BlackBerry Continues Its Shameful Descent Into Patent Trolling By Suing Twitter

from the those-who-can't-innovate,-litigate dept

BlackBerry (under its original name RIM) was always a bit of a patent troll. While it did have some early innovations in the mobile device space, and had popular actual products on the market for a while, it always had a habit of vindictively suing any company that seemed to be offering anything remotely similar to its products. Perhaps the company should have spent more time focused on its actual product rather than suing for patent infringement. Otherwise, its market share chart wouldn't have looked like this, courtesy of Statista:

However, now that its business of selling actual products has bottomed out, it's gone back to its earlier focus of suing totally random companies for doing fairly obvious things, and claiming that they violate Blackberry's patents. Last year, we covered its silly lawsuit against Facebook that only got them hit with an equally silly countersuit from Facebook.

And now BlackBerry has sued Twitter as well (incredibly, TechCrunch -- and nearly all other publications writing about this -- did not actually post the filing, but you can find it here). The lawsuit is completely silly, and should be embarrassing and shameful for Blackberry and its high priced lawyers (who know better). It claims that it invented "mobile messaging" and that Twitter, as a "latecomer" to the market, has "diverted" people away from Blackberry.

BlackBerry Pioneers Mobile Messaging - BlackBerry has been a leading innovator in the field of mobile communications for the past 30 years, having invested substantial sums into research and development of communications technologies. BlackBerry’s innovations led to the commercialization of some of the earliest models of smartphones in the United States, enabling its users to, among other things, send and receive e-mails securely and surf the internet anytime and anywhere. These same innovations prompted the rise of the smartphone as a necessary everyday accessory for businesspersons and ordinary consumers alike.

One example of BlackBerry’s innovations is the BlackBerry Messenger technology, which revolutionized instant messaging by providing users with secure, user-friendly, point-to-point instant messaging on their mobile devices. In many respects, through BlackBerry Messenger and other research and development, BlackBerry helped pioneer modern mobile messaging—secure, instant and user friendly on a mobile device. The appeal and success of BlackBerry Messenger led consumers to consider instant messaging functionality as an integral aspect of mobile communications, resulting today in billions of people worldwide engaging in instant messaging over their mobile devices.

Lots of folks developed mobile messaging, mostly by taking fairly obvious cues from existing computer messaging and email, which was created decades earlier, often borrowing from other types of messages, like the physical mail. There was no magic invention in taking messaging "mobile" that deserves any sort of patent. But then to suggest that Twitter "copied" Blackberry is laughable as well:

Defendant, on the other hand, is a relative latecomer to the mobile messaging world. Defendant created mobile messaging applications that co-opt BlackBerry’s innovations, using a number of the innovative user interface and functionality enhancing features that made BlackBerry’s products such a critical and commercial success in the first place.

Even more insane: claiming that Twitter's messaging features somehow drive users away from Blackberry -- a company whose business dried up for tons of reasons having absolutely nothing to do with Twitter.

Defendant’s use of BlackBerry’s inventions, and infringement of the Patents-in-Suit, has succeeded in diverting consumers away from BlackBerry’s products and services and toward those of Defendant. This has resulted in a substantial and undeserved windfall for Defendant as these users drive Defendant’s revenue. Defendant’s gain comes at BlackBerry’s expense, depriving BlackBerry of revenue to which it is entitled as a result of its inventions.

Oh come on, Blackberry. Don't make me laugh. Actually, clearly, Blackberry does want me to have a good chuckle, because check out these "innovations" it claims are oh so precious and unique to Blackberry:

User Interface Improvements For Mobile Devices—including (i) improvements in message notification techniques that streamline and optimize reception of new message notifications that prevent users from being inundated with numerous messaging notifications, (ii) resetting a new message indicator when a user accesses their inbox list of messaging conversations, which saves users from having to individually view each conversation in which there is a new message in order to reset their new message indicator;

(b) Messaging and Social Networking Improvements for Mobile Devices— including (i) improved techniques for determining whether a recipient has read messages in a conversation by inferring the status of one or more of the messages, thereby reducing data transmissions, power consumption and improving battery life in mobile devices, and (ii) improved techniques for making informational content, selected by one user, available to one or more other users via a data hub server that avoids users having to download and reupload content that they wish to share, thereby reducing unnecessary data transmissions, power consumption and improving battery life in mobile devices; and

(c) Mobile Advertising—improved techniques of delivering targeted advertising and content to mobile devices based on user demographics and interest, as well as the location of the user’s mobile device and time-based triggers.

