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Cyber-Policing In India: Bye-Bye, Anonymity
The Zapper writes: "The Mumbai (Formerly Bombay) Cops now want to control the Cyber World. In what they call a 'Step to curb hacking and proliferation of Pornographic Email ' they are going to introduce I-D cards issued on basis of passports and driving licenses without which no one will be able to have internet access in Cybercafes all over Mumbai.
If this gets implemented, and it seems it will, the Mumbai netizens can kiss anonymity good bye for ever. The I.T bill recently passed by the present Government makes hacking and accessing pornographic sites a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than an year.
Here is Link to the
story on Yahoo India."
London
Inmate 1:I killed a guy what did you do? inmate 2:I fucked up and trying to go to whitehouse.gov and went to whitehouse.com
Did anyone even think to call up Mumbai's press office? Or did you just immediately jump on the bandwagon and start decrying "censorship". Come on, people; Mumbai's police force even has its own website. Is it too hard to send an email?
This isn't an example of a backwards nation (like Iran or France) trying to squash a technology (the Internet) they can't hope to master. Mumbai is at the forefront of the tech world (mobile banking, the first language in India to have a universal keyboard, biotechnology parks for women, etc.) They know what they're doing here: if they're implementing an ID system like this, then you know it's the correct technological solution.
You don't know what their reasons are. You're just speculating until you talk to them and find out. A mature individual doesn't exhibit knee-jerk reactions to everything.
Just wait until some cop or politician or something in India gets their history published all over the tabloids.
Even if it's fake, people will soon see that stupid technology like this cuts both ways, and can easily turn on its implementors....
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
I support anonymous posting
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Oh, hold it. This is India. They outlaw Christian missionaries (and often murder them). In fact, they're mostly Hindus -- probably the world religion with the most relaxed attitudes towards sex. Wonder why THEY want to ban pornography? Could it be that they think it damages their society?
*boggle*
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-- Slashdot sucks.
Slashdotters are liberal??!! They're libertarian, which is a primitive form of political belief. Besides, there aren't any liberals left any more.
So, you're saying, the Major King character of yours listens to Rush Limbaugh religiously, just like the rest of the Slashdotters?
Strange to see the land that created Kama Sutra and sacred sex (I forgot the name of those temples with statues of people having sex) to become so afraid of porn.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Will someone moderate the parent post up as Very Funny Indeed? Please?
Anonymity on the 'net is a thing of the past.
The needs of trustworthyness and verifiability will force the adoption of biometric verification for all data transmission. If you're doing commerce, you have to KNOW you can trust the source and the wire. Its business.
In some respects this is sad. You'll never again be able to put on masks when you're on the 'net. The phrase "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog." will become incomprehensible in a few years.
All communication will automatically be encrypted, signed and traceable from origin to destination. Spoofability will vanish. There will be no place to hide.
Paedophiles and criminals will have to loiter 'round the shadows at mall and the bus terminals like they did before 1995.
I'm not going to miss it.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I thought this sort of thing could only happen in Saudia Arabia... or Utah.
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Not widespread by any means, but definitely more than a misremembering of an NPR report.
If next time you are going to make a statement as serious as "there is female genital mutilation in india" or "there is no female genital mutilation in india" in a public forum, you would check with Google first, it would be to the betterment for us all. Just a thought.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Isn't India one of the countries that still practices female genital mutilation (aka circumcision)?
No, I think actually the problem is that I listen to so much NPR that it all starts blurring together - and I don't think it's Sudan or Ethiopia, but it definitely is a mid-east country and not India.
Sort of like the U.S. Porn is bad here. It's tolerated to a degree, but considered bad nonetheless.
One half wants to restrict what the other half sees, hears, and thinks. When that half is no longer in power, the tables turn and the other half does the same thing.
Wow. One year for coming across a pornographic site. What if it was an accident, such as a site forwarding the browser to a prono site, an unwanted pop-up, unsolicited email?
Heard about the monkey man on NPR
Many people have been attacked by this thing in New Delhi. this monkey guy is no joke. They say he has iron hands and terrorizes people who sleep on rooftops.
and you think your neighborhood is unsafe...
"Tension is the great integrity" -- R. Buckminster Fuller
Chortle? Did you ever hear about Carnivore? The CIA (well, OSS) and M5 invented this kind of paranoia (and the Germans wished they had! [Well, some Germans.]).
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
...is the Net itself, in cases like this. Wherever governments try to police their citizen's thoughts, the Net will be a subversive force. Read Shockwave Rider one more time and rest easy in the knowledge that Mumbai's citizens will soon be free again.
A rash of cybercrime by high government officials.
Scenario: someone with a clue manages to break in to the central repository of ID's, steals lots of top LE/Govt ID's, starts churning out duplicate cards and selling them on street-corners...
Suddenly, India's government is a major pr0n junkie.
"...they may harpoon us, but they ain't gonna pick us up on no radar screen!"
