Secure communicationIndia gives BlackBerry reprieve, saying Google, Skype are next
BlackBerry users in India have received a 60-day reprieve: RIM has offered the Indian government a solution to interception issue (the Indian government wants to have the ability to intercept BlackBerry communications), and the government says it will examine the offer during the next two months; the government also said that services offered by Google and Skype are next, but unlike BlackBerry, Skype and Google Talk are both encrypted end-to-end, so intercepting communications is extremely difficult
The Indian government has granted BlackBerry users a 2-month reprieve, while it evaluates RIM’s latest interception facility and serves notice to Google and Skype.
Bill Ray writes that it is far from clear what RIM has promised the Indian government — neither party is prepared to provide details — but it is obviously enough for the Indians to consider that battle over and issue notice to both Google and Skype that they are next, while it spends the next sixty working out whether RIM’s offering is good enough.
“Any communication through the telecom networks should be accessible to the law enforcement agencies,” India’s Ministry of Home Affairs said. “RIM have made certain proposals for lawful access by law enforcement agencies and these would be operationalized immediately.”
Ray writes that some interception will be working from today (1 September), but the service still needs two months evaluation to be sure it is good enough. “We’ve already suggested that locating RIM a server within the country will enable lawful intercept, for customers that don’t run their own BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), and it seems likely that this is what’s being provided initially,” Ray writes (even if the server is not physically located within India, there is little moral problem with RIM offering equivalent access while an Indian server is being set up). “But intercepting communications between a user’s own BES and BlackBerry handsets is far more difficult, and we can only imagine that this is what’s being arranged over the next couple of months.”
Still, this is enough of a victory for the Indian government to start working on Google and Skype, the Press Trust of India is reporting that both companies are being asked to put servers within India or face bans on their telecommunication servers (“Indian government: Google, Skype will follow BlackBerry in being forced to open networks,” 16 August 2010 HSNW).
This will no doubt lead to both companies having to explain why this will not help, Ray notes: Skype and Google Talk are both encrypted end-to-end, so intercepting communications is extremely difficult. “Getting that point across to politicians is not easy, especially when said politicians believe that one company’s unbreakable security has already been broken by the simple expedient of threatening a ban. And when all you have is a hammer,” Ray writes.
