Centre drags feet over banning BlackBerry

Deadline ends today, talks between government and RIM still inconclusive

As the Centre is dragging its feet over taking a decision on banning BlackBerry services in India, the phone's Canadian manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM) seems in no mood to give in as yet.

According to Union Telecom Secretary R Chandrashekhar, talks are still on between the RIM officials over giving access to Indian spy agencies to snoop on the company's BlackBerry corporate email service.



Asked whether the services will be banned at all, he said, "Talks are on, but no decision has been taken so far. Technical issues are still being discussed with the Union Telecom Ministry as well as the Union Home Ministry."

Earlier, the Centre had threatened to ban BlackBerry services in the country if it failed to give snooping access by January 31.

Union Home Secretary G K Pillai could not be contacted despite several attempts.

Incidentally, Chandrashekhar's statement comes after RIM Vice-president Robert E Crow told journalists recently, "There is no possibility of us providing any kind of a solution.

There are no keys to be handed over. It's not possible to do so because the keys to the services are in the possession of the corporate enterprises.

BlackBerry represents a very small section of the total population of VPN (virtual private networks) in India. There may be more than a million VPNs in India with high security architecture."

BlackBerry encrypts emails as they travel between a BlackBerry device and BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). RIM maintains that since it does not have any "master key", it cannot provide access to information encrypted through BES.

Though, RIM gave a solution to Indian security agencies to monitor and intercept its BlackBerry messenger service used by non-corporate users.

However, in the case of its corporate email service, RIM has taken the position that enterprise email is not unique to BlackBerry, since there are other service providers, and that it is an industry issue.

Crow had also said, "Since RIM encrypts its email messages as they travel between a BlackBerry device and BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), which is located on the premises of the corporates (such as Vodafone) offering this facility, the government could meet its security requirements by directly accessing the information from these servers."

But cyber security experts seem to believe that RIM has no option but to comply with the Centre's directive.

Cyber security expert DSK Legal said, "I haven't seen any terrorists using BlackBerry so far, but there is nothing to stop them from floating their own companies and install servers.
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I see RIM complying with the government directive, because both sides cannot go back down from this juncture. Since RIM did comply in the US and China, I don't think India will back down."

He went on: "Besides, if an exemption is granted to RIM, then other companies may cite this as a precedent in the future.

At present, RIM is number three in the global smartphone market. It is facing a stiff competition from firms such as Android.
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If they are banned in India, then they may end up losing market share even further. RIM would like to avoid this awkward situation.

Also, I don't think corporate users of BlackBerry in India will ditch the services just because the Indian government is snooping on it."