The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry (phones)

Blackberry with its iconic on device full keyboard was a symbol of c-suite executives and other business professionals, the list also include the US Presidents. The reason for the wide adoption (some 10 years ago) was not only the beautiful design but also its security. 

Blackberry uses an end-to-end encryption called PGP. The servers are managed by a company (or a third party). When Alice sends a message, the message is firstly compressed. PGP then creates a (one time) random session key to encrypt the compressed message. The session key is then encrypted using Bob's public key and send to Bob. Bob uses his private key to decrypt the session key and uses it to decrypt the message. 

It is important to note that the encryption and decryption are done on Blackberry devices, we call end-to-end. Since PGP is strong encryption, men in the middle cannot decipher and read the message. Due to the strong security feature, Blackberry quickly gained the market popularity. 

Because PGP is too strong to break up, it prevents some countries or regimes to spy on their citizens. As a result, many countries banned to bring Blackberry to those countries. As a result, this beautiful device was quickly faded away. 

Some scientists believe the fall of Blackberry was not because its business malpractice. It was because the strong security and no back door. Technology may not always win. 

Final comments: 

1. The good news is PGP technology is still here and people can choose to use.  

2. Random number generation (RNG) is very important for the security of encryption key. Quantum RNG (QRNG) can guarantee the truly randomness. 

3. Compression is a form of encryption, usually symmetric, due to its fast speed. 

4. Learn more about PGP, visit Philip Zimmermann's website.