The Internet - The first Worldwide Tool of Unification ("The End of History")

" ... Now I give you something that few think about: What do you think the Internet is all about, historically? Citizens of all the countries on Earth can talk to one another without electronic borders. The young people of those nations can all see each other, talk to each other, and express opinions. No matter what the country does to suppress it, they're doing it anyway. They are putting together a network of consciousness, of oneness, a multicultural consciousness. It's here to stay. It's part of the new energy. The young people know it and are leading the way.... "

" ... I gave you a prophecy more than 10 years ago. I told you there would come a day when everyone could talk to everyone and, therefore, there could be no conspiracy. For conspiracy depends on separation and secrecy - something hiding in the dark that only a few know about. Seen the news lately? What is happening? Could it be that there is a new paradigm happening that seems to go against history?... " Read More …. "The End of History"- Nov 20, 2010 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

"Recalibration of Free Choice"– Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth, 4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical) 8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

“…5 - Integrity That May Surprise…

Have you seen innovation and invention in the past decade that required thinking out of the box of an old reality? Indeed, you have. I can't tell you what's coming, because you haven't thought of it yet! But the potentials of it are looming large. Let me give you an example, Let us say that 20 years ago, you predicted that there would be something called the Internet on a device you don't really have yet using technology that you can't imagine. You will have full libraries, buildings filled with books, in your hand - a worldwide encyclopedia of everything knowable, with the ability to look it up instantly! Not only that, but that look-up service isn't going to cost a penny! You can call friends and see them on a video screen, and it won't cost a penny! No matter how long you use this service and to what depth you use it, the service itself will be free.

Now, anyone listening to you back then would perhaps have said, "Even if we can believe the technological part, which we think is impossible, everything costs something. There has to be a charge for it! Otherwise, how would they stay in business?" The answer is this: With new invention comes new paradigms of business. You don't know what you don't know, so don't decide in advance what you think is coming based on an old energy world. ..."
(Subjects: Who/What is Kryon ?, Egypt Uprising, Iran/Persia Uprising, Peace in Middle East without Israel actively involved, Muhammad, "Conceptual" Youth Revolution, "Conceptual" Managed Business, Internet, Social Media, News Media, Google, Bankers, Global Unity,..... etc.)


German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls

German anti-hate speech group counters Facebook trolls
Logo No Hate Speech Movement

Bundestag passes law to fine social media companies for not deleting hate speech

Honouring computing’s 1843 visionary, Lady Ada Lovelace. (Design of doodle by Kevin Laughlin)

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

iStethoscope: The iPhone app which is already replacing the real thing in hospitals

Daily Mail, By DAILY MAIL REPORTER, 31st August 2010

More than three million doctors have downloaded an iPhone app which is replacing the stethoscope in UK hospitals.

The iStethoscope app, created by Peter Bentley at University College London, was originally developed as nothing more than a toy.

But now more than 500 users a day are downloading the free version of the application which experts say has already saved lives.

The iStethoscope app displays a cardiogram after it is pressed against the chest

To use the app the iPhone is pressed against the chest where its built-in microphone is able to pick up on the heart's beat.


The user then shakes the iPhone to hear the last eight seconds of recording and and see a phonocardiograph display and a spectrogram. The diagrams can then be emailed to a specialist.

'Everybody is very excited about the potential of the adoption of mobile phone technology into the medical workplace, and rightly so,' Dr Bentley told the Guardian.

'Smartphones are incredibly powerful devices packed full of sensors, cameras, high-quality microphones with amazing displays,' he said.

'They are capable of saving lives, saving money and improving healthcare in a dramatic fashion – and we carry these massively powerful computers in our pockets.'

An image from the iStethoscope website which shows where on the chest the iPhone should be placed to get the best results

Bentley said that future cheap iPhone apps for use by doctors are being held back by out-of-date regulations that prevents smartphones from becoming medical devices.

Dr Bentley said that he could create a mobile ultrasound scanner or a an app to measure oxygen levels in the blood but is being held back by the regulations.

A spokesman for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which looks at how to regulate new technologies, said: This is such a complex area that we are currently looking at every application on a case-by-case basis.

