BlackBerry users may face govt blackout

[slugger]

Sources have informed CNBC-TV18 that DoT has written to BlackBerry service operators citing security concerns. Service providers will have to confirm monitoring facility for lawful intervention, added sources.

Tata Tele’s application to offer BlackBerry services was rejected by the Home Ministry.

According to sources, existing service providers will meet the Telecom Secretary next week. Existing service providers will reply to the Home Ministry concerns in 4-6 weeks

Users of the popular BlackBerry mobile e-mail service could possibly be facing a blackout if the Home Ministry has its way. It seems to have started with Tata Tele's application, to offer the BlackBerry service, being rejected on security grounds by the Home Ministry.

It is too early to say whether a blackout is imminent. Tata Teleservices applied through DoT, seeking permission before it launched the BlackBerry service. It claims this is something that most other operators haven’t bothered to do so far.

There are 4-5 service providers offering BlackBerry service.

Post that, the DoT forwarded that request to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Ministry of Home Affairs rejected that on security grounds. It cited the fact that there is a case of lawful interception. Unless that issue is cleared, the Ministry of Home Affairs is not okay with Tata Teleservices offering BlackBerry service. This is not an operator-centric problem, but a technology-centric problem.

As a result, the DoT has now written a letter to all service providers, offering BlackBerry service, seeking an explanation. The key point the DoT wants to find out is whether they want the operators to confirm whether there is a monitoring facility, which will exist for lawful interception. DoT wants to know if there is any data that is being transferred. At any given point of time, the Ministry of Home Affairs should be in a position to intercept that piece of data. That is the concern with security agencies, which has now been forwarded by DoT to service providers.

Service providers said that at this point in time, they have not been told by DoT to stop offering services. There are about half a million BlackBerry users in this country and it would be a huge blow to them.

What are service providers saying?

They are saying that BlackBerry works on a server. So, depending on what operator you have, whether it is Airtel, Hutch or Reliance, that server can be intercepted by the Ministry of Home Affairs. The counterargument from the Ministry of Home Affairs is that from one server to another, the data is first encrypted in one server and then decrypted in another server.

The only problem lies in breaking the encrypted information. So, once that information gets encrypted, the security agencies feel that they will not be able to break that particular piece of information.

Sources said that all service providers are now going to be meeting the Telecom Secretary S Behura some time next week. They have been given about 4-6 weeks time by the Ministry of Home Affairs to formulate their response and get back to them.

Next week’s meeting could be very crucial and will give an indication as to which way things are headed. The government cannot act in haste. From the kind of third party rights that have been created, there are 0.5 million users in this country. It is going to be very difficult for the government to sit back and take a call and say that it is too late to be offering BlackBerry service.

Source

So in effect Airtel, hutch(Vodafone) and their cronies have been offering you an illegal service and also charging money from you for it

[BBThumbHealer]

....

[DigitalDude]

^^^

hahaha lol the userid and reaction is priceless

coming to the topic on hand... blackberry is a push email service only no ? like microsoft exchange servers that many companies use as their email system.. so what is the security concern here ? I fail to understand.

I think that this is more of a ego tussle between the DoT and the providers (cos they didnt seek permission in the first place ) and less a security concern.


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[slugger]

Originally Posted by DigitalDude

so what is the security concern here ? I fail to understand.

I think that this is more of a ego tussle between the DoT and the providers (cos they didnt seek permission in the first place ) and less a security concern.

the problem is with the encryption being used to encrypt the blackberry signal

any service - Internet, GPRS, radio stations, telvision channels can be introduced in the country only after the different intelligence agencies [R.A.W, I.B, CBI] inform the overnment that in case they need to intercept one of these signals, they would be abl to do so. In other words, they are able to break any encryption that these services might be using

The problem with blackberry is that the encryption being used has not yet been decrypted by them. so they have no way of intercepting any signal, which is a serious national security problem. If terrorists start using blackberies to send messages, then our agencies would be totally unaware of this

[alsiladka]

A point accepted and understandable. Is the blackberry encryption technology operator specefic or the blackberry company specefic?

[abhishek_del]

It will be ridiculous to stop blackberry connect altogether as it will create problems for executives who use it and there work. Blackberry can be availed as a service on other phones too, the data plan charges are separate. This is in airtel,not sure about others.

[Stuge]

This sucks imo

[abhishek_del]

Plus they are actually fleecing customers. They provide a limited bandwidth to gprs users, but no guarantee on min or max limit because they are reserving bandwidth for blackberry connect(bb con) services. They are offering bb con service at high speed and at very high cost. So gprs users are getting lesser speeds. Since 3g is not available still, bb con service cannot be said higher or 3g speed.

[NucleusKore]

^never knew there were so many users! The numbers surprised me

[MetalheadGautham]

I hate these security issues. Because of some useless b@stards working in terrorist organisations and other rascals like thiefs and shitheads like corrupted offitials, we need to loose our privacy.

[abhishek_del]

Plus they are actually fleecing customers. They provide a limited bandwidth to gprs users, but no guarantee on min or max limit because they are reserving bandwidth for blackberry connect(bb con) services. They are offering bb con service at high speed and at very high cost. So gprs users are getting lesser speeds. Since 3g is not available still, bb con service cannot be said higher or 3g speed.

When we get 3g available here, it will be costly but prices will come down within a year but all this repuires spectrum. I hope Dot issues spectrum quickly. Hope airtel gets it soon and the maxmimum.

[BBThumbHealer]

BlackBerry eMails are hard to crack .. therefore they r thinking of banning the service... DoT rejected Tata's plea for BlackBerry Services ....

If this happens , i m thinking abt the future of my four handhelds

[ray|raven]

Originally Posted by NucleusKore

^never knew there were so many users! The numbers surprised me

Dude, goto any IT Company and see the guys there,
IMO atleast 40% of them use Blackberry's.
Most of em dont use it for more than just calls but buy it anyway.
Hell, I've seen quite a lot of iPhones in my company lately.
They know its gonna be a big loss if they get a problem with it,
Still they just buy it.

[abhishek_del]

Blackberry is like a style statement n even airtel's salesmen market it dat way..This was my experience at d mobile expo held recently in del.

[BBThumbHealer]

Originally Posted by abhishek_del

Blackberry is like a style statement n even airtel's salesmen market it dat way..This was my experience at d mobile expo held recently in del.

BlackBerry Curve and Pearl are awesome handheld's in terms of style n features

[BBThumbHealer]

In today's newspaper (Business Line ) , DoT has no plans of banning BB services , moreover now they are thinking of giving the license Tata as well as BSNL ( ). ....

looking forward to BB services from BSNL .. haha

[narangz]

^^Yeah... Read it in HT too.

[slugger]

looks like this issue will be resolved once and for all in India

Blackberry solution expected by April 9

do I hear the MBA yuppies poppin champagne bottles