Indian security agencies dissatisfied with RIM’s interception solution
The Indian government has announced that the country’s security agencies have expressed dissatisfaction over the solution provided by BlackBerry smartphone maker Research-In-Motion (RIM).
According to Minister of State for IT and Communications Sachin Pilot, for Blackberry Messenger (BBM) services, a solution has been offered by RIM but the Security Agencies are not satisfied with the solution.
The government has asked RIM to handover interception solution for its BlackBerry Internet Services (BIS), BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) by January 31, 2011.
RIM later claimed it has given government solution to intercept BIS and BBM before the stipulated timeline but denied to have any solution to intercept BES.
According to Pilot, RIM has not yet given the solution for interception of their BlackBerry Enterprise Services (BES). According to RIM, they do not have any key for this service because communication offered through this service is dynamically encrypted.
The Minister mentioned the message in text can be obtained from Enterprise Email servers, where it is in readable format. Enterprise Email servers are deployed for corporate houses.
According to Indian Telegarph Act, 1885 and the licensing term and condition of telecom service providers, it is required for companies to provide Lawful Interception and Monitoring solution for any service they provide.
However, in case of Blackberry security agencies are only able to intercept voice (phone calls), SMS and BIS.
Vodafone Greece lowers data fair usage policy
Vodafone Greece has lowered the monthly fair usage policy for domestic data usage to 10 GB from 30GB for a number of tariff plans, effective from 14th March.
The change applies for voice tariff plans which include data, Mobile Internet data plans for mobiles and Blackberry data plans. Subscribers who are affected by these changes have the right to terminate their contract without penalty within one month.
26% smartphone owners use new apps loyally,26% are fickle
A recent research study has unveiled that while smartphone and tablet owners are very willing to give applications a try, 26% of the time they never use the same application again. It is also found that another 26% of people become very loyal, repeat customers, using a new application more than 10 times.
The researchers analyzed app usage data from thousands of Android, iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 apps subscribed to their real-time mobile application analytics service. For all new customers of an app between July and September 2010, they counted the number of times customers used the same app through early March 2011.
The results revealed that 26% of new customers are fickle, install an app and only use it once. However, the share of customers lost with each additional usage drops quickly and half of customers use an app four or more times.
More importantly, 26% of new customers also become the most loyal customers, using an app more than 10 times over the following months–and many go on to use an app hundreds of times.
Finding Loyal Customers amid 10 Billion Downloads
With over 10 billion downloads from just Apple’s App Store, it’s clear that people are very willing to try new apps. It’s equally clear that app developers and publishers need to look beyond downloads and focus marketing resources on attracting and retaining the quarter of customers who tend to become loyal users.
Gmail,Blackberry emails can not be tracked: DoT (India)
India’s telecom regulator Department of Telecom (DoT) has revealed that Google’s Gmail and email services running on BlackBerry among 15 communication services cannot be tracked. It stated that the only option for this is to build capabilities of intelligence agencies to monitor and intercept these technologies.
According to reports citing DoT, monitoring and interception in most countries is carried out by security agencies on their own and the role of mobile operators is limited to providing feedback.
The department’s stance is in contrast to that of the home ministry, which has put the onus on mobile operators to prove that all services and facilities on their networks can be tracked on a real-time basis.
It added that the ultimate solution to deal with the problem of intercepting encrypted communication, which uses internet, is that the security agencies build capabilities of decrypting the intercepted communication. The home ministry must now decide if India should ban such communications or live with them.
Among the services listed by the DoT were video chats, internet telephony calls, mails on Motorola, Nokia and handsets running Windows Mobile.
DoT further stated that mobile phones companies cannot introduce encryption on their own, nor were they supposed to know the contents of data flowing on their networks, thus throwing the ball in the home ministry’s court.
Servers in India for Nokia consumer email services
Finnish mobile handset maker Nokia Corp has announced that it has set up servers in India for its consumer email services and is testing solutions that will let the country’s security agencies monitor such services.
According to D. Shivakumar, Vice President and Managing Director, Nokia India, they have completed their commitment. The testing is likely to be completed within the next three months.
Shivakumar clarified that the company was in talks with the government to let the country’s security agencies monitor consumer email services, and not corporate email services.
India’s government has been concerned about corporate email services such as those which run on Canada-based Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry smartphones. India fears that the highly encrypted emails sent through the smartphones make them convenient for terrorists to be used undetected.
RIM has already provided access to its messenger services–another service which was under the lens of security agencies–but has maintained that it can’t provide a solution for corporate emails as there is no technology available that will allow monitoring of the services.
O2 UK overhauls Approved Partner programme for 2011
O2 UK has overhauled its Approved Partner Programme in 2011 to offer new and improved benefits for partners.
A total of 75 stockiest Approved Partners have signed up for the enhanced programme, agreeing to continue committing 80% of their business to O2 UK.
News benefits for partners include a quarterly stockiest incentive to help drive increased O2 UK business and specific support and funding for Blackberry.
Argentina imposes restrictions on mobile imports
The government of Argentina is clamping down on mobile phone imports in order to increase demand for locally produced handsets, in a move which predominantly affects BlackBerry and Apple smartphones.
Most manufacturers have some sort of local handset factory to cater to South American markets, but Apple and RIM are entirely imported.
As per reports, the clamp down comprises of delays in getting imports cleared by customs, and would range between 2-6 months.
It is also reported that about 60% of all phones sold in Argentina in 2010 were imports, with the bulk being either low-cost models from Brazil and Asia, or very high-end smartphones such as BlackBerry and iPhone handsets. The middle-market for feature phones is generally assembled from imported components by local factories operated by Huawei, Samsung, LG and Motorola.
The customs restrictions also apply to other consumer electronics, not just mobile phones.
DoT scans messenger services, says no deadline for operators
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is examining various kinds of messenger services and has not set any deadline for operators to give the interception solution for BlackBerry enterprise services.
According to Telecom Secretary R Chandrasekhar, they are in discussions with the home ministry separately, so it will be between the two departments to do whatever is necessary for interception. When asked about the deadline for operators to give the interception solution, Chandrasekhar stated that the department had not fixed any such deadline. He added that a separate set of discussions are going on not just on the BlackBerry but on various kinds of messengers services and various kinds of communications with reference to amenability to interception being addressed
Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of BlackBerry smartphones, has maintained that the company cannot provide access to the its BlackBerry enterprise services as it does not possess any key.
The company has already given a full solution for interception of its BlackBerry messenger services in January. RIM had earlier given a manual solution for monitoring messenger services. There are over one million BlackBerry subscribers in India.
The home ministry has asked DoT to ensure that all telecom operators submit by the end of this month their plans on when they can provide access to all services, including BlackBerry enterprise services.