'We want to ensure that these new technologies are effectively regulated – thereby protecting health and avoiding unnecessary deterrents – while at the same time removing any unnecessary obstacles to manufacturers who wish to exploit new technologies for the benefit of patients.'





Monday, August 30, 2010

N. Korea raps S. Korea for blocking Twitter, YouTube

The Jakarta Post, Sangwon Yoon, The Associated Press, Seoul | Mon, 08/30/2010 4:43 PM

North Korea lashed out at South Korea for blocking its Twitter and YouTube accounts, saying the move proves Seoul opposes improving inter-Korean relations.

The North's government said this month it had joined Twitter and YouTube in what was seen as an effort to bolster its propaganda warfare against South Korea and the U.S. Seoul officials quickly responded by blocking both accounts from being accessed in the South, saying they contain illegal information banned under the South's security law.

On Saturday, the North's government-run Uriminzokkiri website, which opened the accounts, issued a statement accusing South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's administration of setting a "hostile mood" between the two rivals.

"It is clear that the Lee Myung-bak administration is a group of traitors against ufication, and does not want to improve inter-Korean relations or even wish for dialogue and cooperation," Uriminzokkiri said.

It said the blocking would hamper efforts to facilitate mutual understanding between the rival Koreas through the Internet.

The Twitter account uriminzok, which means "our nation" in Korean, gained more than 8,500 followers in a week, with just 30 tweets linking to reports that praise North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and lambast South Korea and the U.S. over their joint military drills.

More than 130 videos have been uploaded to North Korea's YouTube channel, including clips that condemn Seoul and Washington for blaming Pyongyang for the March sinking of a South Korean warship. Pyongyang has insisted it has nothing to do with the sinking, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.

South Korea's state-run Communications Standards Commission blocked uriminzok two weeks ago and the YouTube channel last week. Commission officials said the accounts carry content that "praises, promotes and glorifies" North Korea.

North Korea, one of the world's most secretive countries, blocks Internet access for all but the elite among its 24 million citizens but is believed to have a keen interest in information technology.

The two Koreas technically remain in a state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

'Holy cow, I gotta call 911': How a man on holiday 1,400 miles away used an iPhone to stop a burglary at his home

Daily Mail, By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE, 26th August 2010

A man was able to stop burglars from breaking into his home - by using his iPhone while more than 1,400 miles away from his house.

Vince Hunter used a £2.60 application called iCam that allowed him to monitor his home security system.

After motion sensors picked up the movements of two burglars at his home in Dallas, Texas, it alerted him with a text message.

Scroll down for video of the burglary

Caught on camera: One of the raiders examines the door of Vincent Hunter's Dallas home shortly before throwing a brick through the glass - his actions were caught on camera and seen by the homeowner 1,400 miles away via his iPhone


Guns drawn, police officers enter Mr Hunter's home after he dialled 911, the number for emergency services in the U.S.

Hunter, who was visiting his parents in Connecticut more than 1,400 miles away, was able to tap into his security system and watch what was happening on his iPhone.

Two men wearing gloves peered through his patio windows before a brick was tossed at the glass, eventually shattering it.

Hunter called police and his home security system automatically dialled 911 when the window shattered.

More...

As Hunter continued watching on his iPhone he saw Dallas police entering the house with their guns drawn.

The two raiders, who are believed to be responsible for a spate of burglaries in the area, fled empty handed.

Hunter said he bought the application several months ago to supplement his home security system.

Handy app: The iCam application allowed Mr Hunter to monitor his home security after receiving a text to say the men had broken in


Secure: Mr Hunter reviews his home security system which is linked to both his computer and iPhone after the second burglary at his home

Having been the victim of a previous burglary he installed a series of cameras to monitor his pds200,00 home.

The iCam application allows him to watch the video feed live from anywhere in the world.

Hunter was filling his car up with petrol when he received a text message from iCam alerting him to movement outside his home.

He said: 'I checked the footage, and see in real time guys in this area, and they're kind of hunched over.

'They'd just broken the glass. I said "holy cow, I gotta call 911".

'I go back to the footage, sure enough, they're in the backyard checking things out.

'They're throwing bricks ... at the tempered glass and they can't break it three times.

'Finally, it appears they wind up and kind of go back in that area, and they just hurl this brick through the glass and ... this brick ends up in our living room.'

