RIM asks govt to tell telcos to connect to new solution

Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry, has asked the government to issue a directive to all the telecom service providers to connect to its new automated BlackBerry messenger (BBM) services.

The company is installing and testing a new service that will automatically offer lawfully intercepted BlackBerry messenger services in a readable format to investigative agencies, RIM Vice-President (industry, government and university relations) Robert E Crow said in a letter to Communications & IT Minister Kapil Sibal. The solution for BBM will be provided before the end of this month.

“The carriers require an explicit directive from the Government of India before proceeding.... It would be to the benefit of all involved for the government to now issue a directive that will allow the operators to complete their connection to the new automated service, thereby satisfying the Government of India’s final outstanding request regarding BBM,” he added.

However, lawful access does not extend to the enterprise Virtual Private Network (VPN) solution, provided through the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) product.

There could be no change to the security architecture for BES in India or any other nation as decoding of BES emails by RIM was not technically possible, given that neither RIM nor wireless operators were ever in possession of customers’ encryption keys, the letter said.

The RIM official has also sought a meeting with Sibal to give an update on the lawful interception and services being provided by BlackBerry.

The government had earlier extended the deadline to offer a final solution to January 31, from December 31, for giving access to its messenger and enterprise services. Before this, the deadline was August 31, which was extended by 60 days to the end of October last year.

It is estimated that there are about 1 million BlackBerry subscribers in India.

RIM uses powerful codes to encrypt email messages as they travel between BlackBerry device and a computer known as a BlackBerry Enterprise Server, designed to secure those emails. Security agencies had expressed concerns over encrypted data through BlackBerry mobile phones and had been asking for a decryption solution for its corporate mails and messenger services.