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RIM lets India access consumer BlackBerry messaging

RIM lets India access consumer BlackBerry messaging

By:  John Ribeiro  On: 13 Jan 2011 For: IDG News Service (Bangalore Bureau) (hs) Creator

But the company maintains that it is impossible to provide access to the encrypted BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Find out all the details

Research In Motion Ltd. has given mobile carriers in India the ability to intercept e-mail and instant messages from BlackBerry consumer services if requested by the government, according to a customer update from the company.

The consumer services include BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service and BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS) e-mail, RIM said on Thursday.

But RIM is maintaining that it cannot provide access to its corporate service, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) due to the way the encryption is configured.

The Indian government is demanding access to BlackBerry communications as it fears that terrorists use online and mobile communications to plan and execute attacks. 

RIM had assured the Indian government in October that it would provide access to BBM by Jan. 31. The government did not put a deadline on when it wants access to communications on the corporate BES service.

RIM said the "lawful access capability" that its carrier partners can now use meets Indian government requirements for all consumer messaging services. The company said that it was assured by the government that its competitors are also required to provide the same lawful access capability.

RIM is just one of many companies under scrutiny from the Indian government, which has said it will ask for access to other online services such as Google's Gmail and Skype. Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

The Indian government will not have continuous access to communications but on a case-by-case basis that follows due legal process, a RIM India spokesman told IDG News Service last month.

RIM remains at odds with the government over the BES. RIM insists that it is technically impossible for it to give the government the customers’ encryption keys on BES. 

The company has said that it does not possess a "master key," and no back door exists in the system that would allow RIM or any third party to gain access to encrypted corporate information on the BES, which is essentially an enterprise VPN (virtual private network).

As an alternative, the Indian government has gone directly to RIM's corporate customers to see if they are receptive to providing access since those companies hold the encryption keys, according to reports.

Last week, RIM agreed to work with Indonesia's carriers to filter out pornography websites as soon as possible for BlackBerry subscribers. The Indonesian government demanded that RIM block the content, and threatened to block the service if RIM did not comply with local rules.

The Indonesian government is also demanding that RIM set up a server in the country so that communications traffic from Indonesian users does not go abroad. It also wants the right to intercept communications for security reasons, a spokesman for the local telecom regulator said.

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john ribeiro John Ribeiro is a contributor to the International Data Group (IDG) News Service, which publishes global technology stories from bureaus around the world to more than 300 publications in more than 60 countries.
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