MI5 is being bought in for a reason, and it is not the Mathematical capabilities or there technological resources, after all its GCHQ job to provide those to MI5.
I suspect they are not even going to brother with try to crack the code instead they will steal the encryption keys from RIM or who ever have them and probably implant a high level individual with in the company able to keep on feeding this information to the security services, plus details of the operating systems, and so fourth.
I could see GCHQ and MI5 implanting software onto the Blackberry OS to enable backdoor for which GCHQ can use to hack the phones directly.
For example imagine if GCHQ could send out a programme to everyone in a riot area, and then programme beams back unencrypted messages to the security services. As well as the locations of those phones long after the rioting has stopped.
One thing for sure if GCHQ will eventually fine some way to penetrate the system, whether that cracking the code or getting to the messages before they are encrypted in the first place.
I guest we will know whether it is true that GCHQ is at least 5 to 10 years ahead of publicly available encryption and decryption technologies or perhaps not, may be they already know they can crack the black berry security and this is just misdirection of there part to hide there capabilities from foreign powers. After all I am sure if they could already read the messages, putting out the myth that they are uncrackable might lead to more criminals and intelligence agencies using the devices in the first place and thus more easily obtainable information for GCHQ and MI5/6 to use.
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