RIM has developed a method that would let the Indian government spy on BlackBerry messages and avoid a possible ban, home ministry representative Onkar Kedia said on Monday. The unidentified method will be tested for the next 60 days and, if successful, will avoid a restriction that would have banned BES-based e-mail and BlackBerry Messenger effective tomorrow. RIM has yet to comment on the new approach.

The approach may prove controversial through RIM's approach to security. It has insisted that it would treat all countries equally and offer the same monitoring tools elsewhere. The step might avoid Saudi Arabian and UAE bans but may also make corporate customers leery. Many of them depend on the tightly encrypted nature of BlackBerry e-mail to keep information private, but the US and many other countries could now requests the Indian tool and potentially negate RIM's main advantage.

And our jingly friends want to snoop on more:

India has toughened its scrutiny of telecoms firms with a directive demanding "access to everything". An Indian Home Ministry official told the BBC that "any company with a telecoms network should be accessible".


"It could be Google or Skype, but anyone operating in India will have to provide data," he said.
The move follows high-profile talks with Blackberry maker Research in Motion about ways to allow Indian security forces to monitor data.


The government is also likely to target virtual private networks, which give secure access to company networks for employees working away from their offices.