Shortest

This might be my shortest blog post ever.

Here. Read this. It's Etisalat giving its side of the BlackBerry story.

See if it makes you angry...

GeekFest

Those nice people at Uber-funky Dubai hangout The Shelter are hosting GeekFest on Wednesday the 29th July. It should be interesting - billed as an offline social for online socialisers, the get together is resolutely un-organised, has absolutely no objectives whatsoever and features no sponsors, PowerPoint presentations, speeches or other form of corporatised torture.

The gathering will start at 5pm, although if anyone's early it will start earlier. If everyone's late, it'll start later. If nobody turns up, it won't start at all. But then it won't end, either.

The Shelter has a nice More cafe for refreshments and funky music.

The event was born out of a meeting that took place some time ago between The Shelter's Saadia Zahid, Simone 'DiscoBallBreaker' Sebastian and yours truly. We've taken ages to get around to not organising it.

If you don't know how to get to The Shelter, this Google Map Link should help.

You can follow @geekfestdubai on Twitter if you like. If this one is fun, we'll do more of them.

RIM Enables Etisalat Update Removal

Image via CrunchBase

"Recently an update may have been provided to you by Etisalat for your BlackBerry Handheld via a WAP push. The Etisalat update is not a RIM-authorized update and was not developed by RIM. Independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry Handheld, but rather to send received messages back to a central server. RIM has developed this software (“Software”) that will enable you to remove the Etisalat update."

Not my words, but the official words of the company that makes and enables BlackBerry handheld devices , RIM, on its own forum.

Particularly chilling are these words: "Independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry Handheld, but rather to send received messages back to a central server."

This directly contradicts the words of telco Etisalat, which made a formal statement to media last week, "These upgrades were required for service enhancements particularly for issues identified related to the handover between 2G to 3G network coverage areas."

But RIM goes a lot, lot further in its formal statement on the whole affair. In fact, the company says:

"RIM confirms that this software is not a patch and it is not a RIM authorized upgrade. RIM did not develop this software application and RIM was not involved in any way in the testing, promotion or distribution of this software application.

RIM further confirms, in general terms, that a third party patch cannot provide any enhancements to network services as there is no capability for third parties to develop or modify the low level radio communications protocols that would be involved in making such improvements to the communications between a BlackBerry smartphone and a carrier’s network.

In addition, RIM is not aware of any technical network concerns with the performance of BlackBerry smartphones on Etisalat’s network in the UAE."

So someone's been telling porkie pies, haven't they?

The link to BlackBerry's site is HERE and if you have a BlackBerry and implemented the update, you'll be relieved to know it contains a removal tool provided by RIM for its customers to use in getting rid of the performance-sapping software.

RIM has done the right thing - in contrast to security company SS8, the organisation presumed to have actually coded the software behind this awful little mess and which has maintained a total silence in the face of media requests. Similarly, etisalat's reaction (ignore it all and hope it goes away) has hardly been customer focused - people are still helping each other with 'broken' BlackBerries and Twitter is still ringing with plaintive Tweets for help from grounded BB users.

Do get the word out to friends and family that an 'official' fix is now available to roll back the update and, belatedly, ameliorate the impact on users of this muckle-headed catastrophe.

Etisalat still has 145,000 people to answer to, BTW... And, one rather suspects, a media that will be baying for its blood...

Link to the RIM statement, hosted on the Chirashi Security blog, HERE. Enjoy!

Giving a Hoot

Image via Wikipedia

So what are your brand values, then?
Loyalty, Quality, Customer Service, Care, Innovation

Did you ever stop to think that everyone picks those?
Well, no, not really. We did a flip chart thing in a hotel with our ad agency. They said we were a dominating tiger but that we really cared about our customers and that’s why customers admire us more than our competitor. We agreed with that. It was a pretty insightful analysis, actually.

Do you really live those values?
Of course! We put them on posters and everything! We even made a T-shirt after the workshop!

What, with Loyalty, Quality, Customer Service, Care, Innovation on it?
Yes! We took our hand paintings from that day out and used them along with our logos and our values. It's cool.

Do you wear that T-shirt?
Are you quite mad? I’d look like a delivery guy or something!

