Sreesanth arrest: WhatsApp, BBM the latest tech tools in Match fixing?

Even as the cricket watching public comes to terms with the news that former Indian pace bowler S Sreesanth along with two of his Rajasthan Royals teammates have been arrested for spot fixing, an interesting fact that has come to light is that messaging services like WhatsApp and BBM were used by the players and bookies to coordinate. Times Now reported that the Delhi police had around 70 phones under surveillance during their probe into spot fixing in the IPL and were tracking messaging software like Whatsapp and Blackberry Messenger. [caption id=“attachment_787987” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] WhatsApp on Android[/caption] It was reportedly while tracking these messaging services that they found Sreesanth and the two others’ involvement in the spot fixing ring. Both services are reasonably more secure than SMS, which would explain why they were used as mediums for communication. Messages sent across these networks are encrypted and also exist outside of your mobile service provider. But though more difficult to track than SMS, it is not impossible to monitor both services. WhatsApp, which uses your mobile phone number as your user ID unlike BlackBerry Messenger which relies on a unique PIN number that exists outside of your mobile network provider, can be tracked quite easily. There were several claims in fact, that the Android version of WhatsApp could be vulnerable to intrusion, presenting a possible security risk to those who use the service on the Android mobile operating system in particular. BlackBerry Messenger which is almost impossible to track, was, in fact most notoriously used by London rioters as a means to organise themselves during an organised campaign of looting and burning stores in the city. However as of April this year, BlackBerry smartphone owners - who were interception-secure all these days - can be lawfully tapped in India citing security concerns, reported the Daily Mail . “Indian security agencies confirmed to Mail Today on Friday that the process to access the BBM service, which operates with the highly protected 256-bit encrypted data, is underway and would be up and running soon”, the report added. The bigger picture in all this of course, is the fact that messages you send across these networks are by no means secure, which is something to definitely think about. So while in this case the monitoring of such services uncovered a betting ring, the incident is still likely to open up larger debates around security and privacy.