Don't you hate when people don't read the link before mentioned before they respond to an article?
The page that he links to is really a howl:
"Indians attacked by `monkey man'."
It's pretty obvious that the poster was not speaking of protecting children from the dangers of pedophiles, but protecting children from the invisible monkey man which is already blamed for a handful of deaths by suicide in India.
"It has three buttons on its chest. One makes it turn into a monkey, the second gives it extra strenth, the third makes it invisible," said Kumari, the housemaid.
So MOBE, may you'll start doing a little research before counteracting with a knee-jerk.
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
Sure, sure. Agreed.
;)
As long as pedophiles have the desire to commit horrible acts against children, they will. You can't protect against a pervert uncle, or a sicko step-father.
As a note to policy makers, kiddie pr0n got around before the invention of the Internet, before the invention of the fax machine, even before the invention of Polaroid cameras. Child molestation is a social issue, and no amount of legislation can stop such a social disfunction.
Anyway, check the URL next time, man...
aÍÍ©ÍÌÍ£Ì'̽ͩÌÍzÍYÌÍÌY
Once upon a time, Communism was an idea for a society that cared for all its citizens, instead of just the rich. Once it began to genuinely threaten the plutocracy, propaganda and police forces were implemented. Now everyone knows Communists are scum.
Once upon a time, recreational drug use -- especially hallucenigens -- was a harmless way to expand one's mind. Once the drop-outs and revolutionaries of the 1960's began to genuinely threaten the plutocracy (and it did, too -- Nixon had troops in the basement of the White House after Kent State), propaganda and police forces were implemented. Now everyone knows drug users are scum.
Once upon a time, computers were tools of free speech. You could write as you wished, you could share ideas, you could communicate with anyone. It is starting to genuinely threaten the plutocracy in many ways, in ``intellectual propery'' subversion and the routing around of censorship. Propaganda and police forces are being implemented. Soon everyone will think of you, the users of this uncensored bulletin board which runs on free software, as scum.
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"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
What worthwhile endeavor needs anonymity?
<p>
psychological/trauma support groups
complaining about the IRS
discussing Scientology
<p>
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
I mean -- if one does not do anything illegal online then what the fuss is about? And if one does something illegal on- or off-line then one should be punished for one's own deeds.
Everybody can post shit about anything or anyone anonymously. I'd be happy to see less of their crap all over the place.
You have to understand that anybody who owns more than two computers runs a cyber-cafe: one to run Linux and squid, and two to sell Internet access with. Indians are incredibly entreprenurial. Makes you wonder why their government is so socialist.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Is it me or does that seem like an awful lot for a single city?
it wasn't that long ago when we thought the solution to idiots who shouldn't be on the net in the first place was to make an internet license mandatory, complete with a written exam.
now these privacy nuts will ruin it all.
-Lx?
IMHO, India as a whole has much more severe human rights problems to take care of than anonymous access to cybercafes.
That is not to say that religion and politics don't get mixed! They should not, and the Indian consititution protects religious freedom and separates religion from state affairs.
I can never figure out why the authorities seem to be so interested in who's looking at pornography. India is the worlds largest supplier of illict opium, yet they want to spend their law enforcement budget hunting purveyors of t&a ?
When is there too much anonymity? At what point are we willing to sacrifice our implied rights so that others aren't exploited?
My right to swing my fist ends where the other mans nose begins... O. W. Holmes.
Anonymity is a prerequisite for child pornography and spamming (to name just two). What worthwhile endeavor needs anonymity? If we all took responsibility for everything we did in cyberspace, perhaps cyberspace would be in better shape, neh? To add another obvious example, you could say good-bye to the trolls!
Peace
Seems like the site moved the page. Anyways this is the link for the company who suckered India's goverment into buying highly priced honeypots.
http://www.peakxv.net/InterOp/interop.html
The more uninformed goverments are, the more likely cruddy laws will be passed that hinders tech sectors such as those in the industry on a security related basis. Well thankfully I don't have these laws in the US oh so great land of the free && *snicker*
Want Root?
Recently the Indian government was suckered into buying honeypots and in January for those who don't recall they hired a dozen script kiddies to handle security (I couldn't find the link sorry), so what I see happening is, goverments are getting scared by technology, and instead of coming up with logical solutions, they feel harsh punishments will deter someone's future actions.
Instead of creating such broad laws which can also hurt innocent people somewhere down the line, hardcore studies should be done before such broad laws are created, and every 5 or so years another study should be done to ensure the laws are working to the benefit of the people as opposed to throwing something out because of fears, or because its almost election time $WHEREVER.
Sadly it looks like we are going to have a complete world full of drones who'll either be afraid to interact, or a world full of what the government will view as anarchists if things continue with these trends.
Want Root?
> How is requiring an ID card to use internet cafes any different from having to have a library card to check out books
You are borrowing LIBRARY property. In cyberspace you aren't borrowing anyone's property. BIG DIFFERENCE.