If you don't want to read that wall of text, Blackberry's big inventions -- which it claims Twitter copied and is using to deprive it of tons of income -- are:

1. New message notifications
2. Resetting the new message indicator when someone checks their inbox
3. Message read status
4. Server hosting to make sharing messages easier without having to upload
5. Mobile advertising

• US Patent 8,676,929: "System and method for pushing information to a mobile device"
• US Patent 8,296,351: "System and method for pushing information to a mobile device"
• US Patent 9,349,120: "System and method for silencing notifications for a message thread"
• US Patent 9,021,059: "Data hub server"
• US Patent 8,286,089: "Representing new messages on a communication device"
• US Patent 8,572,182: "Handling notifications in instant messaging systems"

Filed Under: messaging, patent trolling, patents
Companies: blackberry, twitter

Facebook Responds To Blackberry's Silly 117 Page Patent Lawsuit With Its Own Silly 118 Page Lawsuit

from the really-guys? dept

Blackberry, the Canadian company that briefly made semi-popular devices for people at companies thanks to their physical keyboards, has always been more of a patent troll. While the company was on the losing end of one of the most famous pure patent troll cases in the past few decades, we have noted in the past that the very reason the trolling operation NTP sued Blackberry (then RIM) was RIM/Blackberry's own ridiculously aggressive patent shakedowns of other companies, which caught the attention of NTP's principles in the first place. Since the demand for actual devices from Blackberry has shrunk to "wait, those guys still exist?" levels, it's focused again on patent shakedowns.

Back in March, the company sued Facebook claiming that Facebook was infringing with some fairly basic concepts related to mobile messaging. While there were a number of different patents and claims in the original 117-page complaint, many of them are clearly bonkers. There is no reason why this stuff should be patented at all. Take, for example, US Patent 8,209,634 for "Previewing a new event on a small screen device." Believe it or not, Blackberry has patented adding a little dot showing you how many unread messages you have. Really.

The Blackberry complaint goes on at length about just how amazing and unknown this kind of thing was before this patent (which is utter nonsense):

Given the state of the art at the time of the invention of the ’634 Patent, the inventive concepts of the ’634 Patent were not conventional, well-understood, or routine. The ’634 Patent discloses, among other things, an unconventional and technological solution to an issue arising specifically in the context of wireless communication devices and electronic messaging received within those devices. The solution implemented by the ’634 Patent provides a specific and substantial improvement over prior messaging notification systems, resulting in an improved user interface for electronic devices and communications applications on those devices, including by introducing novel elements directed to improving the function and working of communications devices such as, inter alia, the claimed “visually modifying at least one displayed icon relating to electronic messaging to include a numeric character representing a count of the plurality of different messaging correspondents for which one or more of the electronic messages have been received and remain unread” (claims 1, 7, and 13), “displaying on the graphical user interface an identifier of the correspondent from whom at least one of the plurality of messages was received” (claim 5), and “displaying on the graphical user interface at least one preview of content associated with at least one of the received electronic messages” (claim 6), “[executable / machine-readable] instructions which, when executed, cause the wireless communication device to visually modify the graphical user interface to include an identifier of the correspondent from whom at least one of the plurality of messages was received” (claims 11 and 17), “[executable / machine-readable] instructions which, when executed, cause the wireless communication device to visually modify the graphical user interface to include at least one preview of content associated with at least one of the received electronic messages” (claim 12 and 18).

That's a load of claptrap. The reason icons didn't historically show a number for unread messages had nothing to do with an "unconventional and technological solution," but because the resolution of small screens wasn't good enough to make this viable. Once the technology caught up the very obvious way to display such information became fairly standard fairly quickly. But, alas, Blackberry claims that Facebook is clearly infringing because of this:

What a load of nonsense. There's a lot more like this in the complaint, with patents that clearly never should have been granted, and are likely invalid patents post-Alice.

