After a battle lasting almost two
years, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has knuckled under to the
Indian government, giving security forces in that country access to
private instant messages.
RIM decided to set up Blackberry
servers that were stationed in Mumbai, India. If you were thinking that
this move could only lead to the Indian government seeking more control
over what goes in and out of RIM’s Blackberry servers, you would be
right on the money.
Not only has the Indian government
gotten their way with the Blackberry servers, but they will now be able
to tap into BBM messages. This was confirmed by Indian security agencies
who revealed that the process to decrypt the 256-bit encrypted data
used by BBM is underway and would be up and running soon, claiming that
the interception of BBM messages will be used in case where the
government suspects that crimes or terror plots are being hatched.
It should also be noted that the
tapping of BBM only affects those on BIS as BES encryption keys are
specific to every installation, while BIS’ encryption key is
shared. While India may be the first country granted official access to
some of RIM’s data.
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