A Deductive Proof About RIM And Government Monitoring

Via The Firewall Blog (Forbes.com) -

If you want to get to the truth about government monitoring of BlackBerry consumer and enterprise customers by foreign governments, here’s a simple way that doesn’t require you to be an expert in encryption, a network architect or even a technologist. Just follow the numbers:

1. The government of (________) mandates that all communications services be monitored and supervised.

2. Research In Motion sells communications services in (__________).

3. Therefore, Research In Motion’s customers in (________) are subject to supervision and monitoring.

You may fill in the blank with the state of your choice. Deductive reasoning stipulates that if the premises of an argument are true (1 and 2), then the conclusion must also be true (3). Everything else is a moot point (BES encryption hacks, the existence of back doors, compromised third party applications, etc.).

So when the executives at Research In Motion send a statement like this one to their customers (“RIM respects both the regulatory requirements of government and the security and privacy needs of corporations and consumers“), you can call it for what it is – a logical impossibility.

---------------------------

That about sums it up.