RIM finally gives solution for message, internet but ...

In a bid to avoid its services being blocked in the country, Research in Motion (RIM), the makers of BlackBerry have finally developed a monitoring solution for the Indian government that though fulfills the Indian government's lawful access requirements but still doesn't allow them to decrypt the corporate emails.

The Canadian company in its statement said “RIM has delivered a solution that enables India's wireless carriers to address their lawful access requirements for consumer messaging services, which include BlackBerry Messenger and BlackBerry Internet Service email”.

However, this lawful access does not extend to BlackBerry Enterprise Server, essentially an enterprise virtual private network solution.

“No change can be made to the security architecture for BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) customers, since the security architecture is the same around the world and RIM truly has no ability to provide its customers' encryption keys. RIM cannot access information encrypted through BlackBerry Enterprise Server, given that neither RIM nor the wireless operators are ever in possession of the encryption keys,” the company said.

RIM has repeatedly stated that it does not have encryption keys for services that use the BES.

RIM, which had been under pressure to enable state surveillance of its services by January 31, said in a statement sent to the media that it was pleased to have completed the solution before this mutually-agreed deadline.

January 31 was BlackBerry's third deadline extension by the government to meet its requirements. The government first extended the original August 31, 2010 deadline to October 31, then to December 31 and finally to January 31, 2011.

India has threatened similar bans on other large corporations operating within the country. The government has asked Skype and Google to allow monitoring of customers' data or undergo ban from operating in the country.

However, in this never ending episode of acceptance and dejections of proposals between RIM and the Indian government, the next big thing to watch would be how the Indian government would respond to RIM's this partial solution.

ritus@cybermedia.co.in