Anyway, that was all back in March. The reason I'm bringing it up again now is because Facebook has now sued Blackberry for patent infringement in a strikingly similar lawsuit. Indeed, I'd almost think that Facebook's lawyers at Cooley were trolling Blackberry's lawyers by making their complaint 118-pages to Blackberry's 117-page complaint about Facebook. You may recall, back in 2012, that Facebook (with an assist from Microsoft) bought a bunch of patents from a struggling AOL, in an effort to keep them out of the hands of trolls. The new suit involves claims that are suspiciously just as stupid and ridiculous as the ones in Blackberry's lawsuit against Facebook.

Again, if there weren't potentially billions of dollars at stake, I'd really think that Facebook was trolling Blackberry with these claims. Take, for example, the claims around US Patent 8,429,231 for "voice instant messaging." The heart of the patent is having a button on a text instant messaging app that allows you to shift the conversation to voice. An image example from the patent:

And... the corresponding image of how Blackberry is supposedly infringing on this patent:

I honestly can't decide which of the two examples above is a stupider patent -- the unread messages bubble or the click-to-call button.

It is entirely possible that, as was done in the good old days of patent nuclear wars, the intention here is just to get the two sides to agree to some sort of cross licensing deal and to walk away from the courthouse -- but what a massive waste of time, money and resources this is, all over some fairly basic UI features that never should have been patented in the first place.

Filed Under: communications, interface design, mobile messaging, patent trolling, patents
Companies: blackberry, facebook

BlackBerry CEO Promises To Try To Break Customers' Encryption If The US Gov't Asks Him To

from the I-got-you dept

The DOJ's reps -- along with the new FBI boss -- keep making noises about device encryption. They don't like it. What they want is some hybrid unicorn called "responsible encryption," which would keep bad guys out but let law enforcement in. The government has no idea how this is supposed to be accomplished, but it has decided to leave that up to the smart guys at tech companies. After all, tech companies are only in it for the money. The government, however, answers to a higher calling: public safety -- a form of safety that apparently has room for an increase in criminal activity and nefarious hacking.

There's one cellphone company that's been conspicuously absent from these discussions. A lot of that conspicuous absence has to do with its conspicuous absence from the cellphone marketplace. Pretty much relegated to governments and enterprise users, Blackberry has been offering encrypted messaging for years. But it's been offering a different sort of encryption -- one it can remove if needed.

Enterprise users hold their own encryption keys but individual nobodies have their encryption keys held by Blackberry. Blackberry would likely be held up as the "responsible encryption" poster boy by the DOJ if only it held enough marketshare to make an appreciable difference. Instead, it's of limited use to the DOJ and FBI.

But that doesn't mean Blackberry isn't willing to submit multiple height bids whenever government says jump. Over the past couple of years, it has come to light Blackberry routinely decrypts messages for inquiring governments. Apparently, there's some sort of golden key law enforcement can use to access communications -- one multiple governments seem to have access to.

There are still some unanswered questions about enterprise accounts -- the ones Blackberry doesn't hold the keys to. This poses the same problem for law enforcement that other, more popular phones do. But rather than point out the problems with the government's demands for "responsible encryption," Blackberry has irresponsibly chosen to proclaim its willingness to hack into its own customers' devices if the government asks.

[CEO John] Chen, speaking at a press Q&A during the BlackBerry Security Summit in London on Tuesday, claimed that it wasn't so simple for BlackBerry to crack its own protections. "Only when the government gives us a court order we will start tracking it. Then the question is: how good is the encryption?

"Today's encryption has got to the point where it's rather difficult, even for ourselves, to break it, to break our own encryption... it's not an easily breakable thing. We will only attempt to do that if we have the right court order. The fact that we will honor the court order doesn't imply we could actually get it done."

Oddly, this came coupled with Chen's assertions its user protections were better than Apple's and its version of the Android operating system more secure than the one offered by competitors.

This proactive hacking offer may be pointed to in the future by DOJ and FBI officials as evidence Apple, et al aren't doing nearly enough to cooperate with US law enforcement. Of course, Chen's willingness to try doesn't guarantee the company will be able to decrypt communications of certain users. But I'm sure Chen's positive attitude will be used as leverage in talks with tech companies the DOJ clearly believes have added encryption to their devices solely as a middle finger to US law enforcement. This belief clearly isn't true, but the DOJ in particular has already show it's willing to be completely disingenuous when arguing for weakened encryption.

