14 DAY TRIAL // Not long ago, Research In Motion (RIM) was forced by Saudi Arabia to allow it to go deep when checking its communications, and Indian authorities are now demanding similar rights, even giving the company a deadline, August 31 to be exact, by which time they will need to have complied or face a ban on over 1 million BlackBerry users.
For years, RIM has been encrypting the data generated by BlackBerry users and has not made the means by which it does this available to authorities.
The main goal of this encryption was to prevent third parties form intercepting messages of any kinds.
Unfortunately for RIM, the aforementioned authorities want a direct hand in monitoring every possible transmission that is made in their respective countries.
Basically, this means that RIM will have to provide them with the means by which they can check everything a BlackBerry user sends out, including messages, e-mails, etc.
That the company would finally have to submit to the Indian government's wishes is something that was made known at the start of the month.
Apparently, RIM had been given a fifteen days deadline back in July but was not at all amenable to the idea of allowing tis communications to be intercepted.
"No one, including RIM, could access customer data, which is encrypted from the time it leaves the device. Thus RIM would simply be unable to accommodate any request for a key to decrypt the data, since the company doesn't have the key," the BlackBerry manufacturer explained back then.
"After some persuasion, the [RIM] representative agreed that they can provide the Metadata of the message i.e. the IP address of the BES and PIN & IMEI of the BlackBerry mobile,” stated an internal memo leaked from India's Department of Telecommunications.
Regardless, India threatens to ban over 1 million BlackBerry users if RIM does not comply with its government's requests. What the outfit decides to do next remains to be seen.