In The Telecom Ministry is understood to have stated that a total ban on encrypted communications is not desirable as long as solutions exist to have the data intercepted in a readable format.
An expert committee set up by the Department of Telecom (DoT) said in its report, Banning of encrypted communication is not desirable as long as some solutions exist to get the (data) intercepted in readable format. Therefore, accent should be on regulation of these services in such a manner that security assistance needs and communication security needs are balanced.
After seeking several extensions of deadlines for nearly a year, Research In Motion (RIM) had recently come up with a solution for real-time interception of its Blackberry Enterprise Service (BES).
The government had earlier set August 15 as the deadline for RIM to provide security agencies with interception keys to enable real-time tracking of its popular messenger and corporate e-mail services in readable format.
Along with RIM, Nokia is also providing push mail facility to its subscribers. Currently DoT is testing the solution provided by RIM and the report is expected to be out by the end of the month.
It is already well known that the Home Ministry has taken a stand that all types of communications, including encrypted communications, which take place through mobile devices, internet and websites, should be interceptable and made available to security agencies in readable, understandable, printable and audible format.
RIM uses powerful encryption to encode email messages as they travel between BlackBerry devices and a computer - the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) - designed to secure e-mails.
Even RIM does not possess the master key to decode the messages, as the master key is generated randomly on individual BlackBerry handsets. In this debate on purported threat to national security, the issue of privacy seems to be getting sidelined.
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