Secure communicationIndian government: Google, Skype will follow BlackBerry in being forced to open networks
The Indian government, in a meeting last month with representatives of network operators and Internet service providers, said that after RIM was forced to open BlackBerry-based communication to government eavesdropping, Google and Skype would be asked to do the same — or face bans on some of their services in India; It is unlikely that the Indian government is interested in Google’s search business, but about twenty million Indians are active on Google’s social networking service, Orkut, which encourages them to communicate with each other over Google Talk
Next to inspect? // Source: symbianv3.com
It appears that the Indian government is planning to take on Skype, Google, and everyone else offering secure communications once it has demonstrated its tough approach vis-à-vis RIM’s BlackBerry.
The government met with Indian mobile operators last Thursday, resulting in an ultimatum being issued that lawful interception of BlackBerry communications must be made possible by the end of August. The minutes of an earlier meeting, obtained by the Financial Times, show that RIM is not the only the company that the India intends to tackle.
“There was consensus that there [is] more than one type of service for which solutions are to be explored. Some of them are BlackBerry, Skype, Google etc,” the minutes read. “It was decided first to undertake the issue of BlackBerry and then the other services.”
It is unlikely that the Indian government is interested in Google’s search business, but about twenty million Indians are active on Google’s social networking service, Orkut, which encourages them to communicate with each other over Google Talk.
Ray notes that arranging lawful interception of peer-to-peer services like Skype and Google Talk will be more difficult than for BlackBerry. The latter at least goes through a single server, while VoIP communications such as Skype are genuinely peer-to-peer in that once a call has been established the communication is entirely decentralizsed.
“But it’s not the place of politicians to worry about how such things can be done, just to decide whether they are necessary,” Ray writes, “and it seems the Indian government is firmly of the opinion that they are.”
