10.7.13

Of India & BlackBerry....

The longstanding dispute between the government and the Canadian smart phone maker Research In Motion (RIM) over interception of communication over BlackBerry devices is set to end. The law enforcement agencies will soon begin interception of communication exchanged over BlackBerry devices as RIM has successfully addressed all of the government’s demands. The last being the interception of web browsing facilities on its handsets, allowing intelligence agencies to track e-mail attachments on a real-time basis and enabling them to know whether the messages exchanged on the popular BlackBerry chat, BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) had been ‘delivered’ and ‘read’.
Interestingly, the government no longer seems to be insistent on its demand for lawful access of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and the law enforcement agencies seem to be content simply with the identity of the enterprise using the service.
Satisfied with the interception facilities, the government will soon sign an agreement with RIM and acquire the company’s monitoring architecture installed at Mumbai. The handset-maker had set up servers and other interception facilities in 2011 after India threatened to shut down Black-Berry services if the company didn’t establish one. As part of the agreement to be signed between the government and RIM, the company will also train government officials at its Ontario facility to handle the technical architecture, operation and maintenance of the monitoring facility. For this the company has offered to train up to 5 government officials.
However, three telecom service providers including BSNL, MTNL and the Russian telecom operator Sistema-controlled Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL) are the only ones, which are yet to put a ‘lawful interception system’ in place. While MTNL is likely to meet the requirement by July-end and BSNL by September, SSTL is the only operator to not have communicated any deadline. 

No comments: