[slahm]

A little clarification on PGP for Blackberry vs Blackberry integrated Encryption.
Way late, but just FYI -

PGP and AES 256 are NOT the same things, although they both offer similar levels of encyption....

BOTH are options for the Blackberry. Actually, since all communication between a blackberry and RIMs servers, and a blackberry and a BES server are already AES encrypted (or equivalent), I guess that it is not optional, but mandatory(All unencrypted packets are automatically dropped by RIMs servers).

PGP is a third party solution, that lets people managed encryption FURTHER than the blackberry. End-to-End or similar.

An email message sent from a blackberry is VERY secure enroute to the RIM servers, and indeed to your mail server, if BES is employed, but is usually converted to PLAINTEXT by the BES server, since a mail server (Exchange, SENDMAIL, etc.) cannot parse the encrypted packets.

This leads to NO protection from spying eyes, except enroute to the first mailserver, unless PGP or something similar is used. SMIME is also an excellent option, and FREE with BES.

PGP functionality is SOLD by PGP Corp(Symantec) on a per device basis. approx $100 per device, 10 device minimum.

BUT - All they really sell you is a COD file that UNLOCKS the PGP app, BUILT BY RIM - that is present on all lackberrys since somewhere about Device version 4.2 or so.....

This app is present on ALL blackberrys currently in production, and is simply inaccessible without the COD file.

You can BUY and USE this app without BES, and it works fine, but does not lookup keys automatically without some configuration. You can, however, import keys, etc....

Hope this helps a bit, for people finding this thead.