The ban-the-BlackBerry bandwagon rolls on.
Today it’s the Indonesian authorities who, according to the Jakarta Post the and Associated Press have decided the device is a security threat.
The Saudis have definitely banned it, the Gulf states are planning to and RIM is in a long wrestle with the Indian government.
The issue is RIM’s architecture, in which all messages go through its North American-based servers, and its encryption.
RIM has denied that it has offered a deal to open up the encryption or that it plans to set up proxy servers in some countries.
Indeed, it has said it cannot open up the data on its servers because only the customers have the encryption keys. That is its key selling point for business users.
In a feisty interview with the Wall Street Journal today, co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said data encryption is routine online.