> a license to drive a car
You don't need permission from the government to exercise your Right To Travel
e.g. An International Driver's Permit works quite nicely. (Not valid in the place of issue)
Cheers
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"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." - Thomas Jefferson
O US Slashdot reader, Consider this: you probably have a drivers' licence and you probably drive everywhere. For the vast majority of US residents, for the vast majority of the time that you're out and about on public property, you're driving.
To drive you must have, on you, your government issued ID. A cop can ask you for your ID at any time. (Sure, "probable cause" and all that crap, but have you heard of DWB - Driving While Black (or Brown)?)
The most common form of public transportation for you, O USian Reader of Slashdot, is airline travel. You have to show them your state-issued ID to get on that plane. In an international airport, you can be asked to show an INS or Customs or DEA agent "your papers".
So here's my thesis: In the US, we all have to carry a state-issued ID card that the police can ask us for at any time.
Perhaps there's more to freedom than having to carry ID.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Go here3 23 1%255E1702,00.html
or:
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,200
With things like this going on in India, I'd say drastic measures are called for indeed.
-carl
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
The vast majority of the people are landless and disenfranchised (emphasis mine)
India is a stable democracy and has been that way for the past 54 years - no coups, nothing. Yes, democracy is implemented haphazardly in India, but to suggest that anyone in India is disenfranchised is ridiculous. Maybe you don't know what the word disenfranchised means.
The land must be redistributed
The commies are coming, the commies are coming...
and social (marriage) laws enacted so as to link the wealth of the land to population increases. There should not be more people than the resources of the country can support comfortably.
I have no idea what you mean by that but if you're thinking of forcibly sterilizing people or disallowing them from getting married or having children, I'm very, very afraid of you.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Anonymity is important to preserve, and can still be preserved. I'm not sure what criteria they're going to to implement, but something as simple as requiring a search warrant (an already existing mechanism to prevent abuse of police power) for the release of the records is sufficient to protect us from those who would carry on illegal activities online.
What the heck is this evil crime called morphing? Does this mean they can't do digital animation online?
Wait. I was under the (false?) impression that people of Islamic and Hindu faiths have been duking it out in India for the last couple thousand years - with each side waxing and waning, but always present in a non-trivial way. Now, just because it so happens that at this moment Hindu is more prevalent doesn't mean that there aren't deep cultural effects of having been under the dominant influence of Islam in the (semi)recent past.
But, maybe I've just read one too many EM Forster novels.
Wind
I think I need my eyes testing, I must be going blind; because I read this as ....
... to curb hacking and proliferation of Pornographic Email ' they are going to introduce 1D [Graphics] cards
Or, more specifically, how is the indian government issuing ID cards to track what you're doing in a cybercafe (notice they're talking public access points here, nobody said anything about them issuing ID cards for using the internet in your own home), different than say a certain well known government censoring what sites you're allowed to visit at your local library public library?
--
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
If a culture believes that pornography is bad and the government of that culture enacts laws to curb it, is it really oppression? We have laws against kiddie porn, etc., but we don't think that's oppressive because it makes sense to us. It's a different culture. Different things make sense to them. How is requiring an ID card to use internet cafes any different from having to have a library card to check out books, a license to drive a car, etc.?
Got Rhinos?
For an introduction to the steamy side of India's cultural heritage.
Test 1 2 3 4
Anonyminity lets you surf for pr0n, MP3, MPEG, post wild outrageous flamebait, use vile, violent fekking language, snoop into other people's sites, obtain information about your socially unacceptable behaviors, diseases you might rather not discuss in the open (gee, my hemmoroids act like seat cushions). You can discuss your whacked out goat.se.x-based religion, plot to overthrow the city council, learn to cook animals rather that just veggies, to grow your own food rather than live on the backs of others, study obscure forms of writing. All without revealing who you are. Some societies (e.g., Afghanistan) find this offensive. Others might too. Imagine that. I think that the need for anonyminity is stupid, but recognize that in the face of large organizations, it is a necessary evil.
What scares me about this is the precedent that it sets. Once a door like this is openned anywhere, it raises the likelyhood that the same thing will happen elsewhere. If this goes through, how long will it be before we *all* end up carrying such an id card?
Frightening thought, wouldn't you say?
Kez
The scary thing is, you could very well be right. At that point, the internet suddenly starts looking unattractive.
Kez
I guess that India's cafes could block all ports and just allow access thru proxies, if they wanted to fight that. It will go back and forth untill they either give up, or cafe's are all but unusable except for basic email and web access.
No replies made to AC posts. Please log in.
What better way is there to demonstrate Freenet's usefullness than in situations like this?
Thnx.
#BBS-Files on DALNet IRC, Come and Chat about the good old days of BBSing!
please forgive me for I have drunk lots of righteous spanish wine tonight, but, what kind of fucko would beat off in a public place?
