Hmmm, so I'm back. In Dubai. I don't really know how that happened.Very blurry. Almost didn't get on the plane but I did and the last 3 weeks are history. Like I never left this place.
Reporting and news here is essentially replicated on the most. The media uses major newswires and some of the shittest papers (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/) in England to relay news. However, local or national news is still evolving and with a lack of correspondents outside of the country, you can sense how insular a place this is.
One story of note is that of the Blackberry. The scourge of humanity and social interaction. It ruins any meeting or conversation and it is essentially worshiped by its users. I had one...a basic one for a little while. I find it vile...and so does the UAE government.
Bobbie Johnson blogged a year or so ago on the implications of government intervention in personal interactions utilising "BBM" so this has been bubbling up for a while now.
Well, the problem arises out of Blackberry's encryption coding for its BBM service, which 1) means that the government can't prevent National Security breaches and 2) becomes even more of a problem when Blackberry states that it doesn't even know how to decode it. Highly unbelievable.
The last couple of weeks has been about dialogue between the government and RIM (the slightly unfortunate name of the company behind Blackberry) so that the authorities have access to information exchanged. http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100729/BUSINESS/100729999/0/FRONTPAGE
Well, its all come to a head now, like a pulsating whitehead on the dotted face of my ex-wife. http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle09.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2010/August/theuae_August7.xml§ion=theuae. Blackberry is to be blocked in the UAE by both providers on the command of the government.
Good. I'm usually quite rebellious but Blackberries (I assume thats how you refer to them in the plural) are plastic shit that ruin social interaction on a REAL LEVEL. Virtual existences should be confined to desktops or work time or when you are alone not when we are in the middle of something.
However, I think this is posturing and pressure on RIM to give up the encryption to the government. Come October 11th I think it'll be a very different story. I am not one for tech stories but Mo is so techy is almost pixelated when we meet. http://irrelevantcombinations.blogspot.com/.
And if you are a bird and you like make-up this might be the place to go. http://blankcanvas-thebeautyblog.blogspot.com/
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