Slashdot Mirror
RIM Agrees To Hand Over Its Encryption Keys To India
An anonymous reader writes "BlackBerry maker Research in Motion's (RIM) four-year standoff with the Indian government over providing encryption keys for its secure corporate emails and popular messenger services is finally set to end. RIM recently demonstrated a solution that can intercept messages and emails exchanged between BlackBerry handsets, and make these encrypted communications available in a readable format to Indian security agencies. An amicable solution over the monitoring issue is important for the Canadian smartphone maker since India is one of the few bright spots for the company that has been battling falling sales in its primary markets of the US and Europe. In India, RIM has tripled its customer base close to 5 million over the last two years,"
As has been pointed out over and over again, This Does Not Affect BES Users.
Everyone else is just as insecure as they always were. If you want security in India, RIM is still your only real choice.
More details here
Required reading for internet skeptics
from the fine article:
"But he said there was no access to secure encrypted BlackBerry enterprise communications or corporate emails as these were accessible only to the owners of these services."
The reality is BES uses keys assigned by the owner of the BES server, RIM HAS NOT and CAN NOT give those to anyone, because they dont know them. This has been RIM's position from the begining, and still is. What they HAVE done is give access to the messaging services they run (and therefor have keys to) to the Indian authorities. My understanding is that this was always the case. The article really does not make the distinction between the two clear.
TLDNR: RIM gave what they always give anyone, some minister is useing it to try and save face. Poor reporting means it worked.
Should read "India claims RIM gave encryption keys, RIM strongly denies". http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/02/rim_keys_india/
Tomorrow is another day...