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RIM To Indian Government: No Crypto Keys For You

Just last week it looked like RIM was ready to hand over its BlackBerry message encryption to the Indian authorities. Now, it seems as if, to quote singer/songwriter Tom Petty, RIM has had a "Change Of Heart."

From the chorus:

There's been a change, Yeah, there's been a change of heart, Said there's been a change, You push just a little too far, You make it just a little too hard, There's been a change of heart

That's a change from last week, when it was reported that RIM would hand over the crypto keys for its "nonbusiness enterprise customers."

According to a RIM statement, its encryption architecture doesn't allow for anyone, not even RIM itself, to break open ciphered messages.

"The BlackBerry security architecture for enterprise customers is purposefully designed to exclude the capability for Research in Motion (RIM) or any third party to read encrypted information under any circumstances," the company was quoted as saying.

If this is true, and I really hope it is, there is no way RIM can fulfill the Indian government's request for the keys so they'd be able to read messages for certain investigations. Though, I'm quite confident, the government will find a way.

If they don't, let's see if the government ups the ante to a "don't come around here no more" threat to RIM.

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