Coming next week, key to read BlackBerry messages

Under pressure to deliver on India’s security concerns, BlackBerry’s Canadian maker, Research in Motion, will next week deliver “technical solutions” that could help intelligence agencies read messages sent over BlackBerry messenger.

Under pressure to deliver on India’s security concerns, BlackBerry’s Canadian maker, Research in Motion, will next week deliver “technical solutions” that could help intelligence agencies read messages sent over BlackBerry messenger.

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There is, however, no clear word if the company’s new set of solution would enable continuous monitoring of encrypted data sent over BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).

The Home Ministry had on Thursday set a 31 August deadline to make its enterprise server and messenger services accessible to security agencies.

Government sources said BlackBerry wasn’t the only service on the security establishment’s radar but only the first one to feel the heat.

“There are problems with other services too…We will take them one by one. There are security issues relating to internet telephony and video-chats,” a government official said. “Technology is moving faster than we have been able to move.”

RIM vice president Robert Crow met Home Secretary GK Pillai on Friday in light of the 31 August deadline and discussed the broad contours of the solutions that BlackBerry could put on the table to help meet national security concerns.
Crow later said he was optimistic that the company would resolve India’s concerns. But he suggested it could take some time. “It is a step in a long journey,” he said.

This includes the tools for security agencies that RIM was developing to intercept messages and chat services. Sources said this tool could be implemented with some technical and engineering changes by at telecom operator sites.

RIM had explained to telecom officials last month that the only place from where security agencies could retrieve mails sent over BES was from the email servers set up at the premises of the clients.

Government sources said RIM had recently laid down the manner in which security agencies could read identified encrypted mails but this solution requires security agencies to access the mail from the individual email server installed at a customer location.

This suggestion, however, doesn’t suit security agencies as they cannot anonymously monitor mails on a continuous basis from a central location.