India considers developing high-security network for government use
In an effort to provide secure Internet environment in the country, DoT is mulling to set-up a pan-India secure network with an estimated cost of Rs 450 crore, providing a fool-proof infrastructure for telecom and internet communication exclusively for government use.
"To develop and deploy a pan-India secure network and network-based services such as e-mail, voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP), mobile communication through a survivable and available network architecture for secured communication for government use with a government funding of Rs 450 crore," says the latest report of the Department of Telecom (DoT).
Many e-mails and VoIP users in India rely on services of foreign origin such as Yahoo mail, Google mail and Skype. These services use proprietary encryptions, which are considered to be secure. The service may be secure from hackers anti-social elements, rivals but still the communication made through these services can be accessed by the Government of other countries, where the servers for providing these services are hosted, by invoking the provisions of their laws, the report, prepared by the working group on Telecom for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), said.
