India says no security threat from BlackBerry: report

A woman sends text messages on her Blackberry phone. BlackBerry mobile devices do not pose a security threat and no permission is needed from the Indian government to make the service available, an official said Wednesday, according to media reports.

BlackBerry mobile devices do not pose a security threat and no permission is needed from the Indian government to make the service available, an official said Wednesday, according to media reports.

Indian security agencies have previously expressed worries that militants may use the popular devices to communicate and that intercepting and tracing emails from them was difficult.

"People are buying BlackBerry. There is no threat from BlackBerry services," telecommunications secretary Siddhartha Behura told an industry meeting, according to the Press Trust of India.

The official said no permission was needed to provide BlackBerry services.

"They do not have to seek our permission to start any service," Behura told the summit.

The Indian government has previously held talks with Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian makers of the device, over security concerns.

Industry estimates say there are some 400,000 BlackBerry users in India's mobile market, the world's fastest growing.

Š 2008 AFP

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Posted by gopher65 07/02/08 16:28

Rank: 4/5 after 1 vote

I bet RIM wiped some sweat off its brow at this announcement. I fail to see how a blackberry is any easier for terrorists to use than any texting phone, or making phone calls, or even walkie talkies.

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Posted by Lord_jag 07/04/08 08:13

Rank: 1/5 after 1 vote

There is one feature RIM has - the PIN message system. You go blackberry to blackberry. I wonder if that can be tracked. I know regular texts can be tracked as well as all phone calls. Even walkie talkies can be tracked if you have enough listening stations positioned. The encoding isn't very good on them either.

It's a long shot but it's all I can muster.

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Posted by nilbud 07/04/08 21:53

Rank: 1/5 after 1 vote

The terrorist threat is that all the messages go through servers in the US and that poses a security risk. That's why the French have banned them and that's why any organisation even slightly concerned with confidentiality should be worried about blackberry.