RIM: Security For Customers or Not

When Google said they were leaving China, I, for one, supported their decision. But now, they're back and censoring seemed to be back. "Do no evil", Google's motto, seemed to be "so long as the bottom-line isn't affected". However, RIM doesn't have this luxury as it is faced with a decision on working with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

UAE has anounced by will but Blackberry services by October and Saudi Arabia may take similar actions unless they have the ability to control access. The reason is control of information. Mostly censorship but, to be fair, a bit of crime fighting (terrorism).

So what should RIM do?

IOC Gets Gold for Censorship (Mobile Users Beware)

This may be of some interest to mobile workers/users who will venture to China this summer for the Olympics. Heck, for anyone one who goes there. We know there is major Internet censorship and monitoring going on in China. No one should be shocked by this. Today, the International Olympic Committee, the IOC, has admitted to a deal with the Chinese government, allow it block sensitive materials and sites, thereby hindering reporting and denying free press that was promised by Beijing in order to get the Olymics. To fight the IOC's duplicity and Beijing's attempts at blocking free press, today, Reporters Without Borders have published a guideline to help jounralists get around firewalls and other censorship mechanisms. Here are some relevant sites:

• Reporters Without Borders http://www.rsf.org/
  
• Guideline to help circumvent censorship mechanisms for the Beijing Games
• IOC - I wonder how much censorship goes on there as well. Of course, not a word of this duplicity is mentioned.
  

In the US, we'll hear more about this but we can bet GE is monitoring the situation in such a way that will not do free press any service (NBC is the broadcaster for the Games which starts in little more than week).

Note: I'm just a regular guy but from where I'm sitting, the Olympics has become a sham. I applaud the athletes and the spirit of the Games but by even having the Olympics in China stinks of politics and greed. For the IOC, it's all about $$$.

For the record, my beef here isnt' with the good folks of Chinese. Heck, it's not even with the Chinese government. It's with the IOC. Kudos to MSNBC for having the guts to report this.

UPDATE: Arstechnica has another angle here and issues faced by reporters in Beijing.  A must read.