Slashdot Mirror
Mandatory Keyloggers in Mumbai's Cyber Cafes
YIAAL writes "Indian journalist Amit Varma reports that Mumbai's police are requiring the city's 500 Internet cafes to install keystroke loggers, which will capture every keystroke by users and turn that information over to the government — nearly in realtime by the sound of it. Buy things online, and the underpaid Indian police will have your credit card number. 'Will these end up getting sold in a black market somewhere? Not unlikely.'"
Likely?
Am I the only one noticing how all the world's major nations are accelerating towards fascism? Perhaps we're headed towards some sort of violent global revolution, I know we here in the US are LONG overdue (what was it Jefferson said? A violent overthrow every decade is vital to the health of a nation?). I'm hoping for a world without borders and a benevolent, corruption-proof, completely transparent government. And abandoning coal and oil for nuclear power. And truly non-evil corporations. And free candy on Fridays for everyone.
Of course this is ridiculous because the only people that will be effected by it are innocent people. Criminals and (gasp) terrorists will simply find other ways of communicating. The cafe owners will lose business, and innocent folks will suffer a completely useless invasion of privacy so the government can say they are doing something without actually doing something that makes any difference.
Will it work on Linux?
Depending on the key logger's capabilities, an easy way to improve your security is to open another edit window (for example notepad) next to the password input window. Enter a character of your secret password, credit card number, etc), then, using the mouse, switch focus to the second window, type in a bunch of random characters, switch back, rinse and repeat. The logger ends with a bunch of gibberish, some of which is your key. If you do it right, extracting your secret from the resulting log will be really difficult (especially since the mouse allows you to add new characters in the middle of the already typed string, which means the characters in your secret won't even be in order).
After they hire all the people required to sift and parse this data, there will be no Indian programmers left for outsourcing. Bravo, keep up the good work - bureaucracy know no bounds.
Many people in what we call "developing nations" do not have personal computers, and use computers in cyber cafes instead. This includes even computer-savvy people. Still a bad idea to buy online, in my opinion, but it transfers the onus of privacy from a cafe owner who you look in the face to some guy in an office somewhere. And as CounterStrike has taught us, it's a lot easier to be a fuckwad to people you can't see or hear.
... keyboards drawn on the screen under each input field, with Javascript to tie clicks by the mouse pointer on the keys in that keyboard image so the characters are inserted into the appropriate field.
Another option where Javascript can't be used is to create a printed character array that has all the characters. Use the mouse to copy and paste characters one at a time between there and the input field.
All this will be done through HTTPS, of course. Next come the mandatory rootkits. Then patrons bringing in their own Ubuntu or Knoppix disks.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
And if you're being a political rabble rouser you can type "Bush is a wally" so that it looks like "wish us a Bally".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
What a wonderful government we have and how much I'm glad that they're looking out for us Mumbaian citizens. This will surely stamp out terrorism in my country, where the evil-doing bomb-plotters have been sipping lattes in conspiratorial net-enabled secrecy for far too long. Our glorious (and handsome!) leaders have finally realized that only when all of our thoughts have been properly parsed and vetted by a central governing board of censors can we truly be free. This is a wonderful day, truly.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
You damn liberals just don't get it: we are fighing a War on Terra, and need EVERY tool available to us. You don't need privacy if you have nothing to hide.
It's the duty of every good conservative to have blind faith in government. Government derives it's power from the wealthy, and as every good conservative knows, God tells us the wealthy are better people (that's why they have money). So if you are against the government... ANY government (especially a good conservative dictatorship), you are just a terrorist.
Better story to be slashdotted with lot of background research done would be http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEP200 70902113325&Title=Nation&rLink=0
Do you think a country which provides such an extreme freedom of expression can ever implement keyboard logging ?
The keyboard story is mis-sensationalized. I am from mumbai and I can't even imagine that this kind of thing can happen anywhere in india.The statement might be from a police officer who is computer savvy in his office just to show windows screensaver floating around.The journalist himself just seemed to have gotten his new PC after working for 40 years on his typewriter.
It never happenend here....and to the best of my experience with the country it never will.A old story by a reporter of a genre who can't stop flooding indian channels with stories of rebirth of american scientists in india."Pappu falling in a 30 feet well or Reshma running away with her neighbour are things I don't care." reflects the suffering of commons at hands of them. Then they come up with stories which makes you look up and even gets slashdotted !!! without doing any background check. If we discuss each and every statement of f***g beaurocrates and politicians from "caste reservations
in private sector" to "communist thoughts of nationalizing each and every economic activity".
If you're entering any information in to a computer at a cyber cafe that you don't want public then you are an idiot.
You can't trust any random computer you sit down at.
