Just last week it looked like RIM was ready to had over its Blackberry message encryption to the Indian authorities. Now, it seems as if, to quote singer/songwriter Tom Petty, RIM has had a Change of Heart.

From the chorus:

There’s been a change, Yeah there’s been a change of heart, Said there’s been a change, You push just a little too far, You make it just a little too hard, There’s been a change of heart

That’s a change from last week, when it was reported that RIM would hand over the crypto keys for its “non-business enterprise customers.”

According to a RIM statement, its encryption architecture doesn’t allow for anyone, not even RIM itself, to break open ciphered messages.

“The Blackberry security architecture for enterprise customers is purposefully designed to exclude the capability for Research in Motion or any third party to read encrypted information under any circumstances,”

Source: Indian Express Newspaper

If this is true, and I really hope it is, there is no way RIM can fulfill the Indian government’s request for the keys so they’d be able to read messages for certain investigations. Though, I’m quite confident, the government will find a way.

If they don’t, let’s see if the government ups the ante to a “don’t come around here no more” threat to RIM.

Apparently, the Indian government can’t crack 256-bit encryption to read protected e-mails on Research In Motion BlackBerrys. It appears RIM is willing to lend a hand, by handing over its (your) keys.

According to this story, which ran in The Economic Times, there’s been somewhat of a riff between the Indian Department of Telecom and RIM over BlackBerry’s inherently robust (until now) encryption.

Apparently, the Indian government can only break crypto if it’s 40 bits, or less. So they asked RIM to fork over the keys that make it possible to decrypt the messages or reduce BlackBerry crypto to 49 bits.

From the story:

According to officials close to the development, Canadian High Commissioner David Malone and RIM officials met telecom secretary Siddhartha Behura on May 7. “It was explained by RIM that it should be possible for the government to monitor e-mails to nonbusiness enterprise customers,” sources told ET. “RIM is considering giving access to individual users’ e-mail to the government. Details on this will be provided in two or three weeks,” sources said.

So it appears, for now, that corporate users don’t have as much to be concerned with.

RIM doesn’t have much more to say on the issue:

A RIM spokesperson said: “RIM operates in more than 135 countries around the world and respects the regulatory requirements of governments. RIM does not comment on confidential regulatory matters or speculation on such matters in any given country.”

I hope RIM grows more of a backbone and “respects” the privacy and security needs of its customers.

Once the keys are public, how long before the cryptography scheme is broken? How long before they’re sold to criminals? And where does this stop? Are keys going to be made available to any government that asks?

Yesterday, reports were surfacing that the iPhone had been completely sold out at the U.S. and U.K. online Apple stores. Apple confirmed the reports. No more iPhone for you.

In an un-Apple like announcement, the company admitted that it has run out of iPhones at its own online store in both the U.S. and the U.K. Anyone interested in buying an iPhone online will need to go through other channels.

Apple did say that the iPhone is still available at brick-and-mortar stores, as well as at AT&T Mobility retail shops.

The company didn’t comment on the reasons for the shortages at the online store, nor if stocks will be replenished. The fact that Apple said to go to its retail outlets instead suggests that it won’t be stocking back up.

This is yet another sign that the 3G iPhone is nearly at hand.

Cortado Connect and Box.net are giving users of BlackBerry smartphones 1 GB of free online storage for pictures, files, music, whatever. If you want more storage, however, you’ll have to cough up some dough. It’s sort of like a mini-FTP for your phone. Check it out.

Box.net offers the free online storage to just about anyone. Simply sign up and away you go. For 1 GB of storage, there is no charge. For 5 GB, you can pay $8 per month, and for 15 GB it is $20 per month. The free version caps file sizes at 10 MB, but the two for-pay options don’t have caps on file size uploads.

Here’s how it works. The Cortado Connect software is an Internet storage solution optimized for BlackBerry users with BlackBerry Internet Service. With the software, BlackBerry users can manage their local and online storage, with the ability to transfer files between them directly from their handset. Users can store music, video, and documents to their hearts content (as long as it’s 1 GB worth of content).

