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Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

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Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#111

Post by dotnet00 »

recroad wrote: post #14

India for all intents and purposes is now an ethno-national state with no press freedom, severe persecution of minorities, and human rights violations aplenty. I grew up in India when it was a relatively secular state. For example, when the Babri Masjid (mosque) was destroyed by Hindus in the early 90s, the national magazine, India Today and major newspapers led with the headline, "India's Shame" and acknowledge how…

India is illiberal and authoritarian, but boiling down the extremely complex issue of the Babri Masjid to "Hindus tore it down and replaced it with a temple" is very disingenuous. The case remained unaddressed - even through the rule of more secular parties - for decades for good reasons.

Plus, India has a long record of kneejerk censorship. There was the incident with GitHub back in 2014, and even before then there have been many cases of the national or state governments censoring material that could be construed as criticizing them or material they could construe as supporting a terrorist movement.

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#112

Post by kumarvvr »

rockyj wrote: post #5

Ban everything you cannot control / understand! That is the classic Indian bureaucracy reaction. For example, They also banned tinted windows in cars after an assualt happened in a car. Then, there was a time where they banned something or the other on a daily basis. Even right now there is Section 144 imposed in multiple cities - which means a "ban" on "unlawful assembly" of 5 or more people. 5 or more people in mul…

You don't seem to understand governments.

They are controlling it because they absolutely understand, and can give a narrative of how anonymity can be used for nefarious purposes.

I support banning of tinted glasses, because, for the population and education level here, these measures are necessary. Because one rape is too many, and what is to be done ought to be done. For those unaware, this ban on tinted glasses in a car or a vehicle came about when there were a spate of rapes and assaults on women done in a moving car with tinted windows.

Unlawful assembly laws are there in many countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_assembly

In India, it is used often, but generally when there is a communal angle involved. India sees many rallies and protests (there is one massive one going on right now).

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#113

Post by eigenket »

pmontra wrote: post #69
midasuni wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.K. has a system where experts in various fields like medicine and engineering are put in the lawmaking process, in addition to experts in becoming elected (ie raising money and selling non tangible ideas to people) It’s not perfect of course, but in my opinion it’s better than a fully democratic system.

Do those unelected experts advise on new legislation, even write it (why not? We don't expect elected politicians to be experts in much more than ordinary people) or do they also vote to approve or reject those laws like elected politicians do?

Theoretically they do both. I think the system that the above commenter is alluding to is the House of Lords, where a bunch of unelected "lords" can vote on legislation. The idea is for the lords to be people with particular expertise who we want to be voting on stuff. For example if you have some very highly thought of scientist or engineer you reward them with a peerage and they can sit in the house of lords and vote on stuff. Of course the reality is not so great.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_peer

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#114

Post by kumarvvr »

shaan7 wrote: post #82
alephnerd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> blocking one out of many ways that someone could make an anonymous threat, it somehow contributes to the safety of their citizens If you make an anonymous bomb threat using Gmail in India, Google will hand off all information to the Indian government as they have operations in India and will be held liable, just like they would in the US. This is the reason why Proton AG honors American law enforcement requests - t…

Your statements are correct but they aren't relevant to parent's point. Blocking an email provider has absolutely no positive effect on the safety of the citizens. While it has the potential of a lot of negative effects, like the inability of other innocent citizens to use their email account. It is the same thing when the GoI went ahead and blocked pastebin.com because of a bunch of pastes.

> Blocking an email provider has absolutely no positive effect on the safety of the citizens.

If all the available platforms allow for data sharing and tracking on judicial orders, then a perpetrator does not have a safe way to give threats, without the risk of being identified.

In my opinion, this is a deterrent in itself, the fear of getting caught.

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#115

Post by davchana »

nottorp wrote: post #7
thih9 wrote: post #2

I guess they will receive their next threat from a gmail account?

You're not thinking big enough. Next email should come from the Indian government's email. Considering how tech aware they are, I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of indian gov email acounts with passwords like 1234...

What if it comes by postal mail i.e. India Post?

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#116

Post by manuelabeledo »

alephnerd wrote: post #39
rockyj wrote: post #5

Ban everything you cannot control / understand! That is the classic Indian bureaucracy reaction. For example, They also banned tinted windows in cars after an assualt happened in a car. Then, there was a time where they banned something or the other on a daily basis. Even right now there is Section 144 imposed in multiple cities - which means a "ban" on "unlawful assembly" of 5 or more people. 5 or more people in mul…

The issue is India doesn't have a judicial agreement with Switzerland over data sharing (which includes User IP Addresses) for criminal investigations [0] while the US does [1], and Protonmail only honors Swiss litigation [2] This should change with the new India-Switzerland FTA though. [0] - https://carnegieendowment.org/files/ParsheeraJha_DataAccess.... [1] - https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/framework-article/1…

The issue is that India has a body of hand picked bureaucrats, who have the authority to both target and ban platforms they cannot control or spy on.

The article clearly states that all was a hoax and there weren't any bombs. The Indian government is setting up a nice slippery slope here for total political control of the Internet.

Perhaps ProtonMail would be better off if they just pulled out of the country.

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#117

Post by manuelabeledo »

kumarvvr wrote: post #112
rockyj wrote: post #5

Ban everything you cannot control / understand! That is the classic Indian bureaucracy reaction. For example, They also banned tinted windows in cars after an assualt happened in a car. Then, there was a time where they banned something or the other on a daily basis. Even right now there is Section 144 imposed in multiple cities - which means a "ban" on "unlawful assembly" of 5 or more people. 5 or more people in mul…

You don't seem to understand governments. They are controlling it because they absolutely understand, and can give a narrative of how anonymity can be used for nefarious purposes. I support banning of tinted glasses, because, for the population and education level here, these measures are necessary. Because one rape is too many, and what is to be done ought to be done. For those unaware, this ban on tinted glasses in…

> For those unaware, this ban on tinted glasses in a car or a vehicle came about when there were a spate of rapes and assaults on women done in a moving car with tinted windows.

A moving car? Gee, wonder why they didn't ban moving cars as well.

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#119

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

mfrw wrote: post #63
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #18

https://www.onmanorama.com/content/mm/en/kerala/top-news/202... so apparently a child was abducted and one thing led to another and the child was recovered so the child revealed how he was shown tom and jerry cartoon. the police then went on a fishing trip and literally cross referenced which user in a particular area watched tom and jerry on youtube at a particular time/date to find the cuprits. if this wont get you…

If this is the current condition, what alternatives are there that you may suggest apart from; `Don't use it!`

Dont use what?

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#120

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

astura wrote: post #44
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #18

https://www.onmanorama.com/content/mm/en/kerala/top-news/202... so apparently a child was abducted and one thing led to another and the child was recovered so the child revealed how he was shown tom and jerry cartoon. the police then went on a fishing trip and literally cross referenced which user in a particular area watched tom and jerry on youtube at a particular time/date to find the cuprits. if this wont get you…

This seems like normal police work?

Normal police work meaning you can willy nilly go and canvass internet browsing history of thousands of citizens ? What stops them from taking political vendetta ?
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