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Ever Wonder What Your Carrier Can Access From Your BIS Account?

by Ronen Halevy on Mar 2nd, 2009 at 3:59 pm EST
7 Comments »
 

I have been stuck on the phone quite a few times with carriers trying to fix or troubleshoot my BIS account. Be it everything from deleting my account or figuring why I cannot login. I was always curious as to what these carrier employees could see about my device if they looked. So I decided to do some sleuthing and find out!

BIS_admin_screens2

Turns out they really have pretty limited access. You can see in the screens what they more or less can see. To get any more information they actually need to contact RIM for help. I was always a bit paranoid that they might be able to read my email or see what is on my device but they really do not have all that much in terms of extra information. To give you an idea of how feature limited their system is, the major feature RIM added for BIS admins in version 2.6 is a lockout duration of 30 minutes.

There is currently 5 different access levels so not everybody has access to even this limited information. The levels from highest to lowest are: SP Admin, SP Manager, SP Support, SP Supervisor, & Field Type. (SP Supervisor is new to BIS 2.6)

To give you a basic idea of what they can do from these accounts: (By no means a complete list)

  • Can request permanent user deletion and confirm deletion
  • Can view service book status
  • Create a new BlackBerry account
  • Admins can send over the air messages
  • Lookup a subscriber account
  • Add an email account
  • Look at a users: Accounts, Username, User Identifier, Status, BlackBerry Plan, PIN, BIS version, if they are allowed to download native attachments, locked status, auto signature,
  • View a users email account, type, validation status, server, port, SSL requirement, reply to address, HTML email, auto image download settings, filters, and the ability to delete the account
  • View error logs based on email account, error type, date and time, and resolution tips

BIS_admin_screens 

So that answered my question and confirmed what I already suspected. AT&T cannot read my email! :)

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 2nd, 2009 and is filed under News.
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7 Comments to “Ever Wonder What Your Carrier Can Access From Your BIS Account?”

  1. Posted by: Blkbear
    March 2, 2009 at 5:29 pm EST

    Works like a charm with my 8320.
    A little tweaking here and there and it vibs while ringing, pretty much like other phones I have had.

    Normally only rely on vibrate when the BB is on a desk or table. Now that I can set the length of the vibration, it will help in allowing me to feel it when it’s in my pockets.

  2. Posted by: DavidB
    March 2, 2009 at 6:31 pm EST

    Can’t read your emails from within BIS. But from elsewhere on their data network, of course whoever could get that access could read your emails. Device to BIS server traffic as I understand is clear of any encryption.

  3. Posted by: Luciano
    March 2, 2009 at 7:20 pm EST

    Where is the IMEI? I know for a fact that they can see our IMEI too.

  4. Posted by: Michael
    March 2, 2009 at 7:44 pm EST

    If you care about the privacy of your email you should move to BES.

  5. Posted by: Bla1ze
    March 2, 2009 at 8:09 pm EST

    This is only part of what carriers can see, you’re missing a WHOLE other system that works in conjunction with the “BIS Admin”, carriers also have access to the RIM relay depending on your level of accnt access, but again..no axxs to your email accounts or anything along those.

  6. Posted by: R.K.Himura
    March 3, 2009 at 9:33 am EST

    @Luciano
    Yes they can also see the IMEI. Just in case you forgot your username, the BIS admin can search it by PIN, IMEI/ESN, or email address.

    And just in case you’re wondering, all passwords (both BIS and attached email account) are presented as ********. So no, they can’t check your email for you :)