Police said they hoped to use the video camera footage to track down the burglars.





Related Article:

Google to allow phone calls from Gmail

Reuters, NEW YORK | Wed Aug 25, 2010 2:22pm EDT

An employee answers calls at the Google office in Zurich, August 18, 2009. (Credit: Reuters/Christian Hartmann)

(Reuters) - Google Inc said users of Gmail will now be able to call telephones directly from their email, putting it in direct competition with Web calling service Skype and companies such as AT&T Inc.

While Google had already offered computer-to-computer voice and video chat services, starting on Wednesday it said it will allow calls to home phones and mobile phones directly from Gmail for the first time.

Google promised free calls to U.S. and Canadian phones from Gmail for the rest of this year and said it would charge low rates for calls made to other countries.

For example it said calls to the U.K, France, Germany, China and Japan would be as low as 2 cents per minute.

It said making a call works like a normal phone in that a user could click on the "call phone" option in their chat buddy list and type the number or enter a contacts name.

Skype, owned by private equity firms and eBay Inc, has long allowed consumers to make phone calls from computers, as well as computer-to-computer voice and video calls. Skype said earlier this month it aims to raise as much as $100 million in a public share offering.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Andre Grenon)


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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

UFO, crop circles photographed by Google Earth satellite

VANCOUVER SUN, AUGUST 24, 2010 12:27 PM

One of the stills, of a "UFO," on Google Earth's gallery of its most mysterious photos ever. (Photograph by: Google Earth, Google)


Google Earth has compiled a photo gallery of mysterious images taken by satellite above our planet.

The bird's-eye photos include an "unidentified flying object" that appears to hover over a field, crop circles, concentric shapes etched into the earth, strange patterns, and advertising that can only be seen from the air.

Google Earth is a Google application that enables users to view landmarks, buildings and entire cities in satellite photos.

Click here to view the photos, which Google is calling 'the most mysterious sightings ever.'


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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Zurich Insurance fined £2.3m over customers' data loss

BBC News, 24 August 2010 Last updated at 11:34

The UK operation of Zurich Insurance has been fined £2.27m for losing personal details of 46,000 customers, the Financial Services Authority said.

Zurich Insurance says its loss of customer
information was "unacceptable"
It is the highest fine levied on a single firm for data security failings.

Margaret Cole, the FSA's director of enforcement and financial crime, said: "Zurich UK let its customers down badly."

Stephen Lewis, chief executive of Zurich UK, said: "This incident was unacceptable."

The data on policyholders, including in some cases bank account and credit card information, went missing in August 2008.

However, Zurich did not become aware of the loss until a year later, when it then began notifying customers.

The information went missing during a routine transfer to a data storage centre in South Africa.

The FSA said in a statement: "Zurich UK failed to take reasonable care to ensure it had effective systems and controls to manage the risks relating to the security of customer data resulting from the outsourcing arrangement.

"The firm also failed to ensure that it had effective systems and controls to prevent the lost data being used for financial crime."

Margaret Cole added that Zurich "failed to oversee the outsourcing arrangement effectively and did not have full control over the data being processed by Zurich SA.

"To make matters worse, Zurich UK was oblivious to the data loss incident until a year later.

"Firms across the financial sector would do well to look at the details of this case and learn from the mistakes that Zurich UK made," she said.

Zurich said that it had no evidence the data had been misused. The firm said it had introduced new security measures, and had appointed a dedicated information security officer.

Mr Lewis said that the incident "served to remind us of the need to strive continually to improve the ways in which we seek to protect customers' data".

As Zurich agreed to settle at an early stage of the investigation the firm's fine was reduced by 30%. Without this discount the fine would have been £3.25m.

The FSA has previously fined HSBC, Nationwide and Norwich Union for data loss.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Barclays' network glitch causes chaos in UK

Reuters, LONDON | Sat Aug 21, 2010 3:58pm EDT

A customer uses a Barclays ATM in central London, July 23, 2010.
(Credit: Reuters/Andrew Winning)


(Reuters) - Thousands of Barclays (BARC.L) customers in Britain were unable to access their bank accounts or withdraw money from cash machines on Saturday after a system crash caused chaos nationwide.

