ggendel's Posts

No such luck. The November security patches have been pushed to every carrier's phones except Verizon.  The tally is now up to 227 vulnerability patches not provided by Verizon. http://crackberry.com/blackberry-priv-november-beta-update-now-available

Was in exactly the same boat and feel your pain.  Picked up an unlocked Priv from the BB shop and moved the whole company from Verizon. You beat me as I've only been with Verizon for 12 years.  The Priv was strike three for VZW.

As I mentioned before, the response is typical Verizon-speak.  They never provide a concise response to a specific question when responding to the FCC.  From this, you can't tell whether they are addressing MM, mean this November, and so on.  However, after July, the BB patches were against the MM codebase.  So, unless Verizon stops at the July patches, they would have to pick and choose patches from each of the BB monthly patch packages and test them individually.

I have been closely working with the FCC on this issue for several months and have a copy of an official response to a complaint from Verizon Executive Services.  Unfortunately, the rules on this forum prohibit me from posting the entire letter as it contains personal material.  Unless the forum moderators tell me I can post it, you'll just have to take my word.

Verizon Executive Services has finally provided information to the FCC in an official letter. The important information reported is: "The security update for the Blackberry Priv is expected to be released to Verizon customers in early November". This doesn't help me anymore since my company is already committed to end our relationship with Verizon. I just wanted to let others know that something is officially promised for next month.  It's not clear whether it will bring the Priv up to the latest patches, have Marshmallow, or even that they were talking November this year. Yes, I've become very cynical after 4 months of working on this.

Thanks for the well wishes but none is needed. Please, explain how a loss in customer growth is not significant? They have a some more "connections" but, based on the earnings report, came mostly by devices added by existing customers.  Perhaps you should read the Q3 report? As the difference in coverage and reliability between Verizon and other carriers shrinks then what will Verizon offer as a differentiation, customer service, price? Check out the Android forums to see how Verizon fares in discussions about carriers.  I'm not the lone voice here.  I know for a fact that many Apple employees consider Verizon number 1 in terms of difficulty when customers have an activation or billing issue.

ggendel wrote: A piece of advice for Verizon which has been ignored so far. Your coverage and reliability advantage is shrinking. We've determined that we have better US and world-wide coverage with another carrier. Basically, the objects in your mirror are larger than you see. Continuing to mistreat your customers is not a sustainable strategy for your future. Nailed it... http://www.rcrwireless.com/20161020/carriers/t-mobile-sprint-take-bite-verizon-q3-numbers-tag2

Nice to get confirmation that matches my three-way conversation with Verizon and Blackberry Support.  BTW, our company's unlocked Privs have arrived.  Marshmallow does improve performance and battery life significantly.  The fine-grained permission control allow me to install apps that, for security reasons, I couldn't before.  The overheating issue seems to be resolved as well in the tasks that caused it on Lollipop. One minor drawback is that typing on the PKB on the home screen no longer goes right into BB Device Search under the Nova launcher.  It looks like Nova on MM needs an app like tasker to replicate this function.  Nova on Lollipop behaved correctly but lags a bit before bringing up the Device Search window after a recent BB update.  I'm getting used to quick-launching BB Device Search manually so it's not a big problem.  Besides, most employees will use the stock BB launcher.

It's obvious to many of us that you don't have the capacity to understand.  We've given Verizon Wireless ample time to respond to this problem but they refuse.  I no longer bother to ask anymore.  For those of us that require secure phones for our jobs, Verizon has failed, big time.  The most secure phone sold and "supported" by Verizon became orphaned less than 4 months after they provided it.  For over 4 months We've been trying to get Verizon to acknowledge that they need to tell us why this is so.  We just want them to declare whether they will or will not fix this.  All we've gotten is the runaround. My company is taking a stand; by the end of next month my entire company is leaving Verizon Wireless.  We've purchased new Privs directly from Blackberry which should be arriving this week. So keep telling people to switch phones.  That just proves that Verizon is not listening to their customers. A piece of advice for Verizon which has been ignored so far.  Your coverage and reliability advantage is shrinking.  We've determined that we have better US and world-wide coverage with another carrier. Basically, the objects in your mirror are larger than you see.  Continuing to mistreat your customers is not a sustainable strategy for your future.