Finally, Blackberry may be opening up to law enforcement but it won't be sharing anything more with its remaining users.

Chen also said there were no plans for a transparency report that would reveal more about the company's work with government. "No one has really asked us for it. We don't really have a policy on whether we will do it or not. Just like every major technology company that deals with telecoms, we obviously have quite a number of requests around the world."

This seems a bit unfair. Blackberry will be offering more to the government and telling the public less. Then again, the general public is likely no more interested in a Blackberry transparency report than it is in Blackberry smartphones.

Filed Under: doj, encryption, john chen, privacy
Companies: blackberry

BlackBerry: We're Here To Kick Ass And Sell Out Users To Law Enforcement. And We're (Almost) All Out Of Users.

from the thank-you,-sir!-may-I-get-you-another?-and-another? dept

Back in mid-April, it was discovered that Canadian law enforcement (along with Dutch authorities) had the ability to intercept and decrypt BlackBerry messages. This level of access suggested the company had turned over its encryption key to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. BlackBerry has only one encryption key for most customers -- which it maintains control of. Enterprise users, however, can set their own key, which cuts BlackBerry out of the loop completely.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen -- despite publicly criticizing Apple for locking law enforcement out of its phone with default encryption -- refused to provide specifics on this apparent breach of his customers' trust. Instead, he offered a non-denial denial, stating that BlackBerry stood by its "lawful access principles."

The matter was left unsettled… until now.

A specialized unit inside mobile firm BlackBerry has for years enthusiastically helped intercept user data — including BBM messages — to help in hundreds of police investigations in dozens of countries, a CBC News investigation reveals.

This unit, which cracks open BlackBerries for nearly anyone who comes asking, is very proud of its work.

One document obtained by CBC News reveals how the Waterloo, Ont.-based company handles requests for information and co-operates with foreign law enforcement and government agencies, in stark contrast with many other tech companies.

"We were helping law enforcement kick ass," said one of a number of sources who told CBC News that the company is swamped by requests that come directly from police in dozens of countries.

Go team! While these sources remain generally upbeat about throwing customer privacy and security to the wind, the official word from the company is less enthused. In fact, it's nonexistent.

In response to questions from CBC News, a BlackBerry spokesperson said it "will not address the questions given the extremely sensitive nature of this process."

This unadvertised service is apparently so popular BlackBerry has streamlined the process. It offers government agencies a list of boxes to check for what kind of information they'd like retrieved from a phone (including the ominously vague "other"), as well as the option to declare any request "exigent."

It also asks that the requesting party sign off on some boilerplate saying the request is legal in the requester's country and that it is not being done to "control, suppress or punish… political or religious opinion."

Of course, BlackBerry is not a government agency so it really can't do anything if someone "perjures" themselves by signing the form and moving directly towards suppression, punishment, etc. The best it can do is not allow that entity to make any more requests. I'm guessing this almost never happens because the quoted sources seem like a bunch of overly-cheery do-gooders. Policing the police would require BlackBerry to second-guess the government entities it seemingly can't wait to assist.

"Narco trafficking, human trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, crime against children, knowing you are stopping those things … how do you not love doing something like that?" said the insider.

Yup. [Insert whatever the Canadian equivalent of "'Murica!" here.]

In its hurry to help supposed good guys track down alleged bad guys, the Canadian branch of BlackBerry's "full give" operations is skirting around statutes meant to protect locals from inappropriate demands made by foreign countries.

Christopher Parsons, a research associate at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, who has studied the privacy practices of tech companies, is worried by the secrecy of BlackBerry's process and its potential for abuse.

[...]

He said BlackBerry is allowing foreign police to bypass the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, a diplomatic agreement that allows Canadian officials to review requests from foreign police and consider whether they are legal under Canadian law.

But, as Parsons points out, law enforcement agencies are probably thrilled to have someone on the inside willing to violate treaties with the drop of pre-printed form. Adhering to MLAT may result in significant delays, whereas approaching BlackBerry directly sets its team of super-secret gofers in motion immediately.

