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Google Assists In Arrest Of Indian Man

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the many-shades-of-evil dept.

An anonymous reader writes "After a Google user posted a profane picture of the Hindu saint Shivaji, Indian authorities contacted Google to ask for his IP address. Google complied. He was arrested and is reported to have been beaten by a lathi and asked to use the same bowl to eat and to use in the toilet. Not surprisingly, Google is a keen to play this down as Yahoo is being hauled over the coals by US Congress for handing over IP addresses and emails to the Chinese Government which resulted in a Chinese democracy activist being jailed." Readers are noting that these are 2 unrelated cases — the latter is several months old.

9 of 609 comments (clear)

  1. One big difference by quanticle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    India is a Democracy. China is not.

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    We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
    1. Re:One big difference by iminplaya · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nonsense. They have elections in China. And the one party similarities between China and the US are more extensive than they appear.

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      What?
  2. Google gave IP address. Police bungled it by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Looks like, Google provided the IP address of someone who posted derogatory images of Shivaji to the Indian authorities. They contacted the ISP and they fingered a wrong party. May be they fingered the current holder of that IP address instead of the user at the time of posting.

    They got the wrong party and roughly treated the arrested man. The idea is to send the message loud and clear, "we will get the IP address and catch you and mess you up. May this time we messed up the wrong guy, but next time, watch out." That is the logic of the Indian police who think this will reduce such incidents in the future. But what trips them up is that a savvy criminal will know how to hide his tracks, and it will always be the wrong guy who gets nabbed. But it allows the police to pretend they did something. (You might argue defacing Shivaji's picture is not criminal. But given the reaction you typically get from Muslims for defacing images of Mohammad, this reaction by the desis is quite tame. And this is a different argument anyway, nothing concerning Google)

    If google had not promised anonymity to Orkut users, then it can't be held accountable. There are bigger villains in the story, the desi police, incompetent desi ISP, desi politics and the desi population in general that accepts this all.

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    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  3. Reason of Arrest by hansraj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The guy in the Sonia Gandhi case was booked under Section 67 of the The Information Technology Act, 2000. (Check the section titled "Information Technology Act, 2000".

    Apparently "being obscene" is a crime in India and the IT act takes it to the internet. So posting "obscene" stuff is punishable by an imprisonment of upto 5 years. So the crucial part was "obscene comment" not "targeted to Sonia Gandhi". Of course the person filing the complaint with the police was a member of the Congress Party (whose leader is Mrs. Gandhi).

    India has many laws that are rooted in the prude thinking that is pretty much common there. This law is just an example that aims to turn "a behavior that maybe not be noble" into "a criminal act". The same law makes pornography illegal even though you can find pornography pretty easily.

  4. Re:Even the Post Title by mweather · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, they actually hate that. They prefer their tribe's name.

  5. Re:Sloppy Definition? maybe... by wurp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The act of concealing is an evil act, just like spreading misinformation is also an evil act.


    Say what? Concealing is *absolutely not* an evil act.

    For example: when someone with power over you is doing evil, and you act to stop them, and you try to conceal your identity and/or the ways you try to stop them, that is good, not evil. If you broadcast to everyone everything you do, then the people who are evil and powerful will walk all over you.

    Concealing may be evil, depending on the circumstances. Misinforming is more likely to be evil, but still depending on the circumstances.

    Evil actions are those that hurt people (or, to a lesser extent, other living things).
  6. Re:Wow... by rkanodia · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Technically, Shivaji is a historic figure, but either way, I don't really see him showing up to bring suit.

  7. Re:Dont be evil by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't exactly see Google trumpeting the damn thing. ... Google, as best as I can tell, has it on two of their pages. How is that "trumpeting it loudly"..? I worked at Google for several years. It is a BIG thing internally. Arguments and debates break out amongst engineers about certain features of software or actions of the company. The people in the company really do care about the idea of doing good and avoiding evil. The problem is that there is a big grey area and they acknowledge that in their debates. Censoring results for Google China was a HUGE debate within the company and they sincerely cared about the issue. They weren't just ignoring the evil of censorship, they eventually came to the decision that the Chinese users would still be able to access google.com to get their uncensored results if they were searching sensitive topics, but if they were just doing mundane searches having a locally served and maintained google.cn would provide those users with a better experience and better search. This way they could follow the laws of the local country, help those people get better information for a large percentage of searches and they would still be able to access the uncensored version of google.com like they had been able to all along. They do care about being good. They want to help people. They also want to make money. Yes, as time goes on, I think they are slipping and getting shady, but a large group of people in the company sincerely care about this aspect of the Google culture.
  8. Re:Sloppy Definition? maybe... by c6gunner · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But, I would have to say, when you actions lead to someone being beaten, jailed, and forced to use the same dish to eat and shit, then you can be sure your action was evil.


    Really? So, say I catch some kid trying to shoplift. Out of the goodness of my heart, I decide not to press charges, and instead just tell his parents. His parents take him home, beat him, lock him in his room for a week, and force him to endure all sorts of humiliating punishments. You're saying what I did was evil?