Information Madness

So here the good news for netizens in India that Government is not going to block GMAIL, RIM & Skype services in the country. The news come from the sources in the government panel, set up by GOI to examine threats rising in the internet routed telephony services. Government says, Can’t ban the services because of failure monitoring service.

Earlier government panel was examining security threats from 15 forms of internet communications, including Google's Gmail, Research in Motion's BlackBerry services, Nokia's email offerings and Microsoft Skype amongst others, services that cannot be tracked by law enforcement agencies here in India. Presently panel has recommended not banning services on the grounds of monitoring.  

In between Government may force operators to either locate servers in the country or share encryption keys with security agencies and assist security agencies here in monitoring these services. Panel has also recommended the key Central Monitoring System (CMS) to regulate the entire form of communications through channels.

Right now telecom ministry is looking forward for the ultimate solution which involves intelligence agencies. Ministry says there is need to build up indigenous technology to monitor and intercept these technologies. Security agencies have been given advice to take help from IT companies such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro and Tech Mahindra to build such a capable infrastructure.

"Before banning or blocking of encrypted communication impact on business and industry, e-Commerce, e-governance, e-medicine, e-health, passport services etc should be taken into consideration. Further, banning or blocking services without providing an alternative may have international reactions and could affect other Indian industries such as BPO and IT outsourcing," the panel's report adds. (Courtesy: ET News Service)

The committee has asked security agencies to check whether any monitoring solutions are available in other counties prior to banning such services directly. It seems Govt is quite optimistic & looking for complete solution instead of banning such useful communication services. Panel also asks ministry to increase the encryption level to standard one (40 bits to 2560, which is basically followed in countries of Europe & America.

Government panel comprises of members from different ministries, including telecoms and IT. Panel is made by Govt to check all the Internet irregularities in the country especially after 26/11 Mumbai attack, where attackers had used Skye based telephony service to communicate.

News Source: Economic Times, Image: watblog.com