back to article BlackBerry gives Indian spooks BBM and BIS access

BlackBerry has finally given in to demands from the Indian government to access its consumer messaging services, although enterprise communications will remain safe from prying eyes. An internal Department of Telecommunications document seen by Economic Times apparently declared that the “lawful interception system for …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Aaannd...

    ...here goes the only reason to ever use BlackBerry straight out of the window.

    1. LarsG
      Meh

      Re: Aaannd...

      Would not be surprised to see sales slump.

      Still, the US has had access to the system for years, it's just that they don't talk about it.

    2. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Entrope Re: Aaannd...

      "Aaannd......here goes the only reason to ever use BlackBerry straight out of the window." Why? Do you really perceive yourself to be such a menace to Indian society, सार्वजनिक दुश्मन नंबर एक, or is it just you're a helplessly deluded and paranoid conspiracy theorist? Have to say I'm tending to think it's more likely you're the latter.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Entrope Aaannd...

        And do you honestly believe that with the level of corruption which exists within the Indian government that such "lawful interception" will remain "lawful"? I wouldn't be all too surprised if criminal gangs are able to bribe their way into receiving whatever information they deem the government is able to access.

        And who knows what they'll be able to do with whatever they're able to retrieve.

        1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
          FAIL

          Re: Entrope Re: Entrope Aaannd...

          ".....I wouldn't be all too surprised if criminal gangs are able to bribe their way into receiving whatever information they deem the government is able to access....." Nice bit of melodramatic hyperventilating, but this is BIS (i.e., personal service), not BES (commercial service), and why would the gangs be interested in personal coms? They will want the commercial stuff.

    3. Voland's right hand Silver badge
      Devil

      Re: Aaannd...

      No, here comes the reason why you should pay RIM more money - buy a proper BES install and stop w*nking about.

      In fact, if you do not want to your comms to be intercepted your best choice is to buy a foreign company with an existing BES install using that wad of cash that ultimately started at a 3 letter agency a while back (if we did not finance and arm terrorists pretending to be "freedom fighters" to the tune of 20+ billion over the last 3-4 decades we would have never had the problems we do now).

    4. ZacMcD

      Re: Aaannd...

      They were only too happy to co-operate when the UK police asked for their data after the London riots. I think this could be the finals straw for RIM.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lawful Interception?

    Would you trust any Government that says this?

    1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: Anonymous Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist Junkie Re: Lawful Interception?

      "Would you trust any Government that says this?" Yes, but please do entertain the rest of us with your bleating and dribbling as to why you wouldn't?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Lawful Interception?

      For a very simple reason - this is _LAWFUL_ intercept. Lawful intercept systems are by design lawful - low capacity targeted at specific and identifiable users, devices, network ports and traffic flows. You cannot use lawful intercept capacities in any telecom gear to do blanket snooping on the population. For that you need special intercept gear. The UNLAWFUL one. BB is not saying anything so far with regards to that one (not that any vendor ever does).

      Personally, I find it quite funny. 13 years ago when Putin came to power FSB started putting black boxes in each and every Russian ISP. Mainline western media screamed and howled as if someone was slaughtering innocent children (or worse). How undemocratic this is, how dictatorial, how KGB. Where are all the howler monkeys (it is a bit far fetched to call the journalists) now may I ask? I have not heard them lately... for some reason...

    3. Robert Helpmann??
      Childcatcher

      Re: Lawful Interception?

      Would you trust any Government that says this?

      Should you trust any government?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Seems to be a bit of non-news to me and it only affects older BlackBerries. BlackBerry have publically stated how things look encryption wise with regards to BIS and BES. Go read http://goo.gl/fD67K (Link destination is http://btsc.webapps.blackberry.com/btsc/viewdocument.do?noCount=true&externalId=KB03652&sliceId=2&cmd=displayKC&dialogID=3718757&docType=kc&stateId=0+0+3716689&ViewedDocsListHelper=com.kanisa.apps.common.BaseViewedDocsListHelperImpl ).

    Given that BIS has to log into your email provider, and I'd guess that most email providers don't actually encrypt the traffic, I'm not sure how much security you can expect anyway!

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