France: Prohibit government officials from using Blackberry

The French government officially banned government employees and the use of BlackBerry wireless handheld devices to transact, exchange, send and receive work-related e-mails in their regions. government departments and offices.

France warns that information exchanged via e-mail using these devices risks being monitored, eavesdropped, and stolen. Because the content sent by this system must go through the server system in the US and the UK and most likely will be opened and prevented or stolen by the intelligence agencies of these countries.

Le Monde newspaper said the French government feared the BlackBerry system was at fault, creating opportunities for British national security agencies and US snoopers. AP quoted French MP Pierre Lasbordes as saying: " Now we are friends with both Americans and British, but the thing to pay attention here is the economic war, not just the trust of each other ."

According to Senator Lasbordes: " If you just write a regular letter, it doesn't matter. But imagine a minister coming to G8 or G7, or a meeting in Brussels (Belgium), sending information to colleagues. And that information was stolen from Canada and the United States, it was all over . "

Alain Juillet, head of the French Economic Intelligence Agency, told Le Monde newspaper: " BlackBerry contains information security issues and the risk of being eavesdropped is real ."

However, Research in Motion (RIM) in Canada, the BlackBerry manufacturer denied that the information could be read. RIM insisted that any security agency could not eavesdrop on BlackBerry email. These e-mails are more carefully coded than web-based websites.

Senator Lasbordes, who was authorized by former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin to review the issue in 2005, said he alerted the government to the defect of the machine 18 months ago. He discussed with RIM about this issue before writing a report to the French Government. RIM also agreed with him that there is a certain degree of insecurity in protecting information when using this email system. RIM promised: " The problem will be solved, and it may take more than a year ".

The other problem is, France banned the use of BlackBerry, but did not specify which type to use instead. Meanwhile, Severin Naudet, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, asserts there is no one type of handheld device that does not have a level of risk.

Kim Dung