Do you see the problem here? This is not realistic. You don’t really live these values, they’re just lip-service. You’re not loyal, you just let staff go. You don’t really care about quality, you shaved product specs to save cashflow. You don’t care about your customers, your call centre sucks royally, has an average 25 minute wait time and is staffed by minimum wage students that hate you as much as your customers hate them. You only care about your shareholders and investors. And you don’t innovate at all, your whole structure is about a strategy of safety and sucking up to management.
Sorry, are you the PR guy or McKinsey? Because if you’re McKinsey, I don’t recall paying you $100k for this. And if you’re my PR guy, I’m not about to pay you to tell me something obvious, right?

Look, I’m the PR guy alright and I’m just about to tell you that you are in no way ready to take on social media.
Oh, what crap! We’re going to do some really cool social media campaigns. We’re going to show people just how damn cool we are and let them win some great prizes for jumping around and pulling faces every time we Tweet BIGCORP! You’ll see!

But we, as consumers, don’t want to do that. We don't want to jump around for you. We want to understand more about how you operate, engage with your people - even help to shape the products and services you offer us.
What? Stuff that! Mind your own business! How we operate is our affair, not yours!

Well, if you want me to engage with your brand, how you operate is important.
What the hell is wrong with you? What kind of pinko sicko ARE you? Buy the product because we care about you, right? Don’t worry about the stuff under the bonnet. You’re not qualified to look under the bonnet. We love you. Now shut the heck up, guy. Really. Before you really piss us off. You don’t want to piss us off.

But I am qualified. I’m a customer!
Shut up, right? Shut up. If you don’t shut up, I’ll shut you up. You understand me, you jumped up little punk?

Okay, it’s okay. I’ve calmed down just fine. Right. Why don’t you just go see Lisa who’s got some press releases about our staff development programme we want featured in the New York Times, the British press and all the Middle East papers. And PETRA. My kid says PETRA is important.

Umm, PETRA is the Jordanian national news agency. Maybe your kid meant PETA?
What, you can’t deliver or something? You don’t get what the kids get? If you don't have strong relationships withe media and make them run our releases, you can't be doing the job right.

But that's just pushing out one way messages! What about dialogue? Whatever happened to “Loyalty, Quality, Customer Service, Care, Innovation”?
You’re way off track here, pal. You’re a trouble maker. I’ve got nothing more to say to you. Lalalalala. Speak to my PR agency.

I am your PR agency.
Right. We’re pitching the account. We need an agency that understands us; believes in us. We need that empathy before we can move forwards...

Incompetence or arrogance?

Image by Loutron Glouton via Flickr

Respected security analysts and consultancies have now confirmed what many industry watchers, pundits and commentators suspected last week - that the 'upgrade' pushed to tens of thousands of BlackBerry mobile devices in the UAE by telco Etisalat was, in fact, not what it seemed to be, an 'upgrade for Blackberry service. Please download to ensure continous service quality.'

Interestingly, this rather flies in the face of the somewhat belated statement made by the telco itself, which I reproduced in full here at the end of last week. That statement rather annoyed a number of BlackBerry users who found it facile and lacking the one element that tens of thousands of frustrated customers whose mobile devices were affected wanted to see - an apology. Many of those users say their BlackBerrys were rendered inoperable or suffered significantly downgraded performance. A number reportedly bought new batteries for their BlackBerrys, believing the battery was at fault when, in fact, it was the software update they had accepted from the operator.

A press release was issued on the 15th July by security company SMobile Systems. The company, which positions itself as 'the leading provider of security solutions for mobile phones and maker of the only antivirus and antispyware applications in the world for BlackBerry devices, has released a solution for the (in their words) 'recent spyware-laden update sent out to BlackBerry users on the Etisalat network'. That press release in full can be found here.

The company's release claims, 'The BlackBerry Spyware, which intercepts email and drains battery life quickly, was pushed as an update to BlackBerry's on the Etisalat network. Sent to users as a wide-area protocol (WAP) message, the Java file intercepts data and sends a copy to a server without the user's knowledge.'

That is an extraordinary claim to make regarding a piece of software that Etisalat's official statement says was software 'required for service enhancements particularly for issues identified related to the handover between 2G to 3G network coverage areas.'

It is perhaps worth noting that the Chairman of SMobile Systems, quoted in the release, is a former White House Deputy Chief of Staff and so, we must reluctantly admit, carries some weight.

