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BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

theguardian.com

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Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#241

Post by cafard »

andreygrehov wrote: post #201
bovermyer wrote: post #41

Is it just me, or are authoritarian regimes on the rise world-wide?

I somewhat disagree. To me, it looks like many countries are trying to diverge from the sphere of influence of the US, and US doesn’t want that happening. When the big media portrays every other country as dangerous, authoritarian, etc., it’s always interesting to seek for motivation behind the claims. As a quick example, Brooklyn is much more dangerous than pretty much anywhere in Moscow. I can’t imagine NYTimes or…

Some portions of Brooklyn are much more dangerous than pretty much anywhere in Moscow. Some portions are not particularly dangerous.

As far as I know, conscription is the major Muscovite danger talked up in the NY Times.

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#242

Post by dilawar »

mrtksn wrote: post #103

Do India has the issue of "strict laws which are enforced selectively"? Because this reminds me of the traffic light in Grozny, Chechnya that is always red, the people from the regime just ignore it but if someone undesirable doesn't obey the red light(they have no choice, the light is always red) they will face the wrath of the strict traffic code of Chechnya: https://twitter.com/kamilkazani/status/15954560406775562…

We have rules but tradition has be to follow person. If a powerful person say something and rules comes in the way, then expect that rules will be bent or ignored altogether. Rules are written often written in a way that leaves them.open to.interpretations.

In India, at least, and probably elsewhere too, charialsmatic leaders are often the one who destroys instrlitutions because rules comes in their way and slows them down (whatever they are trying to achieve). Last charismatic leader before Modi was Indira Gandhi who imposed emergency.

I'd love to see lame leaders and powerful institutions in democracies.

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#243

Post by eclipxe »

chongli wrote: post #222
Laaas wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sophisticated attacker could make use of bugs in the player to hack the system. This sort of trick is often used against high value targets where the effort needed makes it worth it.

Why does the video player have the capability to do anything other than read video files the user specifies through the system file chooser dialog and play them on the screen?

Because playing them on the screen involves demuxing audio and video, decoding audio and video, usually using two different but complex codecs, some which have extensive capabilities and features (think multilingual subtitles, interactive menus, etc etc). Oh surely your video player should allow you to pause and play with a remote control, right? More code surface. We probably need an ability to check for updates. And so on and so on.

But even without anything more than open, decode, play - anywhere a vulnerability exists could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code.

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#244

Post by cafard »

ignoramous wrote: post #85
madaxe_again wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. We technologists have made it far easier for them to crack down on dissent than ever before.

You'd be surprised by just how many Modi (and right-wing) supporters exist among influential Indians in the Silicon Valley. They're not even subtle about it on Twitter.

In Washington, DC, there was a big rally against the revised Indian citizenship laws, all participants looking plausibly Indian. Of course, I have no idea of how influential the participants are.

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#245

Post by pessimizer »

chongli wrote: post #222
Laaas wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sophisticated attacker could make use of bugs in the player to hack the system. This sort of trick is often used against high value targets where the effort needed makes it worth it.

Why does the video player have the capability to do anything other than read video files the user specifies through the system file chooser dialog and play them on the screen?

overflows

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#246

Post by mikehotel »

naravara wrote: post #231
paganel wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many Indians in America or Americans of Indian descent disagree with the rise of fascism in India I'm aware of that, as I'm also aware that many Russians (especially the educated tech elites) are against the current government in Moscow. I was trying to put myself in the shoes of the guys calling the shots in Washington, as in, what measures should be taken in regards to the Chinese very-well represented tech diasp…

Where did you get 40%? The proportion of scheduled castes is somewhere in the mid-20s, you only get into the mid- to high-30s if you include "Other Backwards Castes," who aren't Dalits but are able to make a general case that they were low on the status hierarchy historically. But, cynically, that whole framework is mostly just a way for the numerically large smallholder classes to create reservations, that were orig…

Do you think there is a rise in fascist actions and rhetoric in India? And that the majority of Indians are threatened by this?

Thanks for correcting me on OBC and Dalits. The framework is definitely problematic. And it adds another layer of complexity to racial, religious, and economic demographics. Thanks for prompting me to learn more about this. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/attitudes-ab...

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#247

Post by pessimizer »

wavefunction wrote: post #216
dharmach wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modi is scared of BBC otherwise he should have banned BBC like RT.com in the West.

This is a terrible analogy. RT.com is a reliable purveyor of conspiracy theories and incendiary lies. The BBC's examination of Narendra Modi's well-documented behavior leading up to, during and after the Gujarat riots is well-supported by other media and academic sources.

[flagged]

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#248

Post by wil421 »

ryandrake wrote: post #204
wil421 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was riding bikes to the store we had dialup and floppies were giving way to CDs. It’s been over a decade since I’ve used BitTorrent and I didn’t know magnet links were still popular. I hate seeding and there was also a lot of malware hidden in public trackers. Once I switched to Usenet I never looked back. P2P file sharing has never been a good experience for me.

How does one get malware from playing a .mkv or .mp4 video file?

Most of the time it’s a rar file that contains screenshots, album art, thumbnails, etc. not just a video file. I’ve been burnt a decade plus ago when I automated some extractions into a media folder on an old windows laptop. By the time I noticed, it was deep in the registry and near impossible to remove. It was something akin to MacKeeper malware on Macs, I don’t recall the old windows malware names.

With my Usenet automation I’ve never had the issue in about 9ish years but it could happen. I pay a usenet provider and indexer a low fee to rid myself of torrents and seeding.

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#249

Post by chongli »

pessimizer wrote: post #245
chongli wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does the video player have the capability to do anything other than read video files the user specifies through the system file chooser dialog and play them on the screen?

overflows

No, what I’m asking is: why does the operating system allow the video player to do anything other than what it needs to do to play videos? If the video player suddenly starts trying to access files on its own (anything not explicitly chosen by the user through system file dialog) or trying to access the internet then the user should be prompted to give permission.

We have this kind of API permission (capability) system on phones. Why can’t we have a really fine-grained one on desktops? It’s like a firewall for APIs.

Re: BBC offices in India raided by tax officials amid Modi documentary fallout

#250

Post by MichaelZuo »

KingOfCoders wrote: post #193
blincoln wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is that related to the BBC? I think iso1631 is saying that there may be enough red tape for imports into India that the BBC could technically be breaking the law for failing to declare/pay duties on some equipment they or their employees brought into the country. If you're in the US, my experience is that it's kind of an anomaly in terms of relatively light enforcement of import taxes for individual citizens. F…

Yes, but how is the BBC responsible for their employees buying phones and bringing them in the country? Was the BBC telling their employees to do this? It wasn't the employees home raided but the BBC office.

Any object within their physical premises would be ultimately their liability if no one else steps forward to claim ownership.

Or at least that's how the law works in a lot of countries.

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