These "Internet Cafe"s have better connectivity like a high speed leases line, cable internet connection etc. So sometimes people prefer these compared to the poor dialup service. In addition to this I won't be surprised if people see good business oppertunity in Internet porn sites in a city like *mba* which already has a well established "sex industry" (also not legal in India).
Recently some companies have started introducing Cable internet connection for domestic users ... I hope that things will improve ...
That is the sound of f Indian geeks leaving the country en masse for greener and more liberal countries.
And is it just me thinking that there is a certain sense of irony in prohibiting pornography in one of the most population-dense countries in the world? Methinks they have this male-female sexual congress thing down pat.
...that gave us the Kama Sutra?
You'd think they'd be more enlightened over there.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Isn't India one of the countries that still practices female genital mutilation (aka circumcision)?
Nope! You are probably thinking of Sudan or Ethiopia. But who cares, right? Just another third world country...
Please excuse my ignorance and stereotypes, but as far as I know, India tends to look the other way when it comes to the sex trade, especially in Mumbai. I have read that the city has hundreds of brothels.
I think that really the government is only doing this for two reasons:
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Word of advice: Don't get a Hotmail or AOL account! You thought deleting spam was a pain in the ass...
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Sadly, bribery is a common means of getting what you want from government officials in India. However, in this case it will allow people to easily circumvent this whole process. I don't believe that many people will actually make proper use of the IDs. Only tourists will have to show their passports/tickets.
Think about this:
If you could walk around in the world anonymously. No one would know who you were and couldn't trace you. How much would crime increase?
I use this as a strong point. Of course, things as bad as rape and murder (and tax evaison!) wouldn't happen over the net, but when people are forced to tell who they are, even if no one would know who they were, they tend to be cautious and safer. It isn't big-brotherism, because they aren't watching you every second, they are just forcing you to show your face when you do something naughty.
Imagine having the name of someone who just sent you that pron spam, or the name of the 43 year old man that is chatting with your 14 year old daughter.... it isn't all that bad, is it??
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit: /.'ers since Spring 2001.
Pissing off hyper caffineated
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
"for more than an year"
What's the jail term for obviously bad grammer?
I can smell the smell of progress. Weeee!
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Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
Where did this idea come from? Where was it decided that the internet is an inherantly, unrestricted, unrestrictable, utterly anonymous place where people have complete and unassailably privacy? That's utter crap. It started for two reasons: so well-identified and verified military personnel could communicate and so well identified and verified academics could communicate.
Anonymity only exists in certain corners - corners like Slashdot that people like us hang in. But I'm hardly anonymous as far as the net is concerned. All the information needed to find my seat is flowing back and forth through my connection. That is the natural state of the net. We can put up various blocks and spoofs to try to fool it, or set up systems that purpously ignore it, but it's all there, wide out in the open.
Some student popping into a cybercafe is still going to be able to post to his favorate newsgroups, discussion sites, and maybe even BBSs if he knows they exist with all the anonymity he had before. Just now, if someone wants to put a lot of work into it, his comments can be traced back to him to the same degree that mine can be traced back to me. The only "privacy" that is lost, is the same kind of privacy that walking around with a sheet on and a pillow case over your head affords - and, like in real life, that's neither the normal state of affairs, nor one very many people intentionally seek out.
And this is a good thing. Whether it's Klan hoods or taped over badge numbers, the perception of anonymity has an overwhelming tendancy to bring out the absolute worst in people. The fact that other people do (or, at least, conceivably can) watch us is indespensable in a society. What causes problems is when some members of the society can't be watched. It doesn't sound like this is the case with the police in question.
The primary concerns sited had nothing to do with pornography. They had to do with the fact that the cybercafes are being frequented for the purposes of hostile computer attacks and threats.
First, as of course you realized, appeals to the US 1st amendment make very little difference in other countries. It is also of very little use when debating how things "should" be to appeal to how they happen to be.
That said, your point has merit. The right to speak anonymously has been upheld in this country - and for the Klan specifically - and there are solid reasons behind that. However, there are a couple of differences here. First, the circumstances of, say, a klan march are somewhat different than an untracked internet usage. If a Klansman wlaking through a black neighborhood shouts a threat at a specific protester, the police may nab the marcher and take his pillow case off. As a matter of practical usage, this is exactly what the police have instituted. Second, the action in question is not merely speech, but also commerce, and even in the good old USA there are much stricter controls on commerce than on pure speech - even though the Supreme Court has held that the use of money is protected speech in many contexts. You can't buy a car without the state knowing who you are, for instance. Well, here you can't rent internet access from a cybercafe without the state at least being able to know who you are.
The suggestions that a method not involving login cards could be used - say, supplying identification to the cafe, which would then track who used what computer and when - do have merit, and are much closer to other commercial tracking methods. However, the system they propose is actually less intrusive. Unless and until the police need to track who used a computer, only the user and the computer need know. If the system were done using normal identification and registration, everyone who worked at the cybercafe or had access to the log books (licitly or not) would know who was using what computers when and for how long.