SMobile is not the only expert testimony that claims the notorious update is other than it seems. Besides the many people who believe that the Etisalat network is 100% 3G now and therefore does not present 2G to 3G cell handover problems, there are also a number who point out the fact that BlackBerrys haven't experienced cell handover issues for some time now - in fact, the only online references I can find to the handover issue date back to 2006.

Added to this, you have those who have examined the code - Qatar based programmer Nigel Gourlay was quoted widely in the initial coverage of the issue, but his assertions that the network update was in fact an attempt to install monitoring software have been backed up by respected security blog Chirashi Security - a white paper analysing the code in some detail, written by Sheran Gunarsekera, is linked here.

That white paper asserts that the code is a monitoring application. It also points out that the application was not properly implemented, pointing out that the application developers had not used any form of source code obfuscation - in other words, it shouldn't have been as simple to trace, upload and analyse the code as it in fact was. The code, according to the White Paper, is set up to hide itself from the user, attach itself to network events and report these to the service-provider's server and look out for control messages that enable interception of user messages. If enabled, the application will forward a copy of emails sent by the subscriber to the service provider's servers.

Damningly, the White Paper asserts that the code 'was not mature enough to be deployed. This is especially relevant if Etisalat planned to conduct full-scale legal interception on BlackBerry users.'

The Chirashi White Paper is scrupulous to point out that the application only forwards outgoing emails and not other message types and then only when the application has been enabled to do so - it does not report on emails by default. But it does make the point that the version of the interceptor software it analysed should not have been deployed - particularly not as part of a legal interception.

The White Paper also strays out of geekland into my domain when it asserts, in the context of requiring legal interception software to meet two criteria, to do no harm and to be thoroughly tested: 'A service provider should always be prepared for the worst. In case things do not work out as planned, there needs to be a dedicated PR team who is ready to step up and deal with the public. Users should not be lied to or ignored, they will accept it better if they know the provider is well within legal rights to perform such interception.' (The italics are mine, BTW)

Security company Veracode also analysed the upgrade last week, asking whether the fact that the implemented update contained both .jar and .cod versions was down to 'arrogance or incompetence?'. That's an area explored by a journalist from the region's leading telecommunications magazine, Comms MEA, here. Again, Veracode's Chris Eng reports that the clear purpose of the update, in his expert view, is to install a piece of software that, when activated, will forward user data to a third party server, presumably owned by the service provider.

All of this leaves me wondering quite what on earth Etisalat thought it was doing. And quite how our media is standing by and allowing Etisalat to simply claim that the great big elephant in the cupboard is in fact a pair of shoes.

Nobody I know has a problem with legal interception. I think most of us would recognise that it is highly desirable that the security agencies employed by our governments have access to the information they need in order to protect society in general. Those agencies are constantly monitoring network traffic, legally and within the charters and frameworks that govern their activity. We need them to be competent and we desperately need to believe in their competence and efficacy.

Similarly, we need to trust our telcos. As a commercial entity operating in a regulated and competitive free market environment, even the biggest telco has a duty towards its subscribers and a duty to tell the truth - not only to earn the trust of its customers, but to underpin the level of trust required by investors and multinational companies who wish to trade in that environment. Mendacity and silence are not good enough - people are still facing problems with their terminals even now because there has been no clear attempt to reach out to customers and fix this issue - let alone roll back the update. There are critical issues related to privacy and security that the operator has refused to address - and questions are now being asked by a wider community about the long-term implications for BlackBerry security in general as a result of this whole farago.

Finally, there is the issue of responsibility. Someone was responsible for this Keystone Cops attempt to police BlackBerrys and the subsequent lack of timely and appropriate response that turned a customer service problem into a full-blown case study in how fumbled issues management rapidly evolves nto crisis management and how ignoring a crisis simply, in today's commercial environment, won't do.

Trust

Image via Wikipedia

Many journalists working for 'traditional' or 'mainstream' media have been arguing about social media, particularly Twitter and its lack of dept, context, analysis or comment. There's also an argument that social media platforms (blogs, Twitterings, Wikis, Forums) don't necessarily derive the truth in quite the balanced and reliable way as a trained journalist.

There's a counterpoint to that, with respected journalists taking to online like whale sharks to aquariums and aiming to apply the (admittedly somewhat idealistic) standards of journalism to that environment. I'd argue it's easier for journalists to do that - and do it well - because online doesn't put the same pressures of proprietorial, commercial and reputational restrictions on the practice of the profession as 'traditional' media such as newspapers do.

