Posted on August 13, 2008, at 7:59 am .
Back in April, Indian carrier Tata Teleservices was held back from starting up BlackBerry service due to newly-discovered security concerns, but it sounds like they’re sick of waiting and will be launching within the next two months. The whole Indian security thing was a pretty big mess, with RIM and the Canadian government getting involved, and eventually finishing in a big talk which seems to have resolved most issues, or at least determined a solid course of action. Tata has promised that whenever the Indian government has decided on what they want to do security-wise, they will happily abide.
(via Techtree)
Posted on July 11, 2008, at 7:50 am .
It looks like the Indian government is still not satisfied with the BlackBerry security, situation. RIM, the Department of Telecom, and the Home Ministry are getting together to butt heads on how to resolve things, with talks supervised by the National Security Adviser, but considering the BlackBerry 8330 launch earlier this week, I reckon the government has let service continue while they try to figure the whole mess out. The most popular solution remains to set up servers in India.
“We are insisting for a (BlackBerry) server in India to take care of security agencies concern. But technically and commercially what will be the impact on the Blackberry also has to be taken into consideration and it is being taken.”
Do we have any Indian readers out there who have been caught in the crossfire?
(via IndiaTimes)
Posted on July 9, 2008, at 8:29 am .
It looks like the tentative resolution of security issues in India has been enough to for Reliance to release the BlackBerry 8330. Reliance’s CDMA network was launched last September, so it’s is still pretty new, but it’s good to see some of the more recent devices finding their way over there. The CDMA Curve is available in 500 stores across India for Rs 25,990. Hit up Reliance’s website to find the one closes to you.
Posted on July 2, 2008, at 10:58 am .
Wait, what? After all this trouble, the Indian government is actually claiming “There is no threat from Blackberry services, … There is no permission needed for starting value added services. We have not given permission to anybody, we have not disallowed anybody”. It seems as though as soon as the Department of Telecom found out about the potential security breach due to inability to crack the 128-bit-encrypted BlackBerry messages, internal security agencies got nervous and locked everything down, while the DoT still wanted to continue allowing BlackBerry service. You might remember some of the earlier statements which pointed to an optimistic resolution of the whole mess, while State Affairs imposed restrictions on BlackBerry service at the same time. Regardless, last we heard, the Indian governement was going to handle all necessary decryption – it’s just really strange to hear that it was never really needed.
Posted on June 20, 2008, at 6:49 pm .
This week the BlackBerry Javelin dominates our attention, but of course there’s always something going on in India. Rogers also got some new data plans which just fall short of unlimited, but also offer the BlackBerry 8820, which will nicely take advantage of their UMA service. To cap it all off, we shift gears away from developer interviews, and chat with two specialists out of California: Brian Boxer Wachler, eye specialist; and Glenn Cohen, hand surgeon. Learn not only the physical effects of your BlackBerry habits, but what the experts have to say on device design. Grab the MP3, yoink it off iTunes, or pilfer the podcast from our RSS.
Posted on June 18, 2008, at 5:57 am .
Although the Indian government’s ability to only decode 40-bit encryption has caused some serious headaches for RIM and carriers over the last couple of months, it sounds like they’re on the way to being able to handle 256-bit standards. BlackBerry messages go through the pipes at 128-bit, which means if the National Security Advisor follows through, standard service will resume. As for the decoding itself, there’s still a lot of talk about outsourcing to third parties, and it’s presumed that the government wouldn’t raise the encryption bar unless they had some way of getting into transmissions.
(via The Economic Times)
Posted on May 30, 2008, at 7:22 pm .
BBCool hits the big three-oh, interviewing Best of WES Awards winners Bayalink and Neverfail, along with the week’s news, including the latest on the BlackBerry Kickstart, more disputes over the BlackBerry rollout in India, and a couple of international releases. Get your MP3 on, your iTunes on or your RSS feed on.
Posted on May 30, 2008, at 7:44 am .
There’s been significant beating around the bush and looking for alternative solutions, but after talks this week, the Indian Department of Telecom has flat-out demanded RIM provide full encryption codes to BlackBerry transmissions, or they’ll pull the devices from the country. Pretty harsh, but this whole thing has been going on for awhile now, and I could see why the government wants an immediate solution so it doesn’t drag on any longer. RIM cemented their opposition earlier this week, so things are looking pretty grim yet again.
Posted on May 26, 2008, at 7:09 am .
Just when you think things are getting better over there, the BlackBerry troubles in India just flare right up again. Last time we checked in, the government had agreed with RIM to split up access keys so neither party had universal access to BlackBerry data – now it sounds like the Department of Telecom was sniffing for a master key to access all data, a request which RIM promptly shot down. The opportunity to set up servers abroad remains unresolved, but is still a solution with lots of potential for other Asian markets in the neighbourhood, after all, wouldn’t it improve service speeds and reduce congestion at RIM’s servers in Waterloo?
Posted on May 20, 2008, at 7:48 am .
The soap opera of mid-Asian BlackBerry security continues, now with RIM agreeing to handle their share of BlackBerry monitoring, since the government can’t handle it on its own. The Department of Telecom had shot down a monitoring proposal by RIM on the grounds that it would leak personal information to third parties, but this new arrangement would have RIM handling the public security keys for particular devices, and the government taking on corporate keys. Each of these keys reveal little without the other, so it’s a fine way of managing decryption while keeping a tight lid on personal info.
