Threats of BlackBerry bans echo US debate

August 16, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

NEW YORK

Threats by the governments of India, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to shut down BlackBerry’s corporate e-mail services reflect unease about a technology that the U.S. government also took a while to accept.

The foreign governments are essentially a decade behind in coming to terms with encryption, a technology that’s fundamental to the Internet as a medium of commerce.

Encrypted communications are scrambled in a complex process to ensure that only the intended recipient can read them, using the proper digital key.

Most companies use encrypted connections for their corporate e-mails, at least if employees need to access e-mail outside the office through virtual private networks and other secure systems. One of the reasons Research In Motion Ltd. has been so successful with its BlackBerry phones is that it brought that level of security to e-mail-capable phones.

BlackBerrys seem to have been singled out by foreign governments because the devices provide an easy and convenient way to communicate securely. But there are many other ways to communicate in an encrypted fashion, and any government that’s serious about squelching encrypted communications would need to go after them as well.

According to a representative of Indian Internet service providers, the Indian government plans to go after Google Inc., presumably for its Gmail service, and Skype SA for its voice and video conferencing software.

The U.S. State Department has waded into the issue, saying it hopes to broker a compromise that addresses the legitimate security concerns of some governments while ensuring that the free flow of information is not compromised.

That’s somewhat ironic, considering the U.S. restricts exports of encryption technology. The restrictions are light, but were quite comprehensive before 1999. The U.S. was concerned that it couldn’t easily spy on foreign countries that used encryption for military and government communications.

In fact, until 1996, encryption at the level commonly in use today was classified as a munition. Companies that exported Web browsers and other software products had to make alternative versions with much weaker encryption for use abroad.

The First Amendment made it impossible to restrict encryption technology inside the U.S.