Nicely said.  The blackberry phones are security certified for government use.  Part of that certification requires that vulnerabilities are rapidly patched. An FTC complaint would have to take a position of unfair business practices.  I did make that case to the FTC and my state's Attorney General.  I documented how some vendors like Apple are given preferential treatment, while others like Blackberry are not given the same benefits.  When a carrier shows preferential treatment to the extent that Verizon has the consumer suffers by allowing phones to be compromised.  This exposes an individual to loss of personal information and possible monetary loss.  In addition the information lost can be used for social engineering to perform attacks, such as phishing to the owner and their contacts.  In addition the compromise could use the phone to create a bot to perform attacks on our critical infrastructures.

Yes. Verizon's action (or actually non-action) is not covered by the current FCC regulations for wireless carriers.  The FCC is fully aware that this is not acceptable for consumers and put together a committee to draft proposed regulations to protect consumers from this in the future.  I have been working with the FCC committee so I can't say anything more other than the wheels are in motion.  I tried to work with the VP of Verizon Wireless, but she dropped the ball.

There were several factors that caused the demise of the Palm/HP phones.  Palm did not have the capital reserves needed to do the proper promotion.  The phones consistently won awards for novel features, still being copied today.  When HP bought Palm, it looked like their bad days were behind them.  However, Verizon systematically steered customers that wanted the Pre Plus to an Android phone.  They would badmouth both the Pre and the iPhone (which wasn't available on Verizon yet) at the same time that the technical press claimed it as the top smart phone.  Verizon then made a deal with HP for the Pre 3, but then canceled the order the week before it was to ship.  One month later the CEO, Leo Apotheker, killed HPs phone and tablet business and wanted to shut down the PC division.  Leo has the distinct reputation of being the worst CEO of HP, even worse than Carly Forina for this decision. So, the decision to kill the Pre phone was a combination of the stupidity of a CEO that had no place running a company like HP and Verizon's help by refusing to partner with HP/Palm. http://www.intomobile.com/2011/08/18/memoriam-life-and-death-webos/ It's interesting to note that the Palm/HP designers were immediately scarfed up by Apple, Google, LG, and others.  I don't know of a WebOS designer that didn't have a new position within a month of the shutdown.  In fact, the Nougat project was driven by one of the WebOS principal designers.  LG released a WebOS TV that has won top awards for usability for 4 years in a row. Saying that the death of Blackberry is inevitable is disingenuous as BB has a lot more cash reserves than Palm ever had and their software thrust has turned around the negative cash flow.  They are not out of the phone business, but are outsourcing design and manufacturing.  A BB phone with a PKB is expected next year (pictures are already leaking). It is sad that Verizon wields enough power to make or break a phone (except in the rare case with the iPhone). This limits choices and allows inferior products to flourish while stifling new and novel devices.  Even today, an unlocked BYOD will likely have features disabled when you plug in a Verizon sim.  Whether you think that one device is better than another is a subjective choice that the market should decide, not the carrier.

As usual, you missed the whole point of this discussion.  I fight for principles not for one consumer product. This isn't about one phone but it's about Verizon's modus operandi.  See: PSA: If you like updates, don’t buy the Google Pixel phone from Verizon | Ars Technica http://www.androidcentral.com/dont-buy-your-google-pixel-verizon I have no ego problem. Show me your credentials and I'll show you mine.

You cut me to the quick with your snappy comeback... Ouch! I guess we all know what you think of the VP of Verizon Wireless.  She misspelled my name on an email. I guess that makes her a bad manager based on your criteria.

rpherson suggests we all pick up a device no longer manufactured. He has the audacity to suggest that this is as secure as anything on the market.  Let's all pick up a Palm 680 since the company no longer exists.  That must be even more secure.  You don't have a clue what a secure phone is.  To people that make a living in security it means rapid patching of known vulnerabilities.  Yes, Lollipop is inherently less secure than Marshmallow which is less secure than Nougat.  Google has documented as much.  However, Blackberry has hardened the bootloader and kernels.  They also have utilities to identify corruptions to the security of the kernel which makes Marshmallow roughly as secure as Nougat.  Lollipop cripples DTEK analysis and functionality, hence Dick's statement is valid.