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By Mark Henricks
The world’s second-most populous country temporarily called off
its threatened ban of Blackberry Messenger services, indicating RIM has agreed
to the government’s demand to be able to intercept messages sent using the
service. But a final solution has yet to be arranged, and the two parties have
additional issues about other Blackberry messaging services.
A press released issued by the Indian government said, in
part, “RIM has set up an interim arrangement for lawful interception of BBM
services.” The government statement went on to say that the Canadian maker of
wireless handsets and provider of wireless messaging services has said it will
provide a final solution for the government to intercept Blackberry Messenger
communications no later than January 31, 2011.
India had threatened to outlaw Blackberry Messenger use in
the country unless RIM provided a method for it to intercept and decode
encrypted messages. The country’s Ministry of Home Affairs had said the
capability was required in order to ensure safety and national security. India
had never actually interrupted Blackberry services but the agreement heads off
a threatened shut down.
India had originally threatened to implement the ban at the
end of August. But, before that shutdown, officials agreed to give RIM another
60 days. The latest announcement came Oct. 29, just as the extension was about
to expire.
The exact manner in which Blackberry would provide access to
Messenger was not revealed. However, the fact that Blackberry servers were
located outside India was one of the specific problems the government had with
the service. India had requested Blackberry use servers located within the
country for its Messenger services.
Other countries in the general region of the globe have had
similar face-offs with RIM over access to Blackberry Messenger’s encrypted
communications. RIM had refused to go along with requests, leading to
threatened bans in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE had backed off on its
proposed ban earlier in October, again after RIM offered it a way to access and
read messages transmitted via its wireless network.
RIM has provided no details about how it has complied with
rules in order to avoid the threatened bans. However, a company spokesperson
did tell Hindustan Times there would be no changes to the security architecture
for BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers.
RIM still has to work out issues with the Indian government
about its Blackberry corporate email service. RIM had reportedly offered a
method of decrypting these email messages, but the government turned it down as
inadequate. A spokesperson for the same Indian ministry Federal Home Ministry
spokesperson said in a Dow Jones Newswires article that RIM is talking with it about
acceptable means to access encrypted corporate email messages.
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