The IT Nerd

India might have a solution to the BlackBerry mess that they started. Their solution may surprise you:

ET has just learnt that the telecom department has suggested that every time a corporate email is sent on a BlackBerry handset through an enterprise server located in the premises of any company, a copy of this can be fed to the monitoring systems installed by all internet service providers (ISPs) in the country.

Significantly, the only time an enterprise email sent from a BlackBerry device remains in an un-encrypted or ‘readable’ format is when it resides in the enterprise server. “Feeding the email from the enterprise server to the ISP’s monitoring systems can, accordingly, help security agencies access the communication in pure text form,” DoT proposal said.

The telecom department has also suggested that security agencies, in addition to obtaining email in the text format from the ISP monitoring systems, can also get internet protocol address to identify the sender and receiver of the mail. “In case, the above solution is not acceptable to the ministry of home affairs for enterprise mails, the only option for the telecom department would be to instruct the service providers not to offer the enterprise email services on Blackberry platform,” DoT communication said. A senior home ministry official told ET that the Intelligence Bureau is testing the proposal.

The first half of this sounds really lame to me. Why would any company work under these conditions? If I were a multi-national comany, I’d be setting up shop in someplace other than India rather than submit to this stupidity. That’s no way that intellectual property and legal documents from a company should be floating around in some sort of readable format. This workaround seems like a major security concern for any Indian company. It also seems like a bureaucratic nightmare.

However, The Globe And Mail is reporting that some other “solution” might be at hand:

An RIM technical team in New Delhi has been working with the department of telecoms and security agencies to find a way out.

“We are expecting they will come up with some solution for Enterprise mail next week,” the source said. He did not want to be named as RIM’s discussions with the government are not public.

Let’s hope that this solution makes far more sense than the other one.

As I suggested last week, RIM appears to have ceded to Indian demands to hand over access to BlackBerry data:

“They have assured partial access to its messenger services by September 1 and agreed to provide full access by the end of the year,” a senior government source, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

At this point it is really bad that RIM hasn’t come clean on this nonsense. They don’t have to give all the details as they likely wouldn’t even if they were asked. But they should at least clear the air once and for all as this really isn’t helping the situation any. Not to mention that their stock value isn’t looking too good right now.

Here’s a plot twist. According to RIM, they haven’t folded up like a cheap suit. At least that’s what a statement posted to their website yesterday said:

No changes to the security architecture for BlackBerry Enterprise Server customers since, contrary to any rumors, the security architecture is the same around the world and RIM truly has no ability to provide its customers’ encryption keys.

And:

RIM maintains a consistent global standard for lawful access requirements that does not include special deals for specific countries.

Interesting. But earlier in the same statement they also said this:

Although RIM cannot disclose confidential regulatory discussions that take place with any government, RIM assures its customers that it genuinely tries to be as cooperative as possible with governments in the spirit of supporting legal and national security requirements, while also preserving the lawful needs of citizens and corporations.

So that sounds like they’re trying to co-operate with the various countries who want access to the BlackBerry network.

Okay, lets assume that RIM is telling the truth….. How do they explain this:

Research In Motion will provide India with technical solutions next week to help read its encrypted data that New Delhi sees as a security threat, a senior government source said on Friday.

It sounds like to me a deal was cut.

RIM, can you explain this?

I guess the meeting that I wrote about yesterday didn’t go well. India has now set a date of August 31st for BlackBerry Service to be shut down:

The ultimatum came hours after the home secretary, India’s top civil servant over internal security, held talks with intelligence officials and state-run telecom operators BSNL and MTNL about how the government could access encryption details, the latest global headache for Research In Motion.

“The government has given RIM until August 31 to address India’s security issues,” a senior home (interior) ministry official, who declined to be named, told Reuters.

“Some services of BlackBerry will be shut down if they fail to comply with the order,” the official said.

It will be interesting to see if RIM caves like they did with Saudi Arabia. My guess is that they will seeing as India has hundreds of millions of mobile phone users and they really want a piece of that pie.

So RIM…. What are you going to do? I know what I would do. I would tell these countries that if they don’t want to participate in a free world, then they’re free to ban the BlackBerry. Its a price to pay for RIM, but it will set the right precedent. But business is all about the almighty dollar, so I don’t see that happening.

Like a rash that won’t go away, and no doubt seeing what’s happening in Saudi Arabia, India is back with it’s threats to shut down BlackBerry service:

India’s home (interior) ministry will press on Thursday for some deadline to be fixed for RIM to share encryption details.

“There definitely could be talk of some deadline and a proposal to take strong action on BlackBerry services during the meeting,” said a government official, who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Another senior Indian government official told Reuters that mobile phone operators could be asked to shut down RIM’s Enterprise Email and Messenger services temporarily as a last alternative, if RIM does not agree to offer access to data.

“If they cannot provide a solution, we’ll ask (mobile) operators to stop that specific service. The service can be resumed when they give us the solution,” the source said.

This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has been watched this soap opera play out. They were the first to want access to BlackBerry services for national security reasons and now it look like they might actually get it. After all if you give such access to Saudi Arabia, why not them?

Could it possibly be that this saga may finally be over at last? Indian telco Tata Tele Services is ready to roll out BlackBerry service in next two months and they promise that they will play nice with Indian authorities:

Managing Director of Tata Teleservices, Anil Sardana, said that “We have conveyed to the government that we will be launching BlackBerry service enabled handsets on our network and that we will abide by whatever decision is taken over security related concern.”

One can hope that this means that Indian BlackBerry addicts customers who want their fix e-mail on the go so that they remain calm productive can finally head to their local pusher Tata dealer and get hooked up. But if that isn’t the case, you’ll see it here first.

Told you that this saga wasn’t over. The Indian government is apparently still not satisfied with BlackBerry security. So RIM, the Department of Telecom, and the Home Ministry are getting together to figure out how to resolve this issue. Apparently the National Security Adviser is getting involved as well:

“We are insisting for a (BlackBerry) server in India to take care of security agencies concern. But technically and commercially what will be the impact on the Blackberry also has to be taken into consideration and it is being taken.”

For the love of god, please let this end soon. This is just getting stupid.