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India Wants Tech Platforms To Break Encryption And Remove Content The Government Thinks Is 'Unlawful' (buzzfeednews.com)
India's government wants to make it mandatory for platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and Google, to remove content it deems "unlawful" within 24 hours of notice, and create "automated tools" to "proactively identify and remove" such material. From a report: It also wants tech companies to build in a way to trace the source of the content, which would require platforms like WhatsApp to break end-to-end encryption. India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) published [PDF] the proposed rules on its website following a report on Monday by The Indian Express revealing the government's proposal to modify the country's primary IT law to work them in. The report comes days after India's government seemingly authorized 10 federal agencies to snoop into every computer in the country last week. The proposed measures have provoked concerns from privacy activists who claim they would threaten free speech and enable mass surveillance.
[...] If India does work these rules into its IT law, it would have precedent: Earlier this month, Australia passed a controversial encryption bill that would require technology companies to give law enforcement agencies access to encrypted communications, saying that it was essential to stop terrorists and criminals who rely on secure messaging apps to communicate.
[...] If India does work these rules into its IT law, it would have precedent: Earlier this month, Australia passed a controversial encryption bill that would require technology companies to give law enforcement agencies access to encrypted communications, saying that it was essential to stop terrorists and criminals who rely on secure messaging apps to communicate.
Best to just pull out of India altogether. Bad programmers, people with no money.
Well, I'm a globalist, and I want them to drop those countries as well. No country should be trusted on the basis that only individuals and not organizations are worthy of trust, but no country which has deliberately compromised cryptology should be trusted even slightly.
We know what it looks like when each country is more localized, and it's not pretty.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It looks like the world's largest democracy is coming into some bumpy times. The Indians have a strange love-hate relationship with the British due to the lasting influence of the British Raj there, but they are now showing an unhealthy tendency to emulate the UK in its snooping, anti-privacy attitudes. No government needs to control what its citizens can read and write unless it has totalitarian aims. Clearly, the UK does want to control its people just as Orwell predicted, but until now the Indian government has not been visibly interested in this sort of control. It's ver sad, and very bad news for the people of India.
You know, "Facebook" is not the Internet. It is in fact a rather small contributor only. Anybody can put up their own website and content on their own server (with dynamic DNS if needed), a rented server or rented web-space.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Well, countries and "authorities" should never be trusted in the least. They they have to be watched carefully and have to be kicked hard regularly to remind them that it is not their place to tell people how to live and what to think. If the population of a country forgets that, they get fascism sooner or later, as can nicely be observed at this time in many places.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
This is India trying to control their populace. Just because a government is elected, doesn't mean it can't be repressive. You get a faction that gets into power and they want to keep that power. See the Republicans in the USA and Wisconsin and Michigan doing incredible undemocratic things and undermining our Republic for their own pathetic power.
Authoritarianism is on the rise. And as global climate gets worse, so will governments in their crackdown on their citizens.
The people will not only allow it, but welcome it. Migration and immigration is going to get even worse and those that have are going to be very angry at the have nots trying to come and get what they have. The USA is a prime example. There are dark days ahead and I don't think people are capable of rising above their base instincts.
The only way to intercept messages will be at the endpoints, and autoritarian governments will have no power to block or filter.
The downside of course is it makes stuff like ransomware even easier.
My rights don't need management.
This is yet another reason why centralizing onto just a few massive platforms run by ad companies is a disaster in the making.
We need to re-establish a decentralized internet, with strong user-controlled end-to-end encryption. It must allow public or recipient-restricted messages, and be censorship and mass surveillance resistant.
If we don't do that, we will lose the free internet, as more and more countries clamp down on the ad companies the public is centralizing onto.
Companies, governments, organizations. These things are not trustable, stop pretending they have your best interests in mind just because they give you things you want.
These things are not moral centers, they arnt continually benevolent and they always need moderation and oversight
Stop being lazy and stupid
Idia can do anything it's wants. It a sovereign country, it makes Generally everything it needs in country. India's lack of dependence on the international economy is why it is so impervious to International peer pressure. And so it is free to write its own definitions of morality.
You are a pussy. Those things are not needed when there are other ways of doing things and your people have not sold their autonomy for convenience. How do you think our ancestors Thrive so well without those things to eventually build those? It forces people to work together and cooperate in common interest of survival. they may have less luxuries and work harder but they have a higher potential for psychological balance. Differences in India they're not demonized by their neighbors for not having running water. There are not forcibly displaced for building themselves shelter. They have a chance to live a simple peaceful life. It's not coincidence that people go to India to learn how to practice inner peace.
Is this the same India with a socially-stratifying caste system? So fucking enlightened!
If India (or any country) wants Facebook (or any big social media platform) to do something stupid like break encryption or censor content, Facebook could rally the impacted citizens by blocking all access. On the home page or app startup screen put something like: "Your government is making an unreasonable request, because of this no citizens of India may use Facebook until this changes." Imagine if instead of removing search results for "objectionable" content Google just said, "Fine, if you don't want your citizens looking at this, your citizens can't use Google at all, and we are telling your citizens why."
The tech companies face a choice:
Submit to the will of India ( and set a precedence ) or lose that very lucrative market.