The steps to sign up are pretty simple. Go to Box.net and sign up for a free account. Download and install the Cortado client on your BlackBerry. Use Cortado Connect to access your Box.net account, and begin managing your files.

Once you’ve done that, you can set up shared folders with colleagues or friends to swap files. This can make it truly useful when it is too difficult to send files from phone to phone via e-mail or MMS.

Cortado also makes similar clients for Windows Mobile, Palm OS, and Symbian devices. If the storage capacities offered from Box.net aren’t enough for you, it also offers enterprise support and services.

Those disappointed by the lack of a 3G announcement at MacWorld can take heart. According to UBS analysts, iPhone chip supplier Infineon Technologies is ramping up production for the next generation iPhone. This time around, it will include a high-speed 3G data radio.

Keep in mind this is just some guidance from analysts. Analysts are people, too, and prone to make mistakes now and again. That said, the note published to investors by UBS yesterday seems more credible than other reports that have been scattered across the Internet.

The unnamed analyst who wrote the report said that “3G-enabled iPhones will be released by mid-year, and that the current EDGE iPhone platform is being ramped down earlier than expected to ‘clean’ inventories.” In addition, German chipmaker Infineon Technologies will be the one to manufacture the necessary chips to give the iPhone its 3G-ness.

As you all remember, the iPhone has been derided from the beginning for its lack of 3G capabilities. Apple’s response was that it wanted to provide the most consistent experience to the widest range of possible customers. That meant using AT&T’s EDGE network, which covers practically every square inch of the U.S. Even though the iPhone includes speedier Wi-Fi, the lack of 3G prevented many from purchasing the device.

The Mac faithful were largely expecting word of a 3G iPhone at last month’s MacWorld. It didn’t happen. No new versions of the iPhone were introduced, save for the 16GB version that was bowed in late January.

What’s interesting is that Apple is hosting an event next week to detail the iPhone SDK. Apple could use this event to make other iPhone-related announcements. Will Steve Jobs actually break the news of a 3G iPhone? Who is to say.

For now, we have to take the UBS analyst’s comments with a grain of salt.

Let’s say you’re a Google shop. You run Google everything, including Mail, Chat, Apps, Calendar, and so on.

You recently caught wind of unified communications services and how they consolidate a lot of your, well, communications, into one place. Cool, right?

A new offering from Voice Mobility lets you integrate those unified communications telephony services into your existing Google Apps set up.

This is a great little deal. First, you get your enterprise communication and productivity apps from Google for free or nearly free. Then along comes Voice Mobility and ramps up the usability by offering a ton of integrated communication services.

Microsoft Exchange server? Don’t need it. Active Directory? Skip it. Office Communications server? Not necessary.

Voice Mobility’s UCN Vmerge is integrated with the Google Apps solution suite–including:

• Gmail
• Google Talk
• Google Calendar
• Google Docs
• Contacts
• Mobile apps

All using the workplace or campus domain. It brings unified communications to complete messaging, collaboration, calendaring and presence functionality.

Enterprise clients want the ability to enable their enterprise voice and fax communications to work seamlessly with Gmail.

UCN Vmerge allows full on-premise or hosted enterprise PBX integration with a hosted personalized Gmail service.

“By integrating UCN Vmerge with Google Apps, workplace and campus customers have price-effective options for collaboration functionality. No longer are customers forced to utilize expensive on-premise solutions from providers like Microsoft for collaboration functionality.”

– Mike Seeley, Voice Mobility’s VP of Global Sales

Well said, Mike.

Here’s a run down of some of the functions offered:

• Send and receive voice and fax messages from Gmail
• Record and deposit voice conversations in Gmail
• Manage live calls from the desktop
• Click-to-dial internal and external numbers from any Google application
• Import Google Contacts into UCN Vmerge for remote access
• Utilize least-cost routing available from the enterprise PBX

Not a bad list of features. Granted, it isn’t as robust and complete as other offerings on the market. But it’s not a bad start.

People are still looking to Google to roll out its own services that cover this ground now that Grand Central is part of its offering.