NEW DELHI, INDIA: On Friday, Telecoms Secretary Siddhartha Behura said, "there is no question of banning BlackBerry services at this point."
 
Well, the question certainly arose during the week.
 
No, I don't believe there is any chance of BlackBerry services being banned, at this point or at any other point, but that is more a reflection of my faith in the lobbying power of Bharti, Vodafone and Reliance, rather than any spurt of wisdom on the part of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) or the Indian security agencies.
 
The issue came to light when Tata Teleservices Limited's application for starting BlackBerry services was rejected, on security grounds­the service was so securely encrypted that mails sent on it "could not be traced or intercepted."

How amazing. BlackBerrys have have been around in India since end-2005, when Airtel brought in the service. Hutch (now Vodafone) followed suit in 2006, and Reliance in 2007. And the DoT and MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) wake up nearly three years and a half-million BlackBerry users later!
 
The silly part of this story is that the MHA is barking up the wrong tree. If it wants complete security and control on information, it needs to ban email, and thus Internet access. If I were a savvy terrorist, the last thing I'd use is my BlackBerry to send out crucial mail. I'd probably go to a cybercafe and use any old webmail service, through an anonymizing hops and proxy server.
 
Most of email is fairly anonymous. Some, but not all, mail services retain the originating IP addresses for email sent through them, and in most cases the webmail hosting company's cooperation is needed to get this information, to start with. That becomes more challenging when it's a host with no India presence. Throw in anonymizing hops, and the challenge to the IP-tracing detective increases dramatically.
 
With a BlackBerry or similar services, the mail follows a clear route. It goes through an Indian telco's server before it's pushed out. The mail can be captured; the origins established. It may not be easy or even possible to decrypt the mail, but that is the aspect they can focus on, rather than questioning the service itself.
 
For instance, my company mailserver is in the USA. It's outside India's jurisdiction: they cannot legally access my mailbox on the server. But because I use the BlackBerry service, the mail actually gets routed locally through Airtel. Indian government agencies have more control over my mail if I use my BlackBerry than if I don't.
 
The furore over the BlackBerry services underlines how little the establishment – including both security agencies, and telecom regulatory authority – understand today's technology- and information-driven world. A connected world that is critically dependant on secure information flow, on the value of intellectual property, and most significantly, on mobility.
 
This is ironical, in the world's second-largest mobile phone market, and an emerging tech superpower whose tech prowess has been built up largely on offshored financial services, a sector as critically dependent on security and trust as defense and national security are.
 

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(cmn@cybermedia.co.in)