BlackBerry’s ultra-secure chat gives each message its own security key

Chat systems like BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) are typically very secure, since they’re encrypted end-to-end. However, they still have a glaring flaw: if intruders do crack the code, they can see everything you’ve said. That’s where BlackBerry’s soon-to-launch BBM Protected comes in. As the company showed at its BlackBerry Experience Washington event (CrackBerry’s video is below), the new service makes it extremely difficult to spy on an entire conversation. Each message has its own random encryption key; even a very clever data thief would only get one tidbit at a time, so it could take ages to piece together a full chat.

BBM Protected will only be available for corporate-controlled BlackBerry devices when it launches as part of an enterprise suite in June, although that will include anything running the now-ancient BlackBerry OS 6 or higher. The chat client won’t be available for personal phones running BlackBerry Balance until early fall, while Android and iOS users will have to wait until late fall or early winter. All the same, it might be worth holding out if you’re really, truly worried that someone is watching your private discussions.

Source: Engadget

BlackBerry Demos BBM on iPhone and Android at TIFF

BlackBerry is gearing up to launch cross-platform BBM for iOS and Android. Although, there seems to have been a little bit of a drawback on getting BBM approved by Apple, but BlackBerry intends to launch BBM this month.

If you had attended the BlackBerry Experience at the Toronto International Film Festival, you might have gotten an early glimpse of BBM running on an iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S4.

This is the first time we’ve seen BBM glimpsed on an iPhone, aside from the featured image we used in this article. Nevertheless, as expected, the UI for BBM on iOS and Android looks nearly identical as that on BlackBerry 10.

Stay tuned as BlackBerry will soon kick off the BBM4ALL campaign once BBM is approved to the Google Play and Apple App Store.

Source: N4BB

BlackBerry Messenger for iOS submitted to App Store, waiting on approval

BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), once the crack in crack-berry, is going multi-platform this month, including iOS and Android. While no firm release date has been set, BlackBerry’s Alex Kinsella has just stated that BBM for iOS has already been submitted to the App Store. Twitter:

Just in case we forgot to mention, BBM for iPhone was submitted for review 2 wks ago. #waiting #BBM4ALL

Apple approved Google’s Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, the indie WhatsApp, and a plethora of other instant messaging clients, so there shouldn’t be a problem with the core concept. If BlackBerry is trying anything fancy, like screen sharing, that could complicate review. So could any issues related to this being their first iOS app, unlike other major competitors who’ve gotten past their first, painful app launches and settled into the App Store groove.

Either way, we should be getting it soon. Anyone itching to start BBM’ing from their iPhone?

Via: iMore