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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

#631

Post by nonethewiser »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #565
wosined wrote: post #172

Sounds so authoritarian. Luckily, in the UK you only have to scan your face and ID to access cat photos.

Are you talking about downloading reddit, which is infested with the weirdest pornography that exists ? While I am very much against facial scanning etc, it is quite clear that something needs to be done about the access of porn to kids. It is a drug like any other that we do not allow kids to consume.

I dont know why porn companies arent just sued into oblivion. There are already laws against distributing porn to minors in most places and porn companies do it routinely without any controls.

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

#632

Post by ninalanyon »

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…

But Sweden has not so far required that you install state owned spy ware on your devices.

BankID is very convenient, I use it all the time here in Norway but, at least theoretically, it is a private initiative of the banks and not the state. It is not compulsory to have BankID.

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

#633

Post by Covenant0028 »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #544
unmole wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reports submitted through the new TRAI DND app and Sanchar Sathi are handled identically. Simply installing Sanchar Sathi won’t eliminate spam calls, which was my point.

That's not my understanding. The TRAI DND app, on IOS, generates a pre-formatted SMS which is sent to the operator on the standard number 1909. The Sanchar Sathi app sends it to a DOT entity which then routes it to the operator while updating the govt database of reported spammers and scammers. The options are much extensive than just a spam call/sms. You can report that the individual was impersonating a public offi…

So the problem was not with the app but with how the information was routed at the back end. The back end of the 1909 system could have been modified to write the data to a central registry as well.

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

#634

Post by ninalanyon »

victorbjorklund wrote: post #552
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…

There are downsides with it since you are at the mercy of the corporation that owns the Swedish Digital ID. ny services trying to use this Swedish digital ID who these banks don't like can be cut off at any point and you are not allowed to provide alternative logins so it's only allowed to use digital ID if you use it.

> you are not allowed to provide alternative logins

I can't speak for Sweden but that is not true in Norway where we also use BankID (I'm not sur but I think it originated in Norway).

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

#635

Post by Y_Y »

bloak wrote: post #621
Y_Y wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the third world war were declared tomorrow I think there would be precious few governments who didn't get started on conscription.

I'm not sure about that. Maybe? But... Firstly, there are surprisingly many people who are insanely patriotic so would volunteer anyway (perhaps fewer than in the past but perhaps still enough; see point three). Secondly, there are surprisingly many people who enjoy violence and killing people so would volunteer anyway (this probably hasn't changed). Thirdly, modern warfare doesn't need large numbers of people (this…

In fact I cant disagree with most of what you've said, except to say that I was thinking from the state perspective, rather than the cannon-fodder.

Conscription has never been popular, and I think today in healthy industrialised nations it would be an exceptionally hard sell. Ukraine, Russia and (somewhat) Israel give us hints here of what might happen if the US or Germany or India started drafting all able-bodied young men.

It would be a disaster, but my guess is that it wouldn't stop governments from trying.

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

#636

Post by nextos »

lxgr wrote: post #436
charcircuit wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But people don't want to carry two things... It can be moved into a security processor within the smartphone's SOC.

True, but that's already a much less clean separation between the credential issuer's and my domain on many dimensions other than security. As an example, this was the security model for mobile contactless payments for the longest time, and arguably as a result these never really took off until Google came up with a software-only alternative for Android. The potential for rent seeking of the hardware vendor is often…

Some of the current EU ID cards are actually smartcards, so in terms of privacy guarantees and separation of concerns, we are moving backwards. I am also more comfortable with a low-tech solution that is not linked to my personal devices. Something like a FIDO passkey would be ideal as those are also able to verify the identity of the other side, but are relatively low-tech and won't serve to track me.

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

#637

Post by Covenant0028 »

reactivematter wrote: post #317

How is it different from preloading apps like Netflix, GMail and other shady apps for profits that collects a lot of data. Considering India's low literacy, having a state owned cyber safety app shouldn't be much of an issue. It's not like a backdoor, but safety of citizens, which is the prime mandate of a sovereign state.

How do you know it isn't a backdoor? Do you have access to its source code?

This kind of app should be be open source.

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

#638

Post by mcdonje »

pessimizer wrote: post #616
mcdonje wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was with you until your 3rd paragraph. Why are you carrying water for climate change accelerationists and racists? The examples don't even make sense historically. Haven't you noticed that most governments are failing to decarbonize, and government force against citizens is usually against the left?

Because in a free country you have the right to be a climate skeptic and a racist? Being a racist is mostly useless and self-serving, but if you make any particular scientific position illegal, it's identical to having state defined science. That's how we got people passing bills to define pi and Lysenkoism. It's how we institutionalized chattel slavery and sometimes teaching black people to read punishable by death.…

You're kinda missing the point. It's quite common for "free speech absolutists" to defend racism and other forms of bigotry, but not much else.

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

#639

Post by thatfrenchguy »

gclawes wrote: post #529
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…

It's not really that a digital ID can be used to spy on people (governments can already do this to a pretty large degree without needing spyware). It's that it's a permission system that can be instantly updated and centrally managed by people that have legal authority to spy on you. If your digital ID is controlled centrally by the government (the guys that are watching most things you do already), and you need your…

> If your digital ID is controlled centrally by the government (the guys that are watching most things you do already), and you need your digital ID to do most commercial interactions (banking, buying things, travel, etc), it means the government can revoke your ability to do any of those commercial interactions (or even other things that aren't strictly commercial, think "travel papers" for driving out of state).

The government can already do this today in the US, they can put your ID on a fly denylist, your passport on a "always go to secondary screening list" (ask anyone who's ever been to Iran on vacation and then decided to travel to the US) and your license plate on a wanted list.

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

#640

Post by mcdonje »

pessimizer wrote: post #620
Y_Y wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, but I inferred the meaning of "something racist [in the judgement of the authorities]".

Racists deserve free speech, and our society is better for it. When racists are silenced, anti-racists become complacent, stupid, and ironically, racist because they lose the ability to recognize racism. Defend everyone's free speech. Don't require the necessity of unfair accusations. The destruction of people's lives over unfair accusations is simply a failure of due process and the desire of people to join a mob fo…

Wild how you're weaving a tale about mob justice when someone says something against racists.

Also, it's logically incoherent how you're portraying mob justice as a bad thing while rejecting governmental regulation. The entire idea of the state having a monopoly on violence is to prevent mob justice, or individuals taking the law into their own hands. Basic civics.

I'm generally in favor of free speech, but there are thorny issues associated with it that "free speech absolutists" aren't interrogating because they stop at "racists should be able to say what they want".

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