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-06-20 11:37

#4 Go ahead, it's perfectly safe. Email anything you want. Nobody speaks French anymore. It's like the Code Talkers of the 21st century.

Posted by: ed 2007-06-20 09:39

#3 Research in Motion, the Canadian firm that makes BlackBerry

As usual everyone overlooks the elephant in the living room. Canadian Illuminatus.

Posted by: Excalibur 2007-06-20 09:29

#2 They worry little about wat they say in public, why the concern over wat goes on in private? I see a huge Franco market niche for Parisian servers and .....FrogBerrys.

Posted by: Besoeker 2007-06-20 03:24

#1 "The risk of interception is real, it's an economic war,"

I know the French do that, among many others. But does the U.S.?

Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-20 02:13

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