The problems, which began at around 1230 GMT (8:30 a.m. EDT), hit telephone and online banking services and caused frustration at retail outlets as embarrassed shoppers were forced to abandon purchases at the till.

Barclays' telephone banking centers were inundated with calls from customers, many of whom were angry at the lack of information. A Barclays spokeswoman was unable to elaborate on the cause of the problems.

"We became aware of a problem earlier in the day," she said. "We apologize to customers for any inconvenience."

At 1915 GMT, access to online accounts was still being denied and calls to the helpline suggested the problems were ongoing.

Barclays is Europe's sixth-biggest bank by market value. It signed a two-year deal with NCR Corp (NCR.N) on Aug 16 for the management and maintenance of its UK network of ATMs.

(Reporting by Christina Fincher; Editing by Angus MacSwan)


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Saturday, August 21, 2010

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange accused of rape

BBC News, 21 August 2010 Last updated at 10:22 GMT

Swedish authorities say they have issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, on accusations of rape and molestation.

The warrant was issued late on Friday, said Karin Rosander, communications head at Sweden's prosecutors' office.

Swedish police have been trying to contact Mr Assange, but have not yet been able to, she told the BBC.

Wikileaks, criticised for leaking Afghan war documents, quoted him saying the charges were "without basis".

The message, which appeared on Twitter and was attributed directly to Mr Assange, said the appearance of the allegations "at this moment is deeply disturbing".

In a series of other messages posted on the Wikileaks Twitter feed, the whistle-blowing website said: "No-one here has been contacted by Swedish police", and that it had been warned to expect "dirty tricks".

More documents due

Last month, Wikileaks published more than 90,000 secret US military documents on the war in Afghanistan.

US authorities criticised the leak, saying it could put the lives of coalition soldiers and Afghans, especially informers, at risk.

Mr Assange has said that Wikileaks is intending to release a further 15,000 documents in the coming weeks.

Ms Rosander said there were two separate allegations against Mr Assange, one of rape and the other of molestation.

She gave no details of the accusations. She said that as far as she knew they related to alleged incidents that took place in Sweden.

Media reports say Mr Assange was in Sweden last week to talk about his work and defend the decision by Wikileaks to publish the Afghan war logs.

The allegations were first reported in the Swedish newspaper Expressen.


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Saturday, August 7, 2010

Hurd Resigns From H.P. After Sexual Harassment Inquiry

By THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 6, 2010

Hewlett-Packard, the technology company, said Friday that its chief executive Mark Hurd was resigning immediately.

Mark Hurd at a Hewlett-Packard event in March.
(Danny Johnston/Associated Press)
The decision, the board said in a statement, was made following an investigation of sexual harassment against Mr. Hurd and the company by a former contractor.

While the investigation determined there was no violation of H.P.’s sexual harassment policy, it did find violations of the company’s standards of business conduct.

In a statement, the board said that it had appointed the chief financial officer, Cathie Lesjak, 51, to the job on an interim basis.

“After a number of discussions with members of the board, I will move aside and the board will search for new leadership, ,” Mr. Hurd said in the company statement. “This is a painful decision for me to make after five years at H.P., but I believe it would be difficult for me to continue as an effective leader at HP and I believe this is the only decision the board and I could make at this time.”


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Gulf BlackBerry row lifts veil on state cyberspies

Reuters, By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent,LONDON | Fri Aug 6, 2010 12:41pm EDT

Veiled Saudi women talk on their BlackBerry phones at a shopping mall in Riyadh August 5, 2010. (Credit: Reuters/Fahad Shadeed)

(Reuters) - The arguments over whether several emerging nations can effectively hack BlackBerry devices give a rare glimpse of the shadowy world of state electronic surveillance already changing politics, espionage and business.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both in dispute with Canadian smartphone maker Research In Motion, saying they want access to the encrypted phones to monitor security threats. Both are threatening to block its messenger function.

The row highlights a growing gulf between the idea of a free Internet and the desire by a growing number of authoritarian governments from China to Iran to control information and deepen surveillance to tackle dissent and insurgency.

Indian security agencies are also demanding access to BlackBerry messages as a condition for further expansion, saying they suspect militants used the handsets to help plan the 2008 Mumbai attack in which 166 people died.

