Govt cracks BlackBerry code
22 Sep, 2008, 0936 hrs IST,TNN
NEW DELHI: The government has decrypted the data on Research In Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry network.
The department of telecommunication (DoT), Intelligence Bureau and security agency National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) have done tests on service providers such as Bharti Airtel, BPL Mobile, Reliance Communications and Vodafone-Essar network for interception of Internet messages from BlackBerry to non-BlackBerry devices.
Initially, there were difficulties in cracking the same on Vodafone-Essar network but that has also been solved. This means that the email messages sent on Internet through your BlackBerry sets would no longer be exclusive and government would be able to track them.
“Decompression is being tested in operator’s network with three successful testing on Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication and BPL Mobile,†a source in DoT said.
He, however, added that the solution reached upon would not be shared with anybody including the national telecom service providers like BSNL or MTNL.
“The test is being conducted wholly for non-enterprise solutions,†he said. The Union cabinet has also been apprised of the recent developments by the DoT.
Makers of BlackBerry set, RIM, could not be contacted for comment. An official in Vodafone-Essar, however, on conditions of anonymity said that there has been substantial progress in decoding the BlackBerry encryptions and DoT has got success on decompressing the data on the networks of all the major service providers.
The test would be conducted on all the network of all the BlackBerry service providers and the service providers, on whose network the interception does not happen smoothly, would be asked to make technical changes in their services to make them compatible for decompression.
Decompression is the process of decoding information with an aim to transfer the data to a different medium like data to voice, data to video or data to text.
The DoT had earlier asked RIM to provide the master key to allow access to contents transferred over their handsets. RIM had, however, said that it could not handover the message encryption key to the government as its security structure does not allow any third party or even the company to read the information transferred over its network.
The BlackBerry issue surfaced earlier this year when DoT asked Tata Tele-services to delay the launch of the service till appropriate security mechanisms were in place. Currently, there are over one lakh BlackBerry users in the country.
Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone Essar and BPL Mobile are offering this service in the country. Tata Teleservices has also been allowed to offer the BlackBerry services recently.
Incidentally, Tata Teleservices launched the service after telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura said that the government has no role in stopping the company from offering the service.