Going with the former will see other countries follow suit with demands of their own. The latter will cause a shareholder revolt.
The USG will also want encryption broken, they just won't demand it publicly and since you were kind enough to do it for India . . .
A difficult choice is coming.
Republicans love giving power to government for law enforcement purposes. Democrats love giving power to government for social justice purposes. Libertarians are against big government in case it ever becomes corrupt, but were always ridiculed because "that could never happen here." Well, now do you believe it could happen here? The only real check on authoritarianism is to prevent government from amassing that much power in the first place.
Yes a benevolent oligarchy or a benevolent dictatorship can be more effective than a democracy. But the tradeoff is a higher risk of turning into an authoritarian oligarchy or dictatorship. The Libertarian argument is that it's better to just suffer with less effective government, than to give government more power and risk it turning authoritarian and abusing that power. Every time you the thought "there aught to be a law against that" crosses your mind, the next thing you should think about is how such a law could be abused by the government. Only after you've considered that full range of possibilities can you impartially decide if things really would be better with such a law. Otherwise you end up like China, which has thousands of behavioral laws that are never enforced. Unless you piss off the Communist leadership, in which case they throw the book at you and either send you to a labor camp or chop off your head.
Rather than submit to all these authoritarian governments, perhaps Facebook, Google, et al should just pull the plug on said country. Perhaps some business is lost for a while but should profit trump ethics every single time. Someone has to stand up to the dictators and repressive regimes.
Time to stop doing business with India.
Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
India's lack of dependence on the international economy is why it is so impervious to International peer pressure. And so it is free to write its own definitions of morality.
I'm pretty sure that many international companies outsourcing their IT/support to India would disagree with you. Many of them would move their operations to other countries before they let any government access to their computers.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
As soon as a country doesn't trust its citizens with crypto, that opens up so many doors to abuse. Anything from untracably forging documents (a big thing in India is faking other people's death certificates since it can take years for people to prove they are not dead, and unless there is a well-greased tribute, most courts won't take the case), to official oppression, to mass criminal activity on a grand scale.
India isn't like the West. The caste system is still present, and corruption is commonplace. Giving the government a master key, or the only key is going to ensure that it only gets worse, and people wind up just ignoring the law for their own self protection. Worst case, people go back to physical mail and stenography.
France flirted with the idea of banning crypto, and stopped. The US nearly banned crypto, but decided not to. The bad guys already have crypto. It only will hurt them, and criminals won't follow the law anyway.
They don't need to break end to end encryption to allow tracing source of message. They just need to implement a message signing scheme similar to PGP with their server holding public key registry and keep those signatures (as hidden part of payload) while forwarding messages. This way after getting device with final message you can check original author. Obviously it does not solve every possible case (eg copying just content instead of using forward function), but should be enough for all those chain letter like scare stories.
Anybody can put up their own website and content on their own server
*Ahem* Check your service contract first. And you better hope your content doesn't offend your service provider, or the state either. See, our real problem is our dependence on these services that are really agents of the state.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
but they can't touch me or my systems.
That might be true, after your ISP decides to snip the cable/fiber..
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
> Many of them would move their operations to other countries before they let any government access to their computers.
Hopefully.
"George Washington was right, it's neither our place nor our duty to become involved ing foreign entanglements."
George Washington was responsible for the standing US army. Guess he blew that one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
quantum internet ... and autoritarian governments will have no power to block or filter.
Really? And who says that you'll be able to access it once built and running? If it works the Gvt will keep it to themselves -- you won't be able to get anywhere near it, physically OR logically.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Thanks for your "highly likely" opinion. I'm just as "highly likely" to ignore it without facts or research to support it.
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Ah... A believer in making all people the same.
People are all more the same than they are different. I'm a believer in amending or replacing the social systems that convince them otherwise for the profit of a few who would abuse them.
Yeah, there's been a lot of bad stuff done over the years... Stop focusing on it and celebrate the good.
People are still doing bad things, and part of progress is getting to where there's less of that happening. You can't get there by pretending you're somewhere you aren't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
well said.
No. Authorities that have been voted into office by easily manipulated morons or by people that want their screwed up belief enforced on anybody else are not any better. Democracy has mostly failed. The voters do just not have the quality required.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
For fifteen years governments and corporations have been trying to shut down citizen access to thepiratebay. I just checked to see if it was still up before starting this post and thepiratebay.org didn't load. For half a second I thought maybe they had lost the battle, but then I searched for them and pulled up another domain instantly. In a perfect world* we wouldn't need profit driven organizations fighting government and corporate rage, but until I'm elected, I'm glad there are people working out how to make a service resist all forms of censorship.
I expect that all sorts of dumb criminals will be caught and innocent citizens will have their privacy invaded as these sorts of government oppression succeed. I'm glad that math exists and is well enough disseminated that even as it becomes harder, those of us with pencil, paper, and knowledge can remain immune. I understand the cost to freedom this represents, but thankfully highly motivated criminals are out there fighting for our ability to resist the evils of government.
* Vote for me as supreme world dictator for life and I'll promise whatever lie you currently accept from your politicians.
I'm arguing with a bunch of slaves in love with their chains and overseers And aren't Human suckers for a shiny bauble or convenience. Well if you're determined to be used and abused , I got some work y'all can do for some empty promises.