Lebanon and Algeria are making similar demands.

"It is part of a wider trend," said Jonathan Wood, global issues analyst at London-based consultancy Control Risks, which advises companies on security, corruption, politics and other issues.

"After 9/11, you had this huge expansion of Western powers monitoring electronic communications for national security. Other countries are now catching up. The difference is they want to use it more broadly."

That could range from monitoring and thwarting millions of potential dissidents to gaining advantage in business deals -- a particular worry for Western firms sometimes in competition with state-backed companies.

Most countries say there are strict controls over authorizing electronic intercepts -- but it is often impossible for outsiders to tell how they are actually used.

"It's obviously going to be a concern for Western business," said Wood. "You have the risk that some of this information may be used for commercial purposes."

DOUBLE STANDARD?

The BlackBerry in particular has become a ubiquitous tool of bankers, company executives, political activists and diplomats. Its government-level 256-bit encryption is at the heart of its appeal.

BlackBerrys are used for planning everything from coffee meetings to debt restructuring and corporate mergers, from protest marches to romantic liaisons -- often as their jetsetting users travel casually through several countries.

Many firms in sensitive sectors already control use. Lockheed Martin said staff used BlackBerrys in the Gulf and elsewhere but with restrictions.

"The corporation has rigorous standards and protocols on how we process and communicate sensitive information," spokesman Jeffrey Adams said. "Cyber security is a global concern."

Some argue there is already a double standard. BlackBerry servers are located in the United States, Britain and Canada. Few doubt that intelligence agencies in those countries have access to them.

Perhaps as a result, France has banned its officials from using the devices. But most analysts say Western efforts have focused mainly on trying to use electronic intercepts to track a small number of militants, organized criminals and others including child pornographers.

Some emerging nations are clearly targeting political dissenters for whom cheap, hard-to-trace electronic communications have made organizing much easier.

"When BlackBerry came, I started to get messages criticizing the government from people I'd never seen involved in activism," said UAE blogger Ahmed Mansour. "Regular people started discussing taboo subjects."

Widespread unrest, coordinated on the Internet, after Iran's disputed election last year showed how social networking and microblogging sites such as Twitter could be used to mobilize opposition. Since then many countries have tightened controls and blocked websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

In the highest-profile row until now, Google angered Beijing earlier this year when it announced it would no longer comply with Chinese censorship rules.

It said its servers had suffered numerous cyber-attacks from China -- seen as keen to monitor dissidents over the Internet while limiting access to outside sites through its firewall.

"All the major high-tech multinationals are pushing for a boundless global Internet, while authoritarian states across the board are increasingly interested in regionally based "intranets" where governments exert sovereignty over their own servers and routers," Ian Bremmer, president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, wrote in a note.

BEYOND THE SPOTLIGHT

Western intelligence agencies have also occasionally been tripped up by the new electronic world. Security experts were aghast last year when it emerged the wife of the new head of Britain's spy service MI6 had posted pictures of her husband, family and friends and other personal details on Facebook [ID:nL5658204].

But normally, secrecy reigns. Bjoern Rupp, chief executive of secure phone manufacturer GSMK -- which supplies governments, celebrities and armed forces -- said the unusual feature of the Saudi and UAE BlackBerry dispute was its public nature.

The level of access spy agencies have to monitor BlackBerry messages has been at the heart of negotiations to roll out the devices around the world -- with RIM notoriously coy over what was agreed. Even without agreement, experts say there are ways intelligence agencies can break the BlackBerry's security.

"An outright ban... is a very clumsy approach," Rupp told Reuters. "Most countries with an active interest in monitoring their citizens' telecommunications act in a much more sophisticated and subtle way in order to keep such activities out of the public spotlight."
In Russia, rolling out BlackBerry took two years of negotiations and the agreement of the powerful state security agency the FSB, which was entitled to monitoring rights under anti-terror laws -- and demanded the servers be based in Russia. Expanding in China also took two years of security discussions.

In the Gulf, political activists say secure BlackBerry messaging hugely increased their ability to communicate with each other. If the service is blocked, they will simply switch to other tools such as encrypted Skype calls.
"(BlackBerry) messaging was revolutionary for people here," said Abdel Hamid, a UAE lawyer and human rights activist. "It awakened them. That's something I don't think will disappear."

