Blackberry's message goes missing

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
12 October 2011 Last updated at 08:37 GMT For the makers of the device whose name became synonymous with messaging, it was a deeply embarrassing 36 hours.

Untold numbers of Blackberry users, first in Europe then in much of the rest of the world, found that their email either slowed or ground to a halt and the BBM service became unavailable.

Worse, the whole incident turned into a business school case study of how not to communicate with your customers - Blackberry simply failed to get its message out. When the problems started to emerge around lunchtime on Monday, social networks were quickly populated with angry and confused customers.

Customers who turned to their mobile phone networks for advice were all directed back to Research in Motion, the Canadian company behind Blackberry. After some hours, RIM used one of its Twitter accounts @Blackberryhelp to send out this tweet:

"Some users in EMEA are experiencing issues. We're investigating, and we apologize for any inconvenience."

EMEA? Where on earth is that? I know, because marketing speak floods my inbox every minute, that it stands for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but many people will surely have been mystified.

Of course, journalists were bombarding the Blackberry PR team with calls, demanding to know what was going on, how many people were affected, and what was the root cause. By Monday evening, we had nothing more than the brief line already seen on Twitter.

BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat listeners described how the crash affected them

At a technology awards event in London, reporters spotted a gaggle of RIM PR people clustered around their Blackberries - they promised us more news imminently. And at 21:00 this arrived in our inboxes:

"Earlier today, some BlackBerry subscribers in the EMEA region experienced delays with BlackBerry services. The issue was resolved and services are operating normally. We apologize to those customers who were impacted for any inconvenience."

No information then about the extent of the problem or what had caused it, but reassurance that it was all over now, please move along, nothing to see here.

Then late on Tuesday morning, I started getting messages from Blackberry users that the problems had returned - emails weren't arriving, and BBM had ground to a halt again. Worse, it then emerged that users in other parts of the world were now suffering the same experience.

A one-day shutdown might just about be forgiven - especially when the company tells you it has all been sorted. But when it returns on a second day, and there's still no explanation you are trying customers' patience with your product to the limit.

Finally, at 21:53 on Tuesday evening, this arrived from RIM:

"RIM update: The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM's infrastructure. Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed."

In other words, a pretty serious failure had occurred in the infrastructure on which the whole Blackberry ecosystem depends. This morning, a new statement tells us that the issue has finally been resolved.

But it took 36 hours for RIM to give the world any explanation of what had happened - and as far as I know the company still has not put anyone up for interview. I'm hearing that some PR executives argued for more openness from the start but were over-ruled by headquarters in Canada.

This strategy - say as little as possible, ruthlessly control the message from the centre - is similar to the one adopted with such success by Apple over the years. But when things go wrong, it looks like a textbook example of how to lose friends and alienate people.

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TECHNOLOGY, A social component is missing Romanian anti-cybercrime effort

Romania has long time as a hotbed of Internet criminal activity, but in recent years law enforcement agencies have made significant efforts right, to combat online fraud gangs, to steal the millions of victims throughout the world each year.
Enforcement actions show a visible increase in the number of right media reports and two official statistics in this area. The Romanian Directorate for the investigation of organised crime and terrorism (DIICOT) reports 2010 977 new cases registered 1,157 Internet criminal investigations opened already in the first eight months of this year.
The fact that law enforcement can efforts to those responsible to justice only a good thing, but according to Bogdan Manolea, cyberlaw expert and executive Director of the Romanian Association for technology and Internet (ApTI), this is only treat of the symptoms and not the cause.
"As long as the Romanian authorities only this problem as individuals and not as a phenomenon are handled, I don't think that there are great strides achieved that long to medium term, be,", Manolea said.
Despite DIICOT of increasing efforts to stamp out cyber-crime are more and more young people always such activities involved, and Josiah, after serving prison time for associated offences. This is done through a combination of factors from, the poor state of the economy and the lack of job opportunities judgments, that some consider too indulgent. However, little is done is, to determine, to combat the causes.
"I'm talking about the need and the ability of the authorities work with the private sector to determine the factors that transformed them into a phenomenon, to adopt the motives of the parties, the prevalence of the problem and solutions at the national level, which discourage the involvement of young people in this type of activity." "So far we this are pretty bad," said Manolea.
Almost all forms of cyber-crime are in Romania, including fake online auctions, VoIP was, to clone credit card and slide the manufacture of devices. But is the most popular type of online fraud in Romania's Internet criminals, phishing.
The simplicity of phishing could explain why it is so attractive to Romanian fraudsters. Although a significant threat for years now, continue to phishing attacks a high success rate have since protection of user training is largely dependent on.
Phishing is in Romania, that it has become almost a national brand so prevalent and perceive colour as foreigners of the country, especially in cyberspace.
Another reason for the popularity of phishing is that it is not seriously punished. DIICOT announcements and news mention article sentences with a maximum of 20 years in prison, but are often the actual penalties far less than that.
Manolea analyzes public data on court judgements and found that the average phishing are sentences between two to four years in prison. Suspended sentences get defendants in some cases.
Each has attenuating or aggravating circumstances, and it is normal that the maximum sentence for rarely be handed down, note Manolea. But the big difference between the declared and actual penalties distorted public opinion, leading to feelings that the legal system does not work.
Manolea not believe that harsher penalties result in a solution, since such measures to a decrease in the crime. However, he feels that the social risks associated with these actions should be discussed more.
"This topic isn't enough, with only one or two events dedicated to cybercrime has been discussed every year." There are probably some judges, still no clear picture what these young people actually do, "he said."
Despite the increasing cooperation with foreign Partnern--DIICOT exchange information with law enforcement agencies in more than 50 countries, a spokesman for sagte-- there are still many hurdles that prosecutors face when their cases to create. Anonymity, by the Internet and the difficult task to identify and victims, interview, especially if most of them foreigners, transmitted are only some of them.
It is not only Romanian authorities, which are on Cybercrime cracks down. Other Eastern European countries with a long history of online fraud, including the Ukraine and also their efforts have strengthened Bulgaria. But not these Governments have even recognized that to bring awareness and education of young people as important as criminals behind bars.

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