MONDAY, July 14, (News Locale) - The BlackBerry flap in India continues to simmer with the government now brining in the National Security Advisor to find a solution to the vexed issue. 

The NSA was brought into the loop after BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion, or RIM refused to lower encryption levels so as to provide access to emails sent over the network within India. The whole episode erupted last week after security agencies expressed concern that data sent over BlackBerrys could effectively be transmitted through an encrypted security layer.

This meant the data would be inaccessible to security agencies. The main problem is that all data sent over a BlackBerry is stored in RIM's own servers in Canada and is thus out of bounds for Indian security agencies.

Earlier the Department of Telecommunication tried to solve this issue by asking RIM to shift servers for Indian networks to this country or creating copies of e-mails and data sent over these devices in India and store the same for at least six months.

RIM said such solutions were unfeasible and shifting servers to India was untenable. When asked to lower encryption levels, the company said such a measure would leave its customers vulnerable to hackers.

RIM also alleged it was being singled out by the Indian Government as there are four other networks in the country that provide similar encryption services. These include Windows Mobile ActiveSync, Nokia Intellisync, Motorola Good and Seven Networks.

The NSA is currently supervising officials from National Test Research Organisation (NTRO) and DoT as they talk to BlackBerry representatives.

BlackBerry is a wireless handheld device, which was launched in 1999. The handheld supports push e-mail, mobile telephone, text messaging, internet faxing, web browsing and other wireless information services and is immensely popular worldwide. It is estimated that there are at least 400,000 BlackBerry users in India.

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