BlackBerry: RIM hands over interception solution

Government officials said that RIM recently handed over the solution to BlackBerry Enterprise Service but that framework is yet to be certified by the Intelligence Bureau.

All interception solutions for mobile services,including Research in Motions BlackBerry Enterprise Service BES,are in place or have been received but the key issue vexing the governments security concern is who will foot the bill on data storage for monitoring.

Government officials said that RIM recently handed over the solution to BlackBerry Enterprise Service but that framework is yet to be certified by the Intelligence Bureau.

They confirmed that the Canadian firm met the January 31 deadline for lawful interception of BlackBerry Messenger data from Indian service providers through the cloud computing-based system where the process of receiving and decoding is automatic.

It has also provided the technology to obtain the decrypted emails in readable format including the previously troublesome attachments in .jpg formats at the email server,said sources.

However,what is proving to be daunting is the storage of SMS,email and BlackBerry Messenger data for post crime forensics,the costs involved in setting up such an infrastructure and its cost sharing between the operators and the end-user government.

A ballpark figure,said officials,was that storage of this data for 30 days so that they could be retrieved later for intelligence confluence could cost about Rs 4,000 crore. And if the sharing was to be done as per the UK regulatory framework,the government would have to pick up 90 per cent of the cost.

Indian security agencies have been demanding access to all Blackberry services as part of efforts to fight militancy and security threats over the Internet and through telephone communications.

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For that,it had asked for all possible solutions for the interception of authorised targets and monitoring of encrypted communications.

This was followed up by a warning to RIM last August that its services would be stopped if it failed to grant access to Blackberry corporate email or BES. The government has now fixed March 31 as deadline for all telecom operators to submit plans for interception of their services,including popular BES,by security agencies.

The deadline covers other enterprise services that may currently be under use/offer by any other agency Nokia,Cisco etc and assess their compliance to the law enforcement agencies requirements of providing for interception of authorised targets in a usable format.

The operators would have to stop any such services that cannot be monitored as per the law enforcement agencies satisfaction.