The $100 crack for BlackBerry is Crap

Saturday, December 2, 2006 Labels: BlackBerry , Smoke and Mirrors

I have subscriptions to several technology magazines, mostly digital of course. I’ve always considered eWeek and InfoWorld a little different than the rest of the technology magazines and therefore those two were the ones I’d almost always read. I still only read other magazines/articles once I’ve already read everything that interests me from the other two. But, more and more, I’m reading eWeek less and less.

I was disappointed when I read this article at eWeek. http://securitywatch.eweek.com/exploits_and_attacks/cracking_the_blackberry_with_a_100_key.html

I still enjoy reading articles from my favorite eWeek authors, like Peter Coffee. But, the rest of it reminds me of tabloid newspapers. This is one of those cases. They made such a big deal about the $100 security crack for the BlackBerry. But, they completely failed to mention that it isn’t really a software security hole at all.

They are claiming that by purchasing a $100 BlackBerry developer license you can create all kinds of security holes and in the real world, the only security hole on the BlackBerry (regarding this issue) is the user.. JUST like on a desktop PC or Pocket PC or PALM or any other device and/or operating system.

They are trying to create a story about a security hole caused by the $100 license, when it is absolutely no different that any Joe downloading and running a Trojan application or game for any other operating system. This kind of journalism is too much like local TV news stations with their twelve second sound bytes. It’s downright irritating.