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.
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.
Telco operators to submit plans by month end(India)
The Indian Government has fixed March 31 as the deadline for all telecom operators to submit plans for interception of their services, including popular BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) of Research in Motion (RIM) and Skype by security agencies.
A senior official has stated that the home ministry has asked the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) to ensure that all telecom operators submit their plans by the end of this month on when they can provide access to all services, including BlackBerry’s BES, whenever there is a necessity for the security agencies.
He stated that DoT had been in contact with the telecom operators who, under their licensing agreement, were negotiating the details with the smart-phone service providers. The department would tell the home ministry about the deadlines, which would be final in terms of downloading certain software in mobile handsets itself to ensure interception. If they fail to give access, they have to put their services off in India. He explained that once the companies provide solution within the deadlines, the retrofitment or download of certain softwares in the handsets for legal interception would not be difficult.
The Centre will also put in place a security architecture for the telecom sector through which the government could put in a new facility to deposit open software in certain forms and new testing facility (labs).
RIM provides Messenger solution access to India
Canada’s Research In Motion Ltd. has provided solutions that will let India’s security agencies access the smartphone maker’s popular messenger and public email services, but not the corporate email services.
According to the company, the lawful access capability now available to RIM’s carrier partners meets the standard required by the government of India for all consumer messaging services offered in the Indian marketplace.
RIM has been under pressure from the government to provide access to data on its secure networks as India wants to monitor RIM’s corporate email and messenger services, fearing the BlackBerry’s heavy encryption makes the smartphones convenient for terrorists to use without being monitored. It had threatened to ban the services if the BlackBerry maker didn’t provide such access.
India earlier stated that it was testing solutions offered by RIM to access the BlackBerry messenger service and that it already had access to monitor Internet, voice calls and short-messaging services on the smartphones.
According to RIM, they also wish to underscore, once again, that this enablement of lawful access does not extend to BlackBerry Enterprise Server [corporate email], which is essentially an enterprise VPN solution.
BSNL Plans 40-Million GSM Line Tender (India)
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd is planning to buy mobile equipment to support 40 million subscribers, which will be sufficient to meet the demands till 2013.
According to the BSNL status report that has been sent to the Department of Telecom, to take care of the long-term expansion requirements, BSNL has planned to expand its mobile network by a capacity of 20 million lines each in 2011-12 and 2012-13.
The new expansion plan is in addition to the 5.5-million line tender which the PSU has already floated.
According to BSNL, it is already working with overcapacity on its network.
The network is presently suffering complaints about congestion as it has over 70 million subscribers on a network which is intended for 64 million customers. Though, according to the previous reports, BSNL’s subscriber base was overblown by nearly a third and that the network had sufficient capacity.
The primary reason for the capacity grind is because of postponements in acquiring equipment.
A committee, headed by Mr Sam Pitroda, had suggested that BSNL should start getting into managed service deals with equipment vendors just like private operators do. However, a division of BSNL is not eager in moving to a managed services system as it will have implications on the employees.
BSNL will have to sort out issues related to security norms for vendors if it wants participation from all equipment makers. In the enduring line tender, the PSU primarily excluded Chinese vendors on grounds of concerns raised by security agencies.
