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RIM rebuffs claims BlackBerry encryption keys given to Indian government

RIM rebuffs claims BlackBerry encryption keys given to Indian government

Research in Motion (RIM) has been forced to once again deny claims that it has provided the Indian government with the necessary keys to access BlackBerry communications among its enterprise customers.

RIM said in a statement sent to V3 on Thursday that the Indian government does not possess such keys.

"RIM has found it necessary to correct some false and misleading information appearing in the media in India and would like to take an opportunity to set the record straight," it said.

"As we have stated on several occasions, and as we have set out in our company's Lawful Access Principles, RIM cannot access information encrypted through BlackBerry Enterprise Server as RIM is not ever in possession of the encryption keys."

The Indian government has claimed to have skeleton keys to BlackBerry enterprise servers on several occasions, starting in 2010.

The most recent claim stemmed from The Times of India, which published an article claiming an unnamed RIM source confirmed handing the keys over to the country's government on Thursday.

Despite its insistence, the authenticity of the Indian government's claims are questionable as it's unlikely such keys exist at all.

This is because BlackBerry corporate users connected to a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), actually create their encryption keys when setting up their BES, meaning communication between the handset and the BES should be secure against even the most complex of cyber attacks.

The nature of RIM's corporate clientele and past refusals to hand over customer data also cast doubt over the latest claims.

"To think that RIM, a company who have resisted requests for backdoors in their architecture for law enforcement, would hand over 'master keys' that would allow decryption of any and all traffic at will to the Indian government is a stretch too far," Trend Micro security chief Rik Ferguson told V3.

"What is more likely is that a local BlackBerry point of presence has been set up and that law enforcement in that country are able to inspect the content with whatever authorisation is required under that legislation."

The news comes just after RIM chief executive Thorsten Heins revealed that the company was open to outsourcing its delayed new BB10 operating system to other smartphone makers.

The troubled technology giant cannot compete with larger manufacturers and so must look at how to get more budget smartphones into the market, Heins says.

"You could think about us building a reference system, and then basically licensing that reference design, have others build the hardware around it - either it's a BlackBerry or it's something else being built on the BlackBerry platform," Heins told The Daily Telegraph.

"We're investigating this and it's way too early to get into any details. We have to also model this from a finance perspective - that's why we're working with the financial advisers to see if we do this where would it take the company. Either we do it ourselves or we do it with a partner. But we will not abandon the subscriber base."

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