The government is looking nearer finding a solution for the long-pending issue around usage of Blackberry smart phones in India.
Yesterday, a leading business daily reported that Canada-based Research in Motion (makers of Blackberry) might allow the Indian government to intercept non-corporate emails sent over Blackberry smart phones, ending the long-running dispute between the Department of Telecom (DoT) and RIM.
The dispute revolves largely around data encryption technology used in Blackberry devices; these devices are capable of encrypting data at very high levels i.e. 256 bits. The Indian government wants to be able to intercept and decode this data purely for security reasons (more so after the unfortunate Jaipur blasts) but has a limitation -- it uses decryption software capable of decoding data encrypted at up to 40 bits only. To counter this problem, the government has so far proposed several solutions with the latest being that RIM either hand over the decryption keys else reduce encryption to 40 bits.
The report refers to a meeting that took place between Canadian High Commissioner David Malone, RIM officials, and Telecom Secretary Siddhartha Behura on May 7, wherein it was conveyed by the Canadian side that RIM is now considering giving access to individual users' emails to the Indian government. Details of which would be available in the next couple of weeks.
Now there's a fresh report saying that San Jose-based Cain Technologies and SS8 Networks (developers of voice-messaging communication solutions that meet the US government's requirements for lawful traffic interception) will be demonstrating their interception equipment to DoT and the Intelligence Bureau (IB) starting today. If the demonstrations are successful, the Indian government will get RIM to install the interception solution on Indian mobile networks (those offering Blackberry services) expeditiously. Also, DoT may drop its earlier demand for RIM to set up servers in India.
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