(Additional reporting by Karen Jacobs Erika Solomon, Frederik Richter and Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Charles Dick)

(Reuters messaging: peter.apps.reuters.com@reuters.net; e-mail: peter.apps@thomsonreuters.com; telephone: +44 20 7542 0262))


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Friday, August 6, 2010

Google and Slide: building a more social web

Google Blog, 8/06/2010 09:30:00 AM

We’re excited to announce we’ve acquired Slide, a social technology company with an extensive history of building new ways for people to connect with others across numerous platforms online.

For Google, the web is about people, and we’re working to develop open, transparent and interesting (and fun!) ways to allow our users to take full advantage of how technology can bring them closer to friends and family and provide useful information just for them.

Slide has already created compelling social experiences for tens of millions of people across many platforms, and we’ve already built strong social elements into products like Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Picasa and YouTube. As the Slide team joins Google, we’ll be investing even more to make Google services socially aware and expand these capabilities for our users across the web.

While we don’t have any detailed product plans to share right now, we’re thrilled to welcome Max and his very talented team to Google, and we can’t wait to work together to give people more and better tools to communicate and connect.

Posted by David Glazer, Engineering Director

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Two Gulf states to ban some Blackberry functions

BBC News, 1 August 2010 Last updated at 14:08 GMT

Two Gulf states have announced bans on some functions of the Blackberry mobile phone, claiming security concerns.

The UAE denies censorship is involved
The United Arab Emirates is to block sending emails, accessing the internet, and delivering instant messages to other Blackberry handsets.

Saudi Arabia is to prevent the use of the Blackberry to Blackberry instant messaging service.

Both nations are unhappy that they are unable to monitor such communications via the handsets.

This is because the Blackberry handsets automatically send the encrypted data to computer servers outside of the two countries.

Related stories

The UAE ban is to start in October, while the Saudi move will begin later this month.

Abdulrahman Mazi, a board member of state-controlled Saudi Telecom, has admitted that the decision is intended to put pressure on Blackberry's Canadian owner, Research in Motion (RIM), to release data from users' communications "when needed".

The UAE's telecoms regulator, TRA, said the lack of compliance with local laws raised "judicial, social and national security concerns".

RIM has yet to comment on either case.

There are an estimated 500,000 Blackberry users in the UAE, and 400,000 in Saudi Arabia.

Censorship denial

TRA said some Blackberry services would be suspended from 11 October "until a solution compatible with local laws is reached".

"It's a final decision but we are continuing discussions with them," said TRA director general Mohammed al-Ghanem.

"Censorship has got nothing to do with this. What we are talking about is suspension due to the lack of compliance with UAE telecommunications regulations."

It follows an alleged attempt by TRA last year to install spyware on Blackberry handsets.

And in 2007 RIM refused TRA access to the code for RIM's encrypted networks so it could monitor email and other data.

Power play?

Media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders told the BBC last week that while the UAE was playing a "technological leadership role in the Arab world", this was backed by "repressive laws" and a "general trend of intensified surveillance".

BBC Middle East business reporter Ben Thompson said the threat by the UAE was likely an attempt to wring concessions out of RIM.

"Many here see this as little more than a power play from the UAE authorities - an attempt to force RIM to handover the security codes or face losing a lucrative market," he said.

India has also raised security concerns over Blackberry data services, saying they could be exploited by militants.

Analysis - Continue reading the main story

By Ben Thompson, BBC Middle East business reporter

  • A year after the UAE's botched attempt to download spyware onto Blackberries, it seems the government is still not happy that it can't monitor emails sent and received by Blackberry users.

    So it now says it will ban the devices altogether.

    But given the popularity of the Blackberry here, an outright ban will be controversial.

    Forums and blogs already talk of a 'step back to the stone age' and 'another PR disaster for the UAE'.

    But is an outright ban actually likely?

    Many here see this as little more than a power play from the UAE authorities - an attempt to force RIM to hand over the security codes or face losing a lucrative market.

    But for RIM, it's unlikely to be too concerned. Whilst the UAE is a wealthy and lucrative market, it's also a small one.

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