Banning this service will not solve the problem. The government and security agencies need to be more proactive and use innovations to track threats

In a civilised society, gagging of any sort should be used as a last resort. However, while citizens mostly behave in a civilised manner, the rulers chosen by democratic methods seem to believe more in undemocratic ways like banning and gagging.

Take the recent example of the Indian government's fatwa, which asks mobile handset-maker Research In Motion (RIM) to share its user data or face a ban from 31st August.

Government officials are citing security reasons and may have been thinking that unless they intervene in the data sent and received from RIM's popular BlackBerry devices, everything is under threat. Nothing wrong in this thinking, except that those elements posing a security risk to the country do not seem to be using these devices.

There are two reasons for this argument. One, the communication on these devices leaves a trace and second, for using the BlackBerry device, one needs to go for a strict verification and registration process with both the mobile operator and RIM. Obviously you wouldn't expect a terrorist to fill out a form for using a BlackBerry.

However, the question is not just about BlackBerry or RIM. According to media reports, the Union government is planning to put Skype and Gmail services also under the scanner. The Department of Telecom (DoT) will ask these companies to either ensure that data going through their networks be made available to security agencies in a readable format or face a ban on offering services in India.

It is interesting to note that not just RIM but even Gmail and other free mail service providers encrypt their data between their servers and users' computers. Often, servers of such service providers are located outside India and accessing or forcing the companies to share the data becomes a gigantic, if not impossible task.

Many IT and security experts, however, are finding the whole episode of the proposed ban on RIM's services a tad hilarious. Not all terrorists may be tech-savvy, but by using simple human ingenuity, they have beaten security agencies across the world time and again. Just look at how America's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, has been beating the most tech-savvy nation on earth year after year, despite the country having access to all the sophisticated and latest technology.

Rumours have it that the terrorist king uses satellite phones to communicate and keep his flock together! Terrorists have been using free email accounts like Gmail but instead of sending and receiving any mail, they just save their messages as 'drafts'. This makes the job of snooping difficult, because unless the data is sent or received from a server, it cannot be intercepted.

Here, the security agencies could ask Gmail to provide IP addresses of such email IDs, which do not send/receive mails but access the draft folder from different locations. But again, there are numerous free email service providers. How can one keep track of all of them? It is more important not to get carried away by sophisticated technology; it is smart thinking which is more important, as a security expert pointed out.

Remember, during the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, the terrorists used satellite phones and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)-based phones for communication with their handlers from our friendly neighbour. While it was possible to intercept these signals, our security agencies were not ready or not expecting terrorists to use such high-tech devices.

We have a government which has been allegedly taping phone devices of rivals; on the other hand, miscreants using simple, innovative methods constantly beat them. Therefore the need of the hour is not a blanket ban, but to keep our eyes open and have an ear to the ground rather than threatening legitimate services or businesses.

 — Yogesh Sapkale