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India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

reuters.com

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Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#291

Post by lotsofpulp »

lazylizard wrote: post #289
amarant wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? In Sweden we have digital ID and it's great! Super practical and I struggle to think of how it would be used to spy on citizens, given that it has the same legal protections as banks have regarding your account transactions etc. Like sure you could in theory see every document I've ever signed if you have a warrant for BankID servers, but you could probably glean most of that if you had a warrant for the bank…

the singaporean "singpass" has been an amazing convenience. at this point its like why is any company still asking you to fill in personal particulars on forms? they should ask for access to singpass and you just authorize them. you apply to or for anything.. and they just give you the option of authorizing via singpass.. and you use your passkey-like singpass app to authorize it... and its done! you go to hospital a…

In the absence of a government solution like Singpass, the US and others will end up with an Apple/Alphabet solution.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#292

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

lazylizard wrote: post #289
amarant wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? In Sweden we have digital ID and it's great! Super practical and I struggle to think of how it would be used to spy on citizens, given that it has the same legal protections as banks have regarding your account transactions etc. Like sure you could in theory see every document I've ever signed if you have a warrant for BankID servers, but you could probably glean most of that if you had a warrant for the bank…

the singaporean "singpass" has been an amazing convenience. at this point its like why is any company still asking you to fill in personal particulars on forms? they should ask for access to singpass and you just authorize them. you apply to or for anything.. and they just give you the option of authorizing via singpass.. and you use your passkey-like singpass app to authorize it... and its done! you go to hospital a…

Doesn't this mean that it's not only your hospital that sees your medical records, but... everyone who would otherwise only need your name and telephone number?

Or is there some way to restrict which party gets which data?

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#293

Post by adrr »

more_corn wrote: post #93
Animats wrote: post #79

What does this app actually do, in detail? Anyone know?

It doesn’t matter what the app does today it can be made to do anything they want after the fact. Monitor speech, location, contacts, content, preserve evidence for prosecution, inspection your dinner choices or your sexual habits. This is on the far end of the spectrum of bad.

Wouldn't that require Apple to sign the app with their own key to get low level API access? Has apple ever done that with anyone?

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#294

Post by immibis »

noduerme wrote: post #287
komali2 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like sure you could in theory see every document I've ever signed if you have a warrant for BankID servers, but you could probably glean most of that if you had a warrant for the banks servers anyway, so it's not really a new capability. It's a single point of failure. Digital ID servers on creation because as valuable to compromise as value_of_bank_hack*bank_count plus whatever other services are rolled in. Furthe…

I think a lot of people in the US are clinging to the hope that this type of friction, along with judicial decisions, will cause the process of removing our legal protections to stall out. I'm not optimistic that this is the case, because the party currently driving the federal incursion on private and state-held data is the one that until recently was opposed to things like national ID. Anything can be done in the n…

Does the letter N stand for Democrats...?

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#295

Post by immibis »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #267
observationist wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most average people assume competence and good faith from people in charge. Most people don't question, aren't skeptical, and go through life in a fog. That's not most people here, but it's like Gell-Mann amnesia applied to politics. 99% of the time, when politicians put forth a plan to do things in a domain you're competent in, they look like morons. It's exceedingly rare for them to do things well. People trust ele…

Having lived in lower trust vs higher trust societies, you can see it in how people assume their leaders think. High trust places like Sweden, people have pretty high faith in their leaders to do the right thing. Personally, I much prefer quality of life in a higher trust society. It is exhausting needing to second guess everyone everywhere all the time!

It's a situation of turkeys preferring to live on the farm, except in the lead-up to Thanksgiving. It's quite good until it's suddenly very bad. It's fine if it's used to track down murderers etc, but we are seeing this now with various countries tracking down people who don't like Israel.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#296

Post by ynab6 »

amarant wrote: post #242
nephihaha wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mate, this isn't even remotely "nationalist". This stuff is being pushed across the world. Digital ID? The only people really desperate for it are our rulers.

How so? In Sweden we have digital ID and it's great! Super practical and I struggle to think of how it would be used to spy on citizens, given that it has the same legal protections as banks have regarding your account transactions etc. Like sure you could in theory see every document I've ever signed if you have a warrant for BankID servers, but you could probably glean most of that if you had a warrant for the bank…

[flagged]

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#297

Post by immibis »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #240
pixelatedindex wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://sancharsaathi.gov.in - Report fraud/scam calls and SMS directly from your phone. - Block or track lost/stolen phones by disabling their IMEI so they can’t be misused. - View all mobile numbers registered under your ID and report any unauthorized SIM cards. - Verify if a phone is genuine with an IMEI/device authenticity check. - Report telecom misuse, such as spoofed calls or suspicious international numbers.…

I've been using it since it came out. It does its job. I was getting 5-6 scam calls per day, now down to maybe 1 in a month. It's just a wrapper around their website (for now). I think this app is harmless but I don't think it should be forced onto anyone.

Can you uninstall it? That's the litmus test.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#298

Post by charcircuit »

lxgr wrote: post #228
nextos wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I liked the low-tech solution of code cards + password (2FA), used by e.g. Denmark as digital ID, now discontinued. I am aware that it is imperfect, and if you are not careful with MITM attacks you can get in trouble, but it was a good compromise to avoid the temptation to track citizens. Something like a hardware TAN generator, but with protection against MITM, would be an ideal compromise. The current t…

Definitely, requiring the entire smartphone to be "trusted" is way too much. Small external signers with a display and confirmation button are a nice compromise (and also largely solve MITM!), since I don't mind an external device being under somebody else's administrative control as long as I can run what I want on my smartphone or computer. But people don't want to carry two things... Hopefully we can at least have…

>But people don't want to carry two things...

It can be moved into a security processor within the smartphone's SOC.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#299

Post by thisisit »

satvikpendem wrote: post #112
rishabhaiover wrote: post #22

I'm shocked by people and state using the crutch of cyber crime or scams to push a totalitarian solution to a problem that is better solved by improved education and targeted campaigns against common security pitfalls. I abhor any decision that robs even a grain of my individual freedom.

> improved education and targeted campaigns against common security pitfalls Good one. Do you see how dumb the average consumer is? They don't know or care even if you try to educate them.

Same dumbness applies to people who are supposed to enforce these laws. Enforcement authorities will often tell you to settle privately - “just return the money and ask your victim to rescind the case”. They don’t care for average consumer.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#300

Post by zarzavat »

ibejoeb wrote: post #255
zarzavat wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that almost everyone in the UK who is able to work has a smartphone already. If they were to require digital ID for pensions or disability benefits there would be more problems.

Even if that were the case, by what mechanism are they commandeering it? That's essentially what I was thinking about in this India case. Undoubtedly most people will comply, but there will be a few who don't, so I'm curious what the plan is to bring them in line.

UK isn't commandeering anything.

The UK government hasn't decided yet how digital ID will work, currently it's just a talking point. Probably it will be an app that you install, like the NHS app. Nobody is proposing that it be installed by default.

Apple separately announced that a Digital ID feature will be built into iOS[0] which the UK may use or not use.

> few who don't, so I'm curious what the plan is to bring them in line

They will be told by their employer to get it otherwise they will lose their job. Just the same as now, only at the moment you need a paper passport rather than a smartphone.

[0] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/11/apple-introduces-digi...

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