The argument that we need journalism to filter the raw content out there is a seductive one, but it sadly flies in the face of increasing evidence that the filters are broken - and that we are actually happier filtering the stuff we are interested in ourselves. That's doesn't necessarily mean we want to filter everything ourselves, just the stuff we're interested in. And the more interested we become, the more it becomes apparent that the filters aren't quite what they're claiming to be.

Here's a great example. Emirates Business 24x7 today reports that 'Emiratis go online against Harvey Nichols'. Now, for those of you wot doesn't know, UK top-end retailer Harvey Nichols has been accused of putting a t-shirt on sale that depicts a bulldog standing on a UAE flag.

This is not generally considered to be a clever thing to do - in fact, whoever authorised putting the damn thing on sale should be considered dangerously incompetent and, at the least, keel-hauled.

"Emiratis have organised a campaign on Facebook and Twitter to boycott Harvey Nichols in response to an offensive T-shirts for which they were also pulled up by the authorities." trumpets EmBiz24x7, albeit in an unconscious echo of Churchill's famous "This is the sort of English up with which I will not put"

The story is clear, no? There's a significant grassroots movement of furious Emiratis against the retailer. Except the story, suspiciously, doesn't quantify 'the movement'.

In fact, when we look beyond the headline, and the story underneath it, EmBiz24x7's story is stood up on a Facebook group of 21 members with 2 wall posts. I can't find any evidence of a concerted campaign on Twitter, searching for Harvey, Harvey Nichols and HarveyNichols - and there are no Tweets bunched under #HarveyNichols, while the #UAE hashtag features no Harvey Nicks but quite a bit of Etisalat's BlackBerry PR triumph.

In fact, the reader is not given the information to make up his/her own mind about the relevance, force or weight of this online campaign. Given access to that information (for instance, the data I have surfaced in this post) we'd all file the story (wouldn't we?) under 'non story why are you wasting my time with this?' - the very filtering that is supposed to be taking place on our behalf, no?

Tags: Shoot. Foot. Self. Media.

Speech!

Etisalat BlackBerry Software Upgrade Aims to Enhance Performance of Devices and Facilitate Handover from 3G to 2G Networks

Abu Dhabi 15 July 2009: Etisalat today confirmed that a conflict in the settings in some BlackBerry devices has led to a slight technical fault while upgrading the software of these devices. This has resulted in reduced battery life in a very limited number of devices. Etisalat has received approximately 300 complaints to date, out of its total customer base which exceeds 145,000.

These upgrades were required for service enhancements particularly for issues identified related to the handover between 2G to 3G network coverage areas.

Customers who have been affected are advised to call 101 where they will be given instructions on how to restore their handset to its original state. This will resolve the issue completely.

Silence is Golden

Image via Wikipedia

The Etisalat BlackBerry update story has started to grow little legs now, with the coverage from Gulf News and ITP.net yesterday joined today by a story from The National and a GN followup. Both of today's UAE dailies focus on the irritation of subscribers and the silence of Etisalat, an angle that The National, in particular, highlights:

"Etisalat does not lack the ability to talk to the public. It is one of the UAE’s largest advertisers and it would be difficult to spend a day without seeing one of its promotions in print or on television. Its public relations machine is well oiled, putting out press releases daily..." says reporter Tom Gara before launching into an entertaining, if slightly surreal, series of nautical metaphors spanking the uncommunicative communications company.

Now coverage has gone international, with stories from Wired and from the UK's rightly feared (or revered, depending on which side of the industry fence you sit on. Rather marvellously, its tagline is 'Biting the hand that feeds IT') The Register.

It is, yes, a wee social media case study, this one. A single user posts some stuff he found on a specialist forum, triggering the swift passing of that information among a frustrated customer base that is being poorly communicated with. The news is examined, refined and passed on again, a great deal of that traffic going via Twitter BTW, and now it's going wild. Many media reports internationally are focusing on one or two media reports locally - the role of a single Qatari software expert being key right now in the coverage from 'mainstream' media as it is picked up by media outlets. In fact, both Wired and The Register covered the story from ITP.Net. And now uber-blog engadget has covered it from The Register. And if that isn't as bad as ReTweeting, I don't know what is!

