The BlackBerry Storm

There are currently 11 lakh Indians, the creamy layer of society, who are nervously clutching their BlackBerrys, waiting for the outcome of the Government's discussions with Research in Motion (RIM), the smartphone's makers, over allowing access to services so that the intelligence agencies can snoop on users they would like to monitor. Voice calls made from BlackBerry phones use the regular GSM network of local service providers and can be intercepted by intelligence agencies.

However, voice calls made from one BlackBerry to another still cause a problem since they are transmitted in a scrambled format. The intelligence agencies can intercept them but find it almost impossible to decrypt them. They can be only decrypted at the Canadian server of RIM. The company has already given Indian law enforcement agencies access to voice, SMS and BlackBerry Internet Services (BIS). It has promised to provide information about certain numbers that the Indian Government wants monitored for reasons of national security.

However, India wants more. It wants a parallel BlackBerry server so that it can have real time access to the entire network, including the highly secure and encrypted BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) and the BlackBerry Messenger Service (BMS). BlackBerry's email service through the BES is the defining function of the phones. It offers corporate entities a secure way of internal communication through a dedicated personalised server.

- 5,000 phones are being officially tapped daily by Central agencies alone

- 11 Lakh users of BlackBerry in India

In its innumerable discussions with the officials of the home ministry and Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the Canada company has claimed that even they do not have access to the enterprise servers, and that they will have to "snatch" the data from there. "From our end, there can be no compromise. We want access to all kinds of communication happening on BlackBerry. And we want it real time," said a senior home ministry official. Behind the BlackBerry storm is the murky world of electronic surveillance on Indian citizens which has been increasing over the years as technology struggles to keep up with law breakers, tax evaders and, above all, terrorists.

A bulk of this surveillance is carried out from a highly sanitised area on the seventh floor of the Police Headquarters in Delhi. A restricted access area, it is staffed 24/7 by a dozen plainclothesmen of the Special Cell. They sit with headphones on in front of computer screens monitoring up to 300 phone numbers simultaneously. As many as 15 service providers have given them parallel lines to numbers of suspected criminals, terrorists and their sympathisers. Delhi Police sleuths listen in to the conversations with prior approval from the home ministry.

"The home ministry gets hundreds of new requests daily for tapping somebody's phone or the other."G.K.Pillai, Home Secretary

Cracking the Berry

India is not the only country to mount pressure on BlackBerry over security concerns

UAE: Suspension of BlackBerry email, messenger and web-browsing services from October 11

SAUDI ARABIA: Suspended services for a day on August 6 to put pressure on BlackBerry to address their security concerns. Talks are on.

INDONESIA: Wants a server to be placed in the country. Considering a ban.

LEBANON: Reviewing the service

FRANCE: Ministers and bureaucrats are prohibited from using BlackBerrys over data security issues

US: President Barack Obama used a BlackBerry extensively and refused to give it up at Oval Office. He was allowed to keep it with enhanced security, about which he famously said that it was "no fun."

In addition to the Delhi Police, there are six other agencies-Enforcement Directorate, Central Bureau of Investigation, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Intelligence Bureau, Central Economic Intelligence Bureau and the Narcotics Control Bureau-listening in to conversations of suspected offenders. On an average, about 5,000 phones are being tapped daily by the Central agencies alone. These are the numbers for which approval has been taken from Home Secretary G.K. Pillai. He admits to getting "hundreds" of requests for tapping phones daily. For every number that is tapped legally, there are probably 10 numbers which are tapped without permission. The number of illegal taps could be more but nobody can tell since there is no record.

With the state police also authorised to tap, the number of phones being tapped across the country could run into millions. Officially, the Government cites terrorism as the main cause for its paranoia. It has asked service providers like Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance, Tata, Idea, BSNL and MTNL-which are providing BlackBerry services in the country-to suspend BES and BMS on August 31. Pushed into a corner, RIM has asked for time to work out tools for interception of BES but is wary of giving unfettered access to Indian agencies, keeping in view the lax legal framework for ensuring privacy and rampant unauthorised e-surveillance.

Interestingly, the largest number of requests the home ministry gets for phone tapping are to detect tax evasion. The 2G spectrum scandal involving Telecom Minister A. Raja was uncovered after lobbyist and pr consultant Neera Radia's phone was tapped for income tax evasion. It later threw up an alleged conspiracy to favour certain players in telecom licences. Radia's phone was tapped for three months and involved 60 hours of conversations, with most having to do with the formation of the UPA-II cabinet and distribution of portfolios. When questioned about national security concerns related to tax evasion, Home Minister P. Chidambaram took pains to explain in Parliament how it directly threatened the economy and thus was a threat to the nation.

Apart from the Radia case, unauthorised tapping of the phones of some politicians by the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) also created an uproar in Parliament. Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley questioned the Government's motives. He argued that the Government had failed to use e-surveillance effectively to gather intelligence where it mattered, as in the case of Maoists. "Its track record in getting intelligence about jihadi terrorism has been dismal. What it seems to have concentrated on is on the gathering political intelligence against its opponents and perhaps against some of its own members," he said.

Given this scenario, questions are being asked about the effectiveness of accessing BlackBerry data. Security agencies and civil liberty activists are watching closely the brinksmanship between the Government and rim to see how the balance between security concerns and the right to privacy of an individual are maintained.

Tech companies too are keeping a close watch since the issue can impact other "secure and encrypted" methods of e-communication like Skype, Google mail and chat. Their argument is whether India can fight technology by banning it. "In addition to Skype, which is now extensively used by terrorists, there is freeware which people can download and use to encrypt their mails. Commercially available software like Cellcrypt can be put in smart handsets for personalised encryption of data. The possibilities are endless for those who want secure communication," says an it expert, who designs software for intelligence agencies.

"Legally if there is no public emergency or threat to safety, the phones cannot be tapped." - Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition, Rajya Sabha

Currently, intelligence agencies are monitoring Yahoo mail and messenger, and Hotmail, which use low-grade encryptions. India has failed to decrypt algorithms beyond 40 bits. BlackBerry uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 128 bits while Skype uses even higher AES 256 bits. An Intelligence Bureau official admits that the ability to intercept mails has not yielded any major breakthroughs in the recent past. Most terrorists do not send mails but keep them as drafts that can be read by others who have access to a user name and password.

The solution does not lie in banning technology but in evolving a cryptanalysis policy. For a country that boasts of the best it talent, the government does not have any cryptographers or cryptologists. The NTRO has been trying to set-up a National Institute for Cryptology Research and Development at Hyderabad for the past five years but is facing the problem of lack of quality manpower.

A home ministry official said that these are all long-term solutions, which are being looked into. "We cannot sit back and ignore what is staring us in the face. These technologies affect the ability of intelligence agencies to identify terrorist operations," he added. That may be true, but the Government is constantly struggling to keep up with technological advances and counter-measures. While it is ever ready to deploy technology that invades privacy, technologies that enhance privacy make it nervous. Just like the 11 lakh BlackBerry users.

Off the Radar

Some communication services remain out of tapping range

Skype: Popular software that enables users to make voice calls over the Internet and also for instant messaging. Skype has become the largest voice carrier in the world.

Google: While Indian intelligence agencies have been able to decode Yahoo and Hotmail msn messengers, it has failed to break into Google mail and Google Talk messenger service, which use advanced encryption.

Freeware: In addition to known encrypted services, there are innumerable free softwares available on the Internet, which a user can simply download to encrypt emails, other data and voice calls.

Inmarsat: 4 satellite phone New generation sat phones can be monitored off the air but the conversation cannot be decrypted, making it popular with terrorists and other anti-social characters.

Reproduced From India Today