Do you want the basis of your government to be one specific religion?
...they'll be building huge jails, they'll be.... prostitution is okay instead?
"Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it." - W. Reich
And I have to ask: why should the groom be required to show that he can support a family? My interest would be in showing that somebody can support the family, and my money's on the wife. The World Bank has been finding that, tradition notwithstanding, a hell of a lot of women are better businessmen than their husbands anyway, less inclined to piss away wealth on status and liquor (in fact, I'd bet the dowery tradition has a lot to do with fathers showing off how much they can give away.)
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
The territorial instinct is often vested in the male, it's true, and it's frankly one of the more embarrassing aspects of my gender since it's not good for much of anything yet takes up so much time and energy. Male lions are very good at protecting their territory against other male lions, but not nearly as good at hunting as their females. Pimps are exteremely territorial, but all the work is done by the hookers. Gang members will defend their turf against other gangs, but still live with their mothers because all their efforts are completely unproductive. The very fact that females tend to be less territorial and more practical inclines me to invest in them rather than their mates.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Still, it's good to know that my ilk and I are responsible for the sorry state of the world. I thought I pretty much had my hands full being responsible for the sorry state of my lawn, but I guess my authority is greater than I thought.
I'm not "male-bashing", I'm simply pointing out that not every aspect of male behaviour is necessarily a good thing. The territorial instinct is terrific to ensure the promulgation of one's genes, but that's not the same thing as getting food or shelter. In many cases (including, to my horror, farm cats) it includes things like killing the young of previous mates, behaviour that I think we'd agree should generally be discouraged in polite society.
If you'd like to address the instinct to protect one's children (an instinct I certainly felt from the moment I watched my daughter's birth), then I'll happily join you in praising men. I find that instinct one of our finest. Just don't confuse it with territoriality, which in of itself neither feeds nor protects anybody, but rather seeks self-aggrandizement, if need be at the expense of the community or even family. Howler monkeys are probably not our best models.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Like ecological balance, survival is dynamic, and circumstances generally favour the best dancers. Sometimes territorial behaviour is highly appropriate, and sometimes it's not, which may be part of the reason that previously succesful and highly territorial lions are dying out in relatively open Africa while flexible coyotes are thriving here in the built-up United States. Most territorial behaviour is against members of one's own species, and indeed generally only other males of one's species, because it's primarily about reproduction rather than sustenance. It's not about maintaining a hunting ground, because lions (for instance), do not spend their days driving off cheetahs or jackals (clearly competitors for food), just other male lions. They don't care all that much whether their cubs get fed, just that nobody else mates with their females. It is, after all, a game of percentages -- if you kill everybody but your offspring, for instance, then you've won (your genes are the most common in the surviving population), even though your species has been severely damaged.
I do have to say, though, that if you find marking trees and making rude noises at other males the sum of masculinity, such that questioning its utility is "male-bashing", then you don't think much of us. Personally I find that I and most other men are capable of far more than waving our dicks to impress some other guy who walks into the neighborhood.
For my part, I only wave mine to impress girls.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
The question to ask isn't why should this new and dangerous "anonymity" thing be allowed on the internet. It's why should our old and familiar freedom be stopped on the internet. And of course, it shouldn't.
First question... are there only cyber-cafes there?
I have relatives in Mumbai. Though it's been a while since I visited, the first thing to note is that most (or at least many) people don't have telephones in their home. It's much more common for 1 person in a building to have a phone, and for everyone else to borrow it. Thus, for people who have computers, dial-up isn't common, and broadband quite rare.
This is particularly true in College Hostels. Unlike dorms here (or at least where I went to school) there aren't phones in every room. Plus, if your family has a computer, it's probably for the entire family -- not just you. Cybercafes are a much more major source of internet access.
An illustrative example. I have about 7-8 email addresses that I use, plus another 5-6 that simply forward, plus two domains in which I can create an infinite number of addresses. This is just me. My mom (who lives here) has 4 email addresses, my brother has several and even my technophobe father have his own. My grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins in India all share 1 hotmail account. (And they actually have "home" access through my uncle's office.)
Summary: There aren't only cybercafe's in Mumbai, but there are a lot more people who have no other alternative.
I can spell. I just can't type.
I suspect it's the American influence causing you to mock that which you don't understand. Do we need to impose our "superior" culture and values on all the nations of the world?
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
Where then do they get the models for this site?
India has a number of pressing issues they should be handling as a priority rather than this, however I can understand the social forces driving this initiative.
