Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

[cliffdweller]

OT - RIM relents to India demands, sets up local surveillance outpost

http://business.financialpost.com/2011/10/28/rim-relents-to-india-demands-sets-up-local-surveillance-outpost-report/

Oct 28, 2011 Research In Motion Ltd. has at least partially relented to the Indian government’s demand for access to the company’s secure BlackBerry network, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the U.S. newspaper said RIM established a facility on the western coastal city of Mumbai earlier this year to help India conduct lawful surveillance of its citizens.

Rumours had been circulating for nearly a year suggesting the Waterloo, Ont.-based smartphone maker had found a way for Indian authorities to access messages sent through its network without compromising its key security architecture.

In an emailed statement to the Financial Post, RIM said it “continues to work very well with the Government of India” and that the company believes India “is now applying its security policy in a consistent manner to all handset makers and service providers in India, which means RIM should not be singled out any more than any other provider.”

The statement did not address the specific claims referenced in the Wall Street Journal report.

India can submit names of BlackBerry users the government wants to monitor, and RIM will decode any messages sent to those users and deliver them to authorities as long as it is satisfied the request has legal authorization, the report said.

While the system is said to work for BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) data and other information sent over consumer devices, the report said India still lacks a way of intercepting data sent via the BlackBerry Enterprise Servers (BES) RIM provides to corporate clients.

RIM has long maintained that the structure of its BES technology prevents even RIM officials from decoding messages sent from corporate BES accounts or providing governments with a so-called “master encryption key.”

India would be capable of intercepting BBM data on its own, the report said, if it invested in better decryption technology. The government has said that would be ideal since then it would no longer have to disclose the names of suspected criminals to RIM.

The robust security features of BlackBerry devices has led RIM afoul of various national governments in the region as well.

Last August, RIM reportedly struck a deal with Saudi Arabia’s telecom regulator to share the unique pin number and code for each BlackBerry registered there. While RIM never confirmed that deal either, it presumably allowed local authorities to access subscriber data on demand and avoided a potential ban of all BlackBerry services in the country.

Three months later, in October of 2010, the United Arab Emirates dropped a similar threat to block BlackBerry services after RIM reportedly came to a similar arrangement to the one it (also reportedly) established in Saudi Arabia.

In April 2011, RIM co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis walked out of a BBC interview after he took offense to the suggestion his company had a “security problem” with various governments in the region.

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