Now major international technology media outlets are repeating a story based on the stated views of one man following his comments on a local blog. Scary, in its way. I'm not denigrating that expert, BTW: Nigel (and original discoverer DXBLouie) are both chaps that certainly appear to know a great deal about what they're talking about - as does Steve Halzinski, whose post on BlackBerrycool here still contains his considered view on the nature of the 'network update' that apparently forced BlackBerries into meltdown as they scrambled to contact an overloaded server.

News expands to fill a vacuum. Particularly a social vacuum. For what it's worth, my prediction is that this story will grow - Etisalat really needs to fill that vacuum before it does, although I suspect that by now the genie is well and truly out of the bottle.

Thanks, Gulf News!

Image via Wikipedia

Nice to see Gulf News' Abbas Lawati covering the BlackBerry software patch story today - great reporting, from surfacing the story and 'getting' what was going on in the first place right through to finding Qatar- based progammer Nigel Gourlay to comment on the actual functionality of the patch. Great journalism, top marks for effort and really cutting through to the heart of the story.

Thanks, BTW, to the lads at the most excellent Stuff Magazine for the link back they included in their story!

It's going to be interesting seeing how Etisalat deals with this one now from a communications perspective. The company could choose to clam up and fillibuster any journalist unwise enough to pursue the story further, ignoring the howls of pain from customers while it quietly fixes the problem. Or could institute a wide-ranging reaction to the unfortunate incident, apologising for the inconvenience the move has caused, communicating effectively with customers, explaining what has gone wrong and how they can restore their devices and performing as clean and efficient a 'roll back' as possible.

There have been reports of users buying new Dhs200 batteries for their BlackBerries as a solution to the sudden battery-drain they experienced - and performance of the handsets has also reportedly been affected. So there is a strong argument for a smart, transparent customer service push that redresses at least some of the key customer irritations.

Meanwhile, if you want to get into the security software business, here are some handy hints and tips.

Make sure that nobody knows you're trying to install a security or monitoring patch because they might be scared or protest. Tell them it enhances teddy bears or something. Having done that:

• Do make sure that your software is called something scary, like 'Raptor', 'Destroyer' or 'Interceptor'. Name the subroutines you are using after the software so that users can see the name and be spooked by it.
  

• Do make sure you install all software into a directory clearly named after the security company that is providing the solution. This helps curious customers, bloggers and yes, even journalists, quickly and easily find out more about what you're up to.
  

• Do try and work with a security company whose website shrieks 'Be Scared! Be Very Scared!' or at least trumpets how it makes interception and monitoring software that allows intelligence agencies to monitor and analyze targets. Nothing makes consumers happier than being referred to as 'targets', except possibly the sight of red laser dots on their chest.

Meanwhile, I'd just like to say that my Nokia battery has ground to a virtual halt, supporting no more than 20 minutes of talk time before failing. And that didn't even need a patch from Etisalat to achieve!

Blodge

Image via Wikipedia

It looks on the surface about as bad as you can get in terms of completely mis-handling your customer base, lying to consumers and losing their trust and respect in one single great big blodge.

A telco pushes an upgrade to users of devices on its network. That upgrade not only apparently has the effect of downgrading the service, but is widely reported to screw up the batteries of those devices, triggering a public outcry.

Then people start to look at this software, labelled, "Etisalat upgrade for Blackberry service. Please download to ensure continous service quality" to see quite why it has been such a disaster. And they start asking questions about quite why it was important to download a network performance upgrade to the clients.

This is what they find, according to DXBLouie (no relation to our pal Bluey methinks), posting his findings on the BlackBerry support forums: A series of Java files. Perhaps interestingly, they all install to a folder called SS8.

SS8? Who they? What do we find, for instance at SS8. com? A security and interception company perhaps? One with a newly opened local operation, too, it seems.

So the inference customers are drawing is that the telco knowingly pushed a security and monitoring application to their handsets without informing them - one that has crashed their handsets and caused considerable annoyance. Obviously, they're jumping to conclusions.

But now they're starting to ask questions about quite why it was that a telco thought it could stealth a nasty little monitoring application, without telling them, without asking their permission and without any 'by your leave' onto their handsets. You'd expect the telco to start facing questions about that...

It's going to be an interesting 48 hours, people...