They are based on the nature of religion. In western europe and the United States, religion has taken a back seat to politival motivations. In countries with far more history, and cultures that have developed over many thousands of years, religion remains at equal footing with politics, thus, religous goals are achieved through political acts and setting of social policy. This is not nessecerily a bad thing, but a DIFFERENT thing than one would epect in the United States where seperation of Church and State is a fundemental principle woven into our social fabric at almost an unconcious level.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Ah. You are correct. The mistake I've made here seems to be the same one made by meany of those here discussing this topic. It's a sad comentary that Americans (myself included of course) seem to have an inability to discuss other cultures inteligently, without making such blunders.
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
A culture based on ideology is more dangerous than a culture based on greed. Greed makes people act predictably, and in a manner consistant with the logic around such things as self-preservation.
Ideology drives people to do many strange and unpredictable things, or are they only unpredictable from my perspective because I may not share the ideology? Well, no that can't be right, because Ideology is often open to indevidual interpretation. Greed is greed, and to quote one of my favorite movies of all time, 'Ladies and gentlemen, [...] greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.'.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Sure, Carnivore and Echelon and Tempest and the list goes ever on...but I'm talking about the difficulty of tracking down that last mile if you're using a public access point. Which is the only thing preserving at least some anonymity in the U.S.
I see a lot of Yanks talking as if it couldn't happen in the U.S.
I did some consulting for a U.S. government agency a few years back. Their network was using DHCP but the higher-ups were quite upset because they couldn't associate user with IP address. They spent millions ripping out their old network operating system and implementing another just to get this capability.
The government of the U.S. hates anonymity. They would like to be able to track absolutely everything and as soon as they can see a way to do it without getting too much noise from their citizens that's precisely what will happen.
Don't chortle too much about India.
So India wants to require people to have some form of ID before accessing from an Internet cafe, so what? The problem I see here is that there's a big fuss over privacy and anonymity. FYI, they (India) don't have to require IDs. Instead, they could require all Internet cafes get security cameras pointed straight at customers faces when they visit. From there, it's only a matter of linking your image back to you (something police departments are capable of with the equipment they have). Whether it's some Internet cafe in India or that Kinkos down the street, your privacy is not protected, because company policy only go as far as where the government permits.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. -Friedrich Nietzsche
India is a hugely Hindu nation. Pakistan/Bangladesh broke off, taking most of the Muslim population. India however, still has one of the largest Muslim populations in the world, but that's because they have the second largest population in the world.
Hmm... Advanced thought-policing and big brothering from the same country that's currently having problems with the 'Monkey Man'.
/ india.monkeyman/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/05/17
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
The main point to be considered here is that the target audience of most of the internet cafes in India are the teen agers. Once they lose their anonymity, they'll find other ways of browsing (for eg, getting a dial-up & using Anonymizer). The net effect is that most of the cyber (so called) parlors will close down. Corruption prevails in all walks of society in India. I guess most of the internet cafe owners wouldn't mind giving some bribe to the local cops to turn a blind eye on people surfing without providing any valid ids. Or even better, they can subscribe to an Anonymizer-like service, which would prevent anyone from pointing to them as accomplices to cyber crimes.
..:: Molotov's cocktail is a Russian blowjob
The Indian government is beginning to realize the importance of monitoring cyber crimes just now. They recently set up a Cyber Crime Research and Development Unit (CCRDU). The Information Technology Act still is in infancy. There are many grey areas and much left to be desired. The complete text of the act can be found here. IT law persons can read it and have a good laugh at some sections. The frivolousness of the whole thing can be gauged from the fact that the first arrests under the cyber-crime laws were made only on February 9th, 2001.
..:: Molotov's cocktail is a Russian blowjob
Perhaps not all is bad regarding non-anonymity. But on the other hand, you have the tremendous good that comes from it. The ability to speak freely without fear of persecution.
Trampling on one's rights to anonymity in the event of a crime is indeed another story, but it intersects with the other. Take Carnivore, and the like. There is always the risk that other, non-criminal activity will be tracked as well, and there is always the possiblity of corruption. And more often than not, possibility becomes a reality.
So, what does the government do? It's between a rock and a hard place. Ultimately, I think the people (which in this country happen to be the government as well) should wisen up a bit. If there is a buyer, there is a seller. If a crime can happen, it will. So, let's stop trying to make it more difficult for a crime to take place, let's stop the crime altogether. Of course, that'll never happen either.
Hasn't anybody told them about Wingates, even if it is for accessing pr0n?
"...Fear the people who fear your computer"
just go to a temple.
Seriously, the culture that brought you the Kama Sutra and has carvings of every conceivable sexual practive on their temples walls should not be so prudish about a little skin.
I suspect it's the English influence.
as it does for most of India's people, a cyber-cafe makes sense.
Here in the affluent west, we forget that computers are a luxury, and not a cheap commodity for most of the world. Indeed, we tend to rub the noses of the people of color in it, by continually talking about our home lans, and beowulf clusters, and bragging that we wouldn't even stoop to pick up a 486 that's on the curb.
