Govt. to Gain Access to RIM's BlackBerry Services

As reported earlier, the Indian Government was to set a deadline for Research in Motion to share access codes for encrypted data services. The Ministry of Home Affairs held a meeting to discuss security concerns with telecom operators offering BlackBerry services. Post the meeting, the Indian government. has given RIM a deadline till August 31 to resolve the security concerns over the BlackBerry services with telecom operators. According to CNN-IBN, 'sources' informed them that RIM has agreed to provide lawful access to Indian security agencies.  

Following the BlackBerry services ban decision reversal in Saudi Arabia, the Indian government has taken a stern step and has asked for access to BlackBerry series data citing security reasons. A BlackBerry smartphone sends encrypted mails via BlackBerry Enterprise Server that is with the mobile operator. Then, that message is decrypted by BlackBerry Enterprise Server and sent to the email server of the mobile operator for storage in decrypted form. Then it gets pushed to the BlackBerry device in encrypted form again. 

Telecom operators of India need to allow securities agencies to access and intercept any data of any subscriber whenever required. 

According to a recent poll conducted on Techtree, we found that majority of BlackBerry users wouldn't mind the government scanning their data when security was the chief concern. There are two ways to look at this - 

a) The government seeks access over security concerns while a niche audience is already aware how secured government website themselves are.

b) As long as the data about the interception activity is not logged anywhere such a way that it leaks out, we believe it that such lawful interception should be fine.  

According to the recent developments on that matter, RIM will give an existing tool to Indian Security Agencies to access plain text on the BlackBerry messenger. The company has no plans to set up any sort of server in India.

The Indian government has said it will also look into Google and Skype to ensure lawful access of their encrypted data. Back in July, a Google spokesperson for India denied receipt of any such letter from the India Department of Telecom. But now, it seems the government will go after Google and Skype after RIM has succumbed to security concerns of Indian peninsula.