Slashdot Mirror
India Wants To Monitor Twitter, Facebook
swandives writes "India's home ministry has asked its communications ministry to monitor social networking websites such as Twitter and Facebook amid fears that the services are being used by terrorists to plan attacks. The request suggests that the Indian government is trying to broaden the scope of its online surveillance for national security. Under new rules to the country's IT Act that came into force earlier this year, websites and service providers are required to provide government security agencies with information on private accounts, including passwords, on request without a court order."
me asking: Is there anything that terrorists can't use?
http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/
Exactly what is your ISP internet password going to provide except for some professional paranoid agent to cheat on your internet account and, to put false entries into your account. The only passwords your ISP should have are the ones to need to access their network and of course your email account. The email account is of course completely arbitrary as it is not encrypted. There is also web server accounts but are the government going to hack these.
This sounds like the professionally paranoid are expecting ISPs to harvest all the passwords you use on the internet or they intent to plant false information to ensure political and promotional successes.
The whole idea of warrants is to protect citizens from out of control law enforcement, from investigator who will corrupt cases for revenge, for promotion or even for payment. Which country now claims perfect police officers, those saintly individuals who never lie cheat or steal, keeping in mind that includes 100% of the police force or other investigatory agencies, including political appointees and of course the politicians that control them.
Warrants were never about gaining access to a citizens private information they are all about protecting citizens from criminal access to private information, from accessing for personal advantage, to distorting it by selective editing it and especially from planting false information. The courts must prove that law enforcement did not tamper with the evidence, the I say so defence is not good enough for us and it should not be good enough for them.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Doesn't the NSA or whatever intelligence agency in the Western world monitor all of you traffic? USA's the most paranoid about terrorism.
How much of your social activity is monitored by intelligence agencies? Does your democratic process expose any of it?
I know /. likes to mock and laugh at India, this happened before with the Blackberry encryption case.
As an Indian citizen living abroad I know about this now, what's your congress doing behind closed doors?
lol gonna blow up a building u guise brb theyl never know what hit em #terrorism #bomb
They just 'friended' a number of the terrorists in the 80s.
Given that the Indian government has a tough time doing what it should be doing, why add stuff to their list ? I dont think they are ever going to have any one monitoring the way it is supposed to be done. Maybe they use it for illegitimate reasons like against political enemies etc. But in the end nothing ever happens to the bad guys in India and the remaining folks in India just dont care about the government anymore. So keep piling on those rules!!
This is just a waste of time and money by our government. There are people who dont get to eat , who get denied basic human rights and who dont get safe water to drink. None of them have the time, the energy or the means to come on Facebook and Twitter and crib/complain about it. This is just Indian politicians and bureaucrats trying to sound "cool"
Seriously, is anyone else still buying the "terrorist" card any more.
The only thing those social network sites have been used for in the past year is to organise lots and lots of protests against corrupt governments around the world.
Nice try.
Because the real terrorists communicate using twitter and are careful to include #terrorinindia in their tweets... or using the wall in a group called "Terror attack against India" on Facebook...
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Terrorism... yeah, sure.
Somehow I have the feeling someone's afraid of getting a riot at his hands, and that protesters could use social networking as a means to coordinate it.
In case someone didn't follow the news and hence does not get the subject line, riots broke out in London, organized and coordinated through social networks.
But of course, this is not the reason for this idea, and the timing is purely coincidental. They just want to make sure that the people are safe from terrorism. Sure.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I really hope that that isn't the lesson that you're learning from London.
I plan all my terrorist activity in world of warcraft guild chat.
Though I'm starting to suspect a Night elf who joined recently might be FBI.
... and now what are you going to monitor?
And even when GMail/Yahoomay/Whatevermail will provide you with access to my mailbox, what do you think you are going to get?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING MEANINGFUL.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
only the indian government, and then it has nothing to do with being 'indian', but rather because it is 'government'.