Of course, the major downside here is that very few criminals are likely still using BlackBerries. Most of the company's customers are enterprise users and they have the ability to lock down their phones so tight not even BlackBerry can get into them. But for all the panicked talk about going dark, BlackBerry's special ops unit says it's still surprised at how many criminals are unaware the company is basically the local PD at this point.

The nails were already in the coffin for BlackBerry. Each new exposure of its highly-proactive law enforcement assistance is only going to hasten the dwindling of its user base.

Filed Under: blackberry, encryption, law enforcement, lawful access
Companies: blackberry

BlackBerry Offers Glomar, 'Bad Guys Got Caught,' In Non-Comment On Canadian Law Enforcement's Full Access To Encrypted Messages

from the 'in-conclusion,-Blackberry-is-a-land-of-contrasts' dept

BlackBerry has finally responded to Motherboard's story on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's apparent full access to encrypted communications -- something that hinted the RCMP may have been given BlackBerry messaging's "Golden Key." Sort of. It's mostly an indirect Glomar followed by a statement that confirms something people already know.

BlackBerry still has not commented directly to Motherboard or VICE News on the specifics of the investigation, but CEO John Chen published a blog post on Monday addressing the report in broad strokes… very broad strokes.

[...]

“Regarding BlackBerry’s assistance,” Chen wrote instead, “I can reaffirm that we stood by our lawful access principles. Furthermore, at no point was BlackBerry’s BES server involved.”

We have long been clear in our stance that tech companies as good corporate citizens should comply with reasonable lawful access requests.

[...]

This very belief was put to the test in an old case that recently resurfaced in the news, which speculated on and challenged BlackBerry’s corporate and ethical principles. In the end, the case resulted in a major criminal organization being dismantled.

Filed Under: backdoor, blackberry, canada, encryption, glomar, john chen, key, rcmp
Companies: blackberry

Canadian Law Enforcement Can Intercept, Decrypt Blackberry Messages

from the so-much-for-the-one-thing-Blackberry-used-to-have-going-for-it... dept

Blackberry's CEO, John Chen, didn't care for the fact that Apple was "locking" law enforcement out of its devices by providing customers with default encryption. As he saw it, Apple was placing profits ahead of Mom, Apple pie and American-made motorcars.

For years, government officials have pleaded to the technology industry for help yet have been met with disdain. In fact, one of the world's most powerful tech companies recently refused a lawful access request in an investigation of a known drug dealer because doing so would "substantially tarnish the brand" of the company. We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good.

[T]here are no backdoors in any BlackBerry devices, and BlackBerry does not store and therefore cannot share BlackBerry device passwords with law enforcement or anyone else.

Imagine for a moment that everybody's front door has the same key. Now imagine that the police have a copy of that key, and can saunter into your living room to poke around your belongings while you're out, and without your knowledge.

By way of metaphor, this is exactly how the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's federal police force, intercepted and decrypted "over one million" BlackBerry messages during an investigation into a mafia slaying, called “Project Clemenza," that ran between 2010 and 2012.

In addition to routing and compressing data traffic, RIM's service offerings also include a measure of security in excess of the practices adopted by their competitors. BBM, as an example, is encrypted. However, it is encrypted using a global key. RIM has written that,

"The BlackBerry device scrambles PIN messages using the PIN encryption key. By default, each BlackBerry device uses a global PIN encryption key, which allows the BlackBerry device to decrypt every PIN message that the BlackBerry device receives."

This means that RIM can decrypt consumers' messages that are encrypted with the global key. Consumer devices include all RIM offerings that are not integrated with a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). The BES lets administrators change the encryption key, which prevents RIM from using the global decryption key to get at the plaintext of BES-secured communication.

[The RCMP maintains a server in Ottawa that "simulates a mobile device that receives a message intended for [the rightful recipient]." In an affidavit, RCMP sergeant Patrick Boismenu states that the server "performs the decryption of the message using the appropriate decryption key." The RCMP calls this the "BlackBerry interception and processing system."

The defence in the case surmised that the RCMP must have used the "correct global encryption key," since any attempt to apply a key other than BlackBerry's own global encryption key would have resulted in a garbled mess. According to the judge, "all parties"—including the Crown—agree that "the RCMP would have had the correct global key when it decrypted messages during its investigation."

