A series of media reports indicate that the Indian Government is concerned about a certain service, that goes by the name of Tiger Text, which allows users to send and receive messages privately and offers them the ability to permanently delete them from the receiving party as well as from the Tiger Text servers, after they've been read. The Home Ministry's Internet Security wing has reportedly written a letter to the Department of Telecom, that it should ask all mobile operators to make arrangements to intercept the Tiger Text service, before allowing it, so that legal enforcement agencies can monitor messages through the service, reports The Hindu. Note that Tiger Text provides this service through a set of cross-platform apps, that both parties need to have installed in order to use the service. What the Government does not (judging by the reports) appear to understand here is, that this service is simply a peer to peer Instant Messaging solution, that relies on data connectivity. The messages that go through the service do not by-pass through mobile operators, and are stored on internet servers of the provider. Also, operators do not offer the service on their own, and the applications are available on the app stores controlled by phone hardware and software manufactures like Apple, Google, RIM and Microsoft. What About Other P2P IM Services? There are a lot of similar services that exist, which more or less work in the same way, including the popular WhatsApp, which is being aggressively promoted by Nokia. Another…
