Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers • Hacker News Board

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#21

Post by onetimemanytime » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 4:38 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #10

onetimemanytime wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It is easy to task authorities with intercept and decryption duties; actually doing it successfully is another matter entirely. Mathematics works both ways, friends. Actually if Apple, Goog, FB etc are forced to surrender the key--at the penalty of being excluded from 1.x billion people in India--math works only one way...

they can't surrender keys they don't have (e2e). the only issue is that they may be forced to do a key change. one way around this would be to show a prominent notice if your peer changed keys, which would make it immediately obvious what was going on.

If India wants and if they can do it (maybe trade agreements prohibit them...not sure,) there's no way around. You want to do business in India? Yes? OK, then should have the key and must give it to India's police. Otherwise a ban on your business in India, $billion fines and arrests warrants for entire line of execs.

Apple has great hopes for India https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/companies/its-been-a-rout-...

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#22

Post by j0hnM1st » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

formatkaka wrote: post #16

Does using an app like cloudflare 1.1.1.1 protect us from this ? Cloudflare app link - https://blog.cloudflare.com/1-thing-you-can-do-to-make-your-...

no - you will have to use a VPN or ToR

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#23

Post by y-c-o-m-b » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

sidcool wrote: post #8

As an Indian, this is scary. In the name of national security, this can go either way.

> In the name of national security

This is detrimental to national security. It's irresponsible and negligence at best. There is no such thing as bullet-proof cyber-security measures and all these data leaks in the last several years are evidence of that. The more data that is mined, the more information for intruders (foreign and domestic) to have access to. For example Russia could have penetrated America's NSA and used the data mined there to create profiles of people they could effortlessly manipulate in America's 2016 elections.

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#24

Post by mkagenius » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

jammygit wrote: post #18

The article was vague. How does this law compare to other countries? Is it NSA or Hemisphere level data dragnets, is it Australian style "Australian law > mathematical law", or is it something different?

Not sure how its done in other countries, but It will be like this in India:

Police to person: Give password.

Police to company: Give data.

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#25

Post by mkagenius » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 5:14 PM UTC

draugadrotten wrote: post #4

JadeNB wrote: post #2

The first few lines of the story make it clear that there is not (necessarily) some physical seizing of computers going on here; it is the data that are being intercepted, monitored, and decrypted.

...and 7 years of prison if the service provider does not hand the authorities the encryption keys... MITM for iMessage, Whatsapp etc seems to be guaranteed here.

> Whatsapp etc seems to be guaranteed here

It is end to end encrypted

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#26

Post by _mdlf » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

This is much worst than what we saw in Australia, current Indian govt headed by right wing political party with track record of human rights abuses have passed this order without passing through Parliament using a loop hole in the IT ACT.

This is likely aimed at upcoming elections for data analyses via ISP & to target journalists critical of the current govt in India.

But I feel that the International community isn't going to rally up for India like they did for Australia; I doubt even if expats would.

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#27

Post by eps » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

As someone on /r/sysadmin has correctly remarked - if you are outsourcing to India, you should assume that all data they have access to it is now also freely accessible to the Indian government.

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#28

Post by _mdlf » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 5:27 PM UTC

sidcool wrote: post #8

As an Indian, this is scary. In the name of national security, this can go either way.

>national security is a sham

Now the chinese would just need to infiltrate single infrastructure.

What did the Indian govt do when it was revealed that the Huawei was siphoning off data from BSNL (state run ISP)? Other countries have started to ban Huawei telecom products.

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#29

Post by Dravidian » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 5:30 PM UTC

formatkaka wrote: post #16

Does using an app like cloudflare 1.1.1.1 protect us from this ? Cloudflare app link - https://blog.cloudflare.com/1-thing-you-can-do-to-make-your-...

Using cloudflare DNS over ISP is definetly better, but you definetly need VPN/ToR or both to stop govt snooping on your online activities.

Re: Indian government to intercept, monitor, and decrypt citizens’ computers

#30

Post by imhoguy » Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

In less than decade both USA and EU will take lessons from these developing experiments (India, China, Russia, Australia) and will introduce the same locally. At first societies will be educated to stigmatise any resistance and ease the law change. Hiding data from govt will be like tax evasion or act of terrorism.