‘Onus on Govt to decrypt messages’

HYDERABAD: The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said it would be difficult to provide help to the goverment to decrypt messages and mails sent and received from BlackBerry.
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HYDERABAD: The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said it would be difficult to provide help to the goverment to decrypt messages and mails sent and received from BlackBerry.

It must be noted that recently, India had expressed concerns over BlackBerry services as they could be used by anti-social elements to stir social instability. The Ministry of Home Affairs too expressed concerns over the encrypted data through BlackBerry mobile phones and has been asking for a decryption solution for its corporate mails and messenger services.

“If the Government wants to intercept messages, operators provide the bit string information. The Government must develop the expertise to decrypt messages as encryption and decryption is its responsibility. Operator cannot provide text messages,” said Rajan S Mathews, Director-General, COAI.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a workshop on “Radiation from mobile towers – myth Vs reality,” he said, “All the issues of BlackBerry except the enterprise mail have been resolved. But without the enterprise cooperation, which holds one part of the key, decryption is not possible.”

The issue with enterprise email is, it involves two people — one, the enterprise and the other being the operator. “How can one get into two or three million enterprise servers? It is dynamic and it is a technical issue that has to be resolved,” he said.

Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of BlackBerry, has to offer the  final solution for intercepting its BlackBerry messenger (BBM) services by end of January, 2011. The Government had earlier extended the deadline to offer a final solution by December 31 for giving access to its messenger and enterprise services.

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