It seems that this would mostly catch tourists (unless the people of Mumbai can only get access from cybercafes), and I wouldn't expect that to work since the tourists would probably have already left the country by the time officials can get to them in the log files.
Children are not the only people being abused in India and elsewhere. India needs to make social and land reforms. India is a huge and rich country with a resourceful people. Unfortunately only a small percentage of the upper class controls the wealth of India. The vast majority of the people are landless and disenfranchised. So they flock to big cities in search of a living and they become target for abuse and exploitation. They are slaves by necessity. The land must be redistributed and social (marriage) laws enacted so as to link the wealth of the land to population increases. There should not be more people than the resources of the country can support comfortably.
The internet is your weapon. Download it all and copy it all!
...child pornography is one of the arguments that those who would steal our freedom use to enact their laws. The poster may have been joking but child abuse is indeed a problem in India and elsewhere. Taking away people's freedom by snooping on them is not going to solve the problem.
All Indian citizens should rise up against this affront on their freedom. Hackers around the world should come to aid of their Indian counterparts in finding technological solutions around this crap. It is thought slavery, pure and simple. Resist it with everything you've got. Do it in the name of Ghandi if you have to. A billion Indians passively demonstrating with civil disobedience should do the trick. It would also send a powerful message to the rest of the world that the human species is not about to be enslaved by Big Brotherism whereever it takes root.
The internet is your weapon. Download it all and copy it all!
Please he was Gandhi not Ghandi.
Sorry.
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Manifesto for the Peoples of the Third Millennium
Two corrections.
It is the Hindu religion (Hin as in the Hindenberg and Du as in Du Hast).
Yes, the religion is open about sexuality, but society here isn't. People do not talk about anything remotely close to sexuality - call it the effect of 1000 years of decadence and lack of education.
-Shaunak.
Nothing like this would ever happen in the USA. Can you spell CARNIVORE?
* Carthago Delenda Est *
I can see the driving force of such action, although I don't like the way it's being done© I should hope at least that there are lots of safeguards in place to prevent abuse ¥wishful thinking, right?, such as strict time limits on keeping the data around, strict limits on who can view it, etc©
Check out this site http://khajuraho.freeservers.com/ which contains images of the famous Khajuraho temples in India and the vivid pornography depicted on the walls on this ancient temples.
We aren't in real life. You are always responsible for your actions. Why shouldn't you be that also when you are online?
Noone should be more anonymous online than they are in "real life". Normally you are always responsible for your action and this should also be the case online I think.
Is it just me, don't you think "I-D" looks like a really k3w1 emoticon? Think about it. Why would you spell "ID" with a hyphen anyway?
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The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.
The IDs are only for using internet cafes. I'd say this is far from kissing anonymity forever. To say this sets a dangerous precedent that could lead to the departure of anonymity of Mumbai citizens on the internet would be more accurate. Either way, I agree it's not a good thing. There are better ways to stop unwanted pr0n spam. Issuing IDs for internet use is just a knee-jerk reaction that will hurt more than help.
I wonder if alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.indian-asian will see a decrease in high quality posts now. There's something I find attractive about sari-clad women showing off their goods. Especially the ones where the lady is reaching above her head to grasp the mango branch, all birth-of-buddha like.
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"Fuck your mama."
"the name of Ghandi if you have to" Please he was Gandhi not Ghandi.
Tat Tvam Asi
First question... are there only cyber-cafes there?
Second, wouldn't something like Zero Knowledge still work on the home computer?
Screw those guys...
Beyond the obvious invasion of privacy these ID cards are promoting, there is another problem with tracking people across the internet. It is too simple to forge IP information as it is, there is no indication in the article that this new technology will guarantee 100% tracking to a given computer. In a cafe environment there is probably little security between computers, a hacker could use the IP of the computer across the room.
Of course, this level of accountability is so far a fiction, as well it should be. Too many consumer boxes are used as springboards to facilitate hacking elsewhere. The poor sap who owns the computer that is currently doing malicious deeds can't really be held accountable for its actions, to do so wouldn't really solve anything. It seems it will be the same in India, just because the computers say that this IP was accessing this server at this time doesn't actually mean that you can reliably track it to an individual.
Over the long term we'll probably employ a system similiar to this by choice. As people gain better ways to identify themselves online, we'll probably decide to cut the truly anonymous out of our online lives entirely. In the same way Anonymous Cowards are culled from our discussions by default, we'll find our time is too valuable to spend it interacting with someone who can't be bothered to identify themself.
While its very easy to rant and rave about the violations of individual liberties happening in India, we Americans. forget that we live in a country and society far different than that of other nations. The sterotypical slashdotter lives in a relatively priviledged country and environment as far as personal freedom goes. I wouldn't say that other countries are in a worse situation - maybe from our viewpoint, but OUR VIEWS ARE NOT GLOBAL. Indian society is much different than that of America's, and we don't seem to account for these differences. Have you considered that individual liberty may in fact *not* be as important as, say, moral and community values? Sure, they're dictated by the state in India, and don't attack this practice with the same liberal mentality. Not all people feel violated when the government takes away certain rights to benefit something else. The mindset of a rabid individualist is generally valued throughout the world today because America, as the strongest power, has enough influence to spread these values. Wait until the cycle passes and America is humbled. Our prized notions of individual liberty will weaken as does our global power.
