India bans MasterCard from adding new customers • Hacker News Board

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#121

Post by throw998877123 » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #109

It is really interesting that there's even a debate over this. US and EU have long had similar policies in the name of "national interest" or "protecting the consumers", but if other countries have similar policies, it suddenly becomes a negative thing. I think the hard reality of it is data needs to be localized, to ensure companies comply with local laws. Every country has independent authority on how they want to…

It would have been okay if the country had a good privacy protection law. And a not-so-broken justice system. The legal system wears you out starting right from the troubles of filing a police report (when needed). Having worked with the govt, they are pretty lame on security and high on convoluted regulations and harassment. The rules are applied selectively. As a fact, the govt (unintentionally) leaks the citizen's data and then they absolutely deny and cover up stuff. And there is zero accountability. Their departments regularly access stuff without proper authorisation and then store/move it insecurely elsewhere.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#122

Post by dec0dedab0de » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 6:42 PM UTC

gpm wrote: post #40

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #28

The obsession with where data physically sits at rest is so amusing to me. Not limited to overzealous governments and financial data; healthcare is singularly obsessed with this. It makes no sense whatsoever, of course. I'd much rather store properly encrypted personal information or financial data in North Korea than storing it unencrypted in my home country. I would understand if they demanded both storage and proc…

All data is capable of being decrypted somewhere. Usually where you are storing it. Otherwise you can't do anything with it. Storing data encryped in north korea, with the capability to fetch and decrypt that data in Sweden, is approximately equivalent to storing the unencrypted data in Sweden (as far as hackers, law enforcement, etc. are concerned), except you've now added the additional risk that north korea only n…

Storing data encryped in north korea, with the capability to fetch and decrypt that data in Sweden, is approximately equivalent to storing the unencrypted data in Sweden

Not if there is rate limiting, or other means of preventing the entire set of data being dumped. That is to say, storing it encrypted makes it harder to get the full set of data. Though, I guess in practice the client application would likely be able to request all of the data from storage.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#123

Post by _gohp » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

I don't see the problem. When in Rome...

It will create job in India. The government doesn't allow multinational companies to get away with having all the market access and data control while evading taxes.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#124

Post by not2b » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

xNeil wrote: post #98

eklavya wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Modi is pretty anti international investment, just look here since he got into power FDI has dropped in India by almost -100% https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/IND/india/foreign-dire... Also all the PLI schemes for companies are pretty anti international investment, so companies from Samsung to Apple are all investing big.

FDI in India was $35 Billion when Modi came to power, and is >$50 Billion today. Are you being sarcastic?

Obviously: 'dropped by -100%' means 'increased by 100%'. Looks like you missed the minus sign.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#125

Post by signal11 » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #90

signal11 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India wants data residency because it wants to apply its own somewhat unique approach to law enforcement to all digital data — financial and otherwise. This is a country that switches off mobile data (3G and 4G) at the drop of a hat[1], and switched off an entire state’s mobile Internet access for 18 months [2]. This may appear unnecessary and capricious to some especially in the West. However I’m sure pro-Indian gov…

> leading to a flourishing unregulated economy in selling Indians’ data At risk of being incredibly inflammatory - this is the first I've heard of bulk Indian citizens' data being worth enough to harvest in the first place - what's changed?

You can see datasets purporting to be, for instance, details about students appearing for various Indian competitive exams for as little as $50-100[1]. Other datasets are costlier, of course.

If you're marketing to that demographic (e.g. potential ads for private colleges, or other courses), your budget won't be super high, but you might well spend a little for a bunch of emails of potential leads.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/63s18q/student_data_...

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#126

Post by naruvimama » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

Let us imagine a scenario where Mastercard holds EU or US citizens data in China or Russia and refuses to move it to EU/US.

If it is a bit hard to digest, perhaps one needs to extend the same respect to India's sovereignty.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#127

Post by beezischillin » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

This is just a few thoughts I came up with while reading this, they might not be completely accurate and are probably very sloppy but here goes...

In the grand scheme of things these news are kind of interesting to read. I see multiple ways to characterise these events but it's a bit tough to because the only words I'm able to use kind of project a moral judgement onto the sides which I do not intend to make because history will have to be the judge of that. Needless to say, though, that I assume extreme selfishness from all sides as a given.

With that said, you could say that this a fight between: - freedom and authoritarianism /banning things -or- giving people the freedom to trade by allowing foreign companies to pave the way/, - globalism and nationalism /promoting the interests of the local government -vs- a foreign one/ - or simply a battle of political interests.

Probably a strange mix of all of the above, in reality.. I have a hard time figuring out who to root for, though, as these western multi-nationals can act pretty maliciously, too. And so do governments that turn authoritarian. I'd kinda prefer neither with the freedoms of all myself, but I am being unrealistic, sadly.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#128

Post by naruvimama » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 7:05 PM UTC

spoonjim wrote: post #74

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #28

The obsession with where data physically sits at rest is so amusing to me. Not limited to overzealous governments and financial data; healthcare is singularly obsessed with this. It makes no sense whatsoever, of course. I'd much rather store properly encrypted personal information or financial data in North Korea than storing it unencrypted in my home country. I would understand if they demanded both storage and proc…

The obsession with physical data residence comes from the physical nature of government’s power: the ability to apply violence within its borders. The Indian government wants as much data (and encryption keys) inside Indian borders as possible because it can send in guys with guns to take it whenever they want.

Providing guys with guns is the primary purpose of any government.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#129

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #28

The obsession with where data physically sits at rest is so amusing to me. Not limited to overzealous governments and financial data; healthcare is singularly obsessed with this. It makes no sense whatsoever, of course. I'd much rather store properly encrypted personal information or financial data in North Korea than storing it unencrypted in my home country. I would understand if they demanded both storage and proc…

Of course they also require full unencrypted access to the data. If the company doesn't surrender the keys to the server data, they can just switch the server off.

Re: India bans MasterCard from adding new customers

#130

Post by 8note » Wed, Jul 14, 2021, 7:06 PM UTC

naruvimama wrote: post #126

Let us imagine a scenario where Mastercard holds EU or US citizens data in China or Russia and refuses to move it to EU/US. If it is a bit hard to digest, perhaps one needs to extend the same respect to India's sovereignty.

Generally HN thinks highly of that, and will never visit the EU so they don't have to face punishments for GDPR violations