Smartphone makers gave India spy tools - Technology & science - Security

Apple, Nokia and Research In Motion (RIM) gave Indian intelligence agencies secret access to encrypted smartphone communications as the price of doing business in the country, according to what appear to be leaked Indian government documents.

The purported documents, if they are real, indicate that the smartphone giants gave India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Indian military intelligence "backdoor" tools that would let the Indian agencies read encrypted emails sent to and from RIM's BlackBerrys, Apple's iPhones and Nokia smartphones.

"Military Intelligence and the CBI have been conducting bilateral cellular and Internet surveillance operations since April 2011," reads a document allegedly from the Directorate General of Military Intelligence and publicly posted online.

The memos refer to an agreement between India's Ministry of Defense and RIM, Nokia and Apple, that considers data interception and surveillance part of the "general framework" allowing the smartphone makers to sell their devices in India.

A "decision was made earlier this year to sign an agreement with mobile manufacturers (MM) in exchange for the Indian market presence," the military intelligence document reads.

Apple, RIM and Nokia did not respond to requests for comment.

The leaked files arose from last week's disclosure that a group of South Asian hackers, calling themselves the Lords of Dharmaraja, had allegedly broken into Indian government servers and stolen documents including the source code to Norton and Symantec anti-virus software. Symantec confirmed the legitimacy of the source code, but would not comment on its provenance.

The purported Indian intelligence memos also state that the backdoors provided by Apple, Nokia and RIM allowed India to spy on American government officials.

The memos include a set of purported private email exchanges in September and October 2011 among members of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), a congressional commission tasked with investigating and monitoring the economic and trade relationship, as well as reports of cyberwarfare and espionage, between the United States and China.

The memos state that Indian naval intelligence personnel were sent to China as a result of the emails.

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