It turned out that the police had obtained the decryption key of the smartphone "BlackBerry"

ByMichael

BlackBerry, a pioneer device for smartphones, has already withdrawn from the Japanese market by drastically reducing its market share with the advent of iPhones and Android smartphones, but some governments and companies seeking strong security love BlackBerry It is also true that there are users who are. It turned out that the Canadian police obtained and used the master key to unlock the encryption which is the key to the security of that BlackBerry for investigation.

Exclusive: Canadian Police Obtained BlackBerry's Global Decryption Key | VICE News
https://news.vice.com/article/exclusive-canada-police-obtained-blackberrys-global-decryption-key-how

Exclusive: How Canadian Police Intercept and Read Encrypted BlackBerry Messages | Motherboard
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/rcmp-blackberry-project-clemenza-global-encryption-key-canada

According to the news site · VICE News, a plan to eliminate Montreal's gang organization that took place from 2010 to 2012Project ClemenzaIn a trial of a case related to the case, one of the suspects admitted a crime and the documents on the investigation and the case submitted to the court were made publicly available. In the published documents, it is described how Blackberry and the cellular phone operator Rogers cooperated with law enforcement agencies.

According to the technical report submitted to the court by the Canadian federal police, the law enforcement agency intercepted 1 million messages exchanged among BlackBerry 's terminals suspected of involvement in the case and was decrypting. Although it says that "The message could be decrypted with the master key to release the encryption" in the report, the starting point of the master key is not disclosed.

ByPaul B

At the time of writing, both the Canadian federal police and BlackBerry did not admit that "BlackBerry transferred the master key to the Canadian Federal Police," and urged not to disclose information indicating the relationship between federal police and BlackBerry It is said that. However, since the prosecutor admits that "the federal police accessed the master key", it is obvious that the police obtained the master key in some way, but if the BlackBerry is really involved in the assignment of the master key If not, it seems that there is a possibility that the police asked a third party to extract the master key directly from the terminal.

VICE News warns that if the Master Key is still in federal police it is a very dangerous situation. BlackBerry's terminal has a number called PIN (Personal Identification Number), which is used when sending and receiving messages between terminals. Messages exchanged between these PINs are encrypted and can not be read by anyone, but if you use the master key, the global encryption key, you can intercept and decrypt messages exchanged across the world It will be possible. However, terminals using the BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) for enterprises use their own encryption keys created by themselves, so it is impossible to cancel with a master key. In other words, if you use a BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) for the public rather than BES, the federal police will be able to browse the message and have it all-you-want.

If BlackBerry has changed the master key, it is impossible to intercept and decrypt messages even if federal police have a master key, but if you change the master key, distribute large updates to all terminals It is considered unlikely that BlackBerry is changing the master key because it is necessary to do.

In this case, although it is not clear whether BlackBerry handed the master key to the police, it seems to be a big headstrong for BlackBerry whose performance does not behave.