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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

#121
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…

Yes, India is not liberal and Yes, India has leaders who concentrated power in their hands overrode the States. On the other side of the spectrum if you have lived experience of the 80s, you would understand chaos and anarchy of multiple ethno-insugrencies. As a man who grew up in South India, I am proponent of State's rights etc. But it's not magic, India's geography and demogrphics compel, this cycle of powerful center that is near authoritarian to weak center that is a monumental chaos. In between there are periods of some balance. That was the nature of India since the Mahajanapadha period.

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#122
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…

1. No press freedom: what explains the presence and popularity of the wire, scroll, news minute, the quint, etc? Traditional print media that’s critical of the current party in power includes The Hindu, Telegraph etc. That there’s no press freedom is false. 2. Ethno-nationalist state: what ethnicity are we talking about here? BJP loses often in elections locally, and majority of their opponents are Hindus. What India…

[dead]

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#123
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Dont use what?

YouTube/Gmail/etc etc and everything that the government is tracking. FWIW, they are tracking our internet with all sorts of fancy technology. I think probably what I meant to ask is:

What do you use to by-pass censorship ?

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#124
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least electromagnetic transmitters are something one expect to be regulated. It is bad regulation, but it's just overzealous. Email ban is borderline censorship.

Flipper Zero complies with all regulations, it's a certified consumer device. That it can record and replay a radio signal is not something that should be regulated. We have laws for stealing cars, we don't need to ban specific tools that, among a multitude of other uses, might be used to steal a car.

What if the only use for FZ was stealing cars, would that change things?

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#125
post #25

Wtf!! I am user of Protonmail and its other services (from India). The protonmail ID is actually my main Email-Id and is used everywhere, even on government sites. Hope https://internetfreedom.in/ steps in or some other organization.

When registering your next mail, make sure to register a domain first, and use it as your online identity.

> "Just in - Indian government moves to ban i67vw3.com -"

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mosque was converted by a judgement from India's Supreme Court. But yes, the administration's stunt of overtly participating in religious conflict by having the PM and country leaders inaugurate the temple sure leaves a bad taste. Thankfully, religion as a whole is becoming increasingly irrelevant among new generations as Western individualism takes over. This incident will hopefully be remembered just as an appe…

>The mosque was converted by a judgement from India's Supreme Court Many would say that doesn't change anything because they think that Indian supreme court is just another tool in the hand of Modi's government [1] [2] [3]. [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/12/27/i... [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/02/wh... [3] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/india-s-justice-sys…

Many would say that regarding this decision, yes. But they'd be overlooking the kind of exceptional dilemma the court faced in this case - it was not just about determining what club gets a legal right over public property, but about defusing a several generations-long historical and religious conflict of vastly higher scale. In the end they had to pass a judgement that antagonized the least number of people and prevented large-scale disruption and violence. We can debate how right or wrong it was all day, but that won't take away the fact that there was no other way of resolving this without messing up social harmony.

Whether or not Modi's government has undue influence over the judiciary is still up for debate, but in this particular case, I fail to see how it could have made a difference either way.

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#127
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When registering your next mail, make sure to register a domain first, and use it as your online identity.

> "Just in - Indian government moves to ban i67vw3.com -"

Damn it, now all my friends have to switch to i67vw4.com!

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#128
post #25

Wtf!! I am user of Protonmail and its other services (from India). The protonmail ID is actually my main Email-Id and is used everywhere, even on government sites. Hope https://internetfreedom.in/ steps in or some other organization.

I wouldn't trust someone else to host my email ID. Get yourself your own domain at porkbun.com, make sure it's a .com or at least a very reliable TLD that won't be going anywhere, and then setup proton to point to it.

You are no longer locked into any one provider :) You can always transfer your domain and you can always transfer your email host.

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#129

There's a pretty egregious misunderstanding of how email works in both the article and the proposed ban. Protonmail can only end-to-end encrypt email when the receiver is also using Protonmail. The email spec has no support for a universal encryption method, one of the reasons we'd be better off not using email at all today. They also don't explain how the inability to track the sender's IP is specific to Protonmail.…

That is completely untrue.

Email supports end to end encryption between any two servers. You set each server up with a list of supported protocols and denied protocols.

If either side can't agree on the encryption algorithm, then the email does not go through.

If both sides do agree, which is almost always the case if both sides are using industry standard encryption methods, then the email is end to end encrypted.

On top of that, we have PGP encryption which allows the user to encrypt the email from everybody including the email provider. Only the recipient email address and possibly the subject line would be readable to the email providers.

As for the IP, if protonmail removes the sender's origin IP then it's removed and that's it.

Email is one of our best methods of international communication available today.

Re: Indian government moves to ban ProtonMail after bomb threat

#130
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…

It is that way everywhere. Bonus points if you claim it is because terrorism or pedophiles.
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