...and that is all I have to say about that.
http://jessta.id.au
Knoppix
Insert Knoppix in the drive and reboot the PC before you do anything. I bet it would work at most Cafe's.
About 10 years ago in Bangalore a software company got a piracy operation raided by the police with a bunch of floppies being the major evidence collected. When evidence was presented in court the police had punched the floppies and filed them like paper. The pirates literally laughed their way out of court.
These days the police in India are technology savvy and most serious crime cases are solved quickly within days. This is possible because criminals use technology like mobile phones and internet to plan and coordinate. For the most part people are thankful for all this - a few years ago it was looking like criminals were smarter than most people.
India had a law named Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) that had draconian provisions and was repealed by the current government. Right now there isn't any law in India to arrest people on the basis of suspicion alone. The police need solid evidence to book people under regular laws.
That George Washington could have been king, had he wanted. He was loved enough and had enough clout that he essentially could have done as he pleased. Had he been a power hungry man, the US republic would not have taken off as it did. Might not have gone the way of absolute dictatorship, but it sure as hell wouldn't have existed as it does. Fortunately, he was a man that really cared about the ideals of freedom and set the standard of a chief executive with limited power and a good deal of accountability. However counting on that to happen isn't a good idea. Anyone care to wager if it were a man like George Bush who had lead the colonies to victory rather than Washington? You think it all would have gone the same?
As was noted: History is full of revolutions that do not end in a nice, happy government. They usually promise that, and sometimes the revolutionaries themselves really are idealists with good intentions, but power corrupts. Have a look at Zimbabwe some time and tell me how well that revolution went.
A preliminary google search of two sets of keywords
e yloggers&num=10&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=& as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt =any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=active&ie=UTF-8&o e=UTF-8
t roke+loggers&hl=en&lr=&safe=active&as_qdr=all&star t=10&sa=N
6 5.htm
... yet.
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Mumbai+Police+k
http://www.google.com/search?q=Mumbai+Police+keys
reveals no reliable mainstream media source for this allegation. The only one I could find was this article from mid-day:
http://www.mid-day.com/news/city/2007/august/1631
For those who don't know, "Mid-Day" is basically Mumbai's version of the National Enquirer, rants on about conspiracy theories and local celebrity gossip, hardly a reliable source. All the blog entries about this are based on this one mid-day article.
Of course, it could mean that I'm not searching correctly. I'd appreciate it if somebody posted any (and I mean any) information from any mainstream media outlet (and not dubious blogs). Until then, I remain skeptical and maintain that this is probably a hoax circulated by some sub-par journalist as a means to get fame, and the "Outsource victims" moaning on slashdot lapped it up swiftly, of course...
Keep in mind that the Indian media is dangerously moonbatty and very anti-establishment (borderline third-world paranoid anarchist actually). Therefore if this actually happened then the media would pounce upon it like a pack of hungry wolves. They haven't
Has slashdot been trolled, again?
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
I wish they did that in Nigeria.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Blooming nonsense. The naturally naive outpourings of a self-hating Indian as usual:
i a/Part_III
The Indian Constitution protects the Fundamental rights of people far more zealously than the US does. Freedom of Speech is certainly important. However, in a developing country with large volume of poor and exploitable people, the fundamental rights that the Constitution of India does guarantee ie:
1.Right to equality
2.Right to freedom
3.Right against exploitation
4.Right to freedom of religion
5.Cultural and educational rights
6.Right to constitutional remedies
Carry precedence in our social context. I'm no big fan of Babasaheb Ambedkar (he was quite the nutcase in other areas), but he knew what he was doing when he wrote the constitution.Have you even read the bloody thing, or are you just mouthing off nonsense?
Oh, and Article 19 Protection of certain rights regarding freedom of speech, etc.
(1) All citizens shall have the right -
(a) to freedom of speech and expression;
(b) to assemble peaceably and without arms;
(c) to form associations or unions;
(d) to move freely throughout the territory of India;
(e) to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India; and
(f) to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.
Does guarantee freedom of speech. It's just not as high up on the list as the right not to be starved to death, is all (we've still got a loong way to go in that area though).
Have a read: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Ind
The only significant thing that the US constitution guarantees that the Indian Constitution does not is the right to bear arms (legal stuff, like the right not to incriminate yourself, are contained in the Indian penal code), and that IS due to historical reasons. It just doesn't figure too highly in our sociopolitical superstructure, and can easily be abused by certain people called "Naxalites" (remember those fine thugrats?).
Democracy is a great thing, and is implementable everywhere, but the specifics must vary with region/culture. You cannot fit the square peg of the US constitution into the round hole of India. You need a round peg. I wouldn't expect that a developed and wealthy nation like the United States would need a special Constitutional amendment like "Right against exploitation", sine that can be covered in the legal system.
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand