RIM and Indian officials meet to find their way out of Blackberry imbroglio

New Delhi: Officials from Research In Motion, the maker of the Blackberry mobile phone, met with Indian officials to once again discuss the government's security concerns over the secure transmission of email messages over the Blackberry service provided by telecom operators.

A few days earlier, Blackberry vendor Research-In-Motion (RIM) had rejected the government's demand to hand over the device's message encryption key, saying its security structure does not allow any 'third party', not even the company, to read the information transferred over the network. In reply, the government asked RIM to host its servers in India. RIM is reported to be opposed to the move while telecom operators cite interests of security.

The Economic Times reported that the department of telecom (DoT) has issued an ultimatum to the Canadian company that says it will have to make available encryption solutions, or host its servers here, if it wants to continue operations in India.

The meeting reportedly discussed probable solutions to the impasse over the BlackBerry services in India. Earlier, the communication and information technology ministry had asked RIM to install servers in India to route Blackberry traffic, so that securities agencies could monitor its services. Indian security agencies say that BlackBerry's email device poses a security threat as emails sent via Blackberry cannot be traced or intercepted.

"The Blackberry security architecture for enterprise customers is purposefully designed to exclude the capability for RIM or any third party to read encrypted information under any circumstances," the company said in a statement.

(See: RIM won't give 'Blackberry' code to government)