I'm not a communist or anything, I'm just saying that all the liberalism I see on slashdot is getting pretty tiring and unjustified.
Isn't it ironic that in a country where rural girls are still sold into slavery as prostitutes, that it's illegal to access pornography on the net? Talk about inconsistencies...
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Unless I am mistaken, most of the Islamic influence in India--not all, but most--was taken care of with the breakaway of Pakistan. Now the Hindus have a very very significant majority in India, whereas Pakistan is controlled by Islam.
I have no hard ethnographic data, though. So, I could be mistaken, though I'd expect that if Islam had that much influence in India, that laws would be more restrictive about sexuality than they are even with the new netporn ban.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Pardon me for pointing this out, but the Hundu religion prevalent in India is much more open about sexuality than the Christian religion. Your argument would hold water for Islamic countries, but definitely not for India.
Not only is Hindu literature filled with explicit sexual trysts, but sex between appropriate partners has always been acceptable there, even outside of marriage. This is one reason why prostitution is so common in India and much more open than it is in most of the West--it's socially acceptable in most circles to visit prostitutes.
This is why India's desire to censor net porn from its citizenry is so puzzling. That, and the fact that they have so much poverty, child slavery, and other severe problems that it's just absurd to waste precious resources filtering porn.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
one way around this would be for the people of india to set up there own network in the essence of guerrilla.net where no one controls you
The article mentions that the target is cybercafes. So what? If you're really determined, you can dial out internationally or disguise yourself through numerous shell accounts around the world.
If you expect privacy at a cybercafe, you have another thing coming.
If I were Indian, I really wouldn't be worried until the poh-leece make it a crime *not* to install a government version of Backorifice on all consumer PCs.
I don't understand how anyone could have anything truly good to say about pornography.
Why would anyone defend its presence, or mourn its loss?
ignorance my friend The Indian culture is not decadent and neither is its education ever heard of a U.S state that can boast of 100% literacy? We can take Kerala Who runs the Silicon Valley ? Indians Do Netscape, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel all have major Indian scientists/ programmers who contributed majorly to their success Nasa i believe has an overwhelming no. of Indians, so much so there is an Indian food Restaurant/Canteen Poverty Yes, unfortunately Child Labour (not slavery - you get paid for labout though it isnt good either) Yes because of poverty again Decadence in Culture - DEFINITELY NO Decadence in Education - DEFINITELY NO
Lots of Questions, here are some clarifications 1) Cybercafes are for tourists ? Not in India, in India, more users access the net from cybercafes than from homes, i suspect the figure might be double because not many people can afford a computer when their annual salary is less than its cost. So a LOT of people are affected 2) Why should we care ? Who needs porn ? Lots of people may need it and I am not one of them. Also this is not just about porn, this is about something else. The Indian I.T act empowers a police officer above a certain rank to make arrests without a warrant. Now if i pissed off my neighbouring police officer with loud rock music, he could easily have me 'fixed' in for an year and even if he never proved the charges, he wouldnt need to- in India my case wouldnt come up for hearing before atleast 3 months. Most drag upto years and people endup in jail for more time as undertrials than the maximum sentence they could get for their crimes.This is not a speculation, it is quite often that such things happen here. 3) I dont want the world to know what sites i visit. If tomorrow i start a net campaign against the ruling party, they could and would have me in jail in about 24 hours. Just yesterday, the first thing the chief minister of an Indian state did after getting elected was to put an opposite party candidate in prison for 'poll violence'. 4) If the govt wants to stop porno access, they can ban the urls from the servers of the handful International Gateways that India has, why play big brother ? All said and done, India is still a techno savvy country with only a few people like the Bombay Commisioner, who is still learning MS-Office with his colleagues,who think they can do anything and get away with it.That is why we do expect that Some-one will stop this from happening. How is this different from Carnivore ? It is even worse, with Carnivore, you had my i.p address and then you may be able to track my home address, with I.D cards you straightaway have my address and phone number. There is one positive thing however and that is that potenital crackers now have a greater chance of being caught, but most Indian sites are hacked by Pakistani punks, maybe the govt should look for the enemy somewhere else instead of in their own country. regards The Zapper
Cyber-policing in Mumbai is a small fry as compared to what CBI etc might be doing to invade your privacy. They engage in pre-emptive policing to try to stop crime before it happens, but in the process collect a lot of data, about a lot of people based on Phone calls (remember the Cronje affair?), emails etc. Who knows they might have "black-boxes" placed at mail-servers to screen email already.