The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has told the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) that it still cannot access e-mail services on Nokia handsets, despite the company setting up a local server in the country.
Nokia had conducted demonstrations to display monitoring capabilities, but IB officers found multiple shortcomings in the system.
It is believed that during the demonstration, it was found that the originating IP address of all e-mails sent through Nokia’s messaging service was that of Nokia?s infrastructure and not the actual IP address of the sender. The law enforcement agency objected to this, as the identifying the sender would not be possible without the actual IP address.
IB has told DoT to block Nokia messaging services in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East. Over the past two years security agencies have also raised concerns about other encrypted services, such as those offered on BlackBerry and iPhone devices.
The Home Ministry has asked DoT to either ban these services or ask the operators to set up monitoring systems. However, DoT feels that the Home Ministry should build its own capability to intercept telecom services, instead of putting the onus on operators and service providers.
DoT has asked the security agencies to study the systems set up by developed countries such as the US to develop know-how.