RCMP inspector Mark Flynn testified in a heavily redacted transcript that BlackBerry "facilitated the interception process," however, Flynn also stated that facilitation could mean mere information sharing or a physical action to aid interception.

Flynn further testified that revealing the key would jeopardize the RCMP's working relationship with BlackBerry, and harm BlackBerry itself, since "it is not a good marketing thing to say we work with the police."

Filed Under: blackberry, canada, encryption, interception, law enforcement, master key, rcmp
Companies: blackberry

BlackBerry -- Which Said It Wouldn't Protect Criminals -- Assures Criminals Its Phones Are Still Secure

from the organized-criminal-activity-still-a-go dept

Bad news for BlackBerry. Its PGP phones -- considered much more secure than its off-the-shelf versions -- are compromised. On January 11th, Motherboard reported that Dutch law enforcement officials claimed to be able to bypass/crack the phones' encryption.

Dutch investigators have confirmed to Motherboard that they are able to read encrypted messages sent on PGP BlackBerry phones—custom, security-focused BlackBerry devices that come complete with an encrypted email feature, and which reportedly may be used by organized criminal groups.

“We are capable of obtaining encrypted data from BlackBerry PGP devices,” Tuscha Essed, a press officer from the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), told Motherboard in an email.

"This encryption was previously thought to be undefeatable,” one 2015 court document in a drug trafficking case reads, referring to the PGP encryption used to secure messages on a BlackBerry device. “The RCMP technological laboratory destroyed this illusion and extracted from this phone 406 e-mails, 25 address book entries and other information all of which had been protected.”

In another case from 2015, centering around charges of kidnap and assault, three out of four BlackBerrys seized by the RCMP were analysed by the “Technical Assistance Team in Ottawa and the contents were decrypted and reports prepared.”

There have been recent media reports that police-affiliated groups in the Netherlands have been able to ‘crack’ the encryption protecting e-mails and other data that are stored on BlackBerry devices.

BlackBerry does not have any details on the specific device or the way that it was configured, managed or otherwise protected, nor do we have details on the nature of the communications that are claimed to have been decrypted.

If such an information recovery did happen, access to this information from a BlackBerry device could be due to factors unrelated to how the BlackBerry device was designed, such as user consent, an insecure third party application, or deficient security behavior of the user.

Furthermore, there are no backdoors in any BlackBerry devices, and BlackBerry does not store and therefore cannot share BlackBerry device passwords with law enforcement or anyone else.

For years, government officials have pleaded to the technology industry for help yet have been met with disdain. In fact, one of the world’s most powerful tech companies recently refused a lawful access request in an investigation of a known drug dealer because doing so would “substantially tarnish the brand” of the company. We are indeed in a dark place when companies put their reputations above the greater good. At BlackBerry, we understand, arguably more than any other large tech company, the importance of our privacy commitment to product success and brand value: privacy and security form the crux of everything we do. However, our privacy commitment does not extend to criminals.

Filed Under: canada, criminals, encryption, going dark, john chen, netherlands, pgp, pgp phone
Companies: blackberry

Former NSA Lawyer Says Reason Blackberry Failed Was 'Too Much Encryption' Warns Google/Apple Not To Make Same Mistake

from the give-it-a-rest,-stew dept

Baker said encrypting user data had been a bad business model for Blackberry, which has had to dramatically downsize its business and refocus on business customers. “Blackberry pioneered the same business model that Google and Apple are doing now - that has not ended well for Blackberry,” said Baker.

He claimed that by encrypting user data Blackberry had limited its business in countries that demand oversight of communication data, such as India and the UAE and got a bad reception in China and Russia. “They restricted their own ability to sell. We have a tendency to think that once the cyberwar is won in the US that that is the end of it - but that is the easiest war to swim.”

Baker said the market for absolute encryption was very small, and that few companies wanted all their employees’ data to be completely protected. “There’s a very comfortable techno-libertarian culture where you think you’re doing the right thing,” said Baker.

“But I’ve worked with these companies and as soon as they get a law enforcement request no matter how liberal or enlightened they think they are, sooner to later they find some crime that is so loathsome they will do anything to find that person and identify them so they can be punished.

Filed Under: blackberry, china, cryptowars, encryption, india, nsa, russia, stewart baker, surveillance
Companies: apple, blackberry, google, rim