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Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

theage.com.au

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Re: Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

#31

Post by redact207 »

r0h1n wrote: post #27
redact207 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did I say they should do without expensive luxuries and internet privacy? No. I did say that prioritising using typerwriters for internal communications of a handful of their government offices above the fundamental issues that affect hundreds of millions of their countrymen is ridiculous. The article isn't about internet privacy for their residents. if it were, are you saying that the rights of women and the starvin…

Allow me to quote you: > In a country that's stricken with extreme poverty, a caste system that births you into such a fate until death, where women can't walk the street at night without the fear of getting brutally raped or molested, a country that starves while massive stockpiles of food reserves perish due to kafkaesque bureaucracy and corruption; I hardly think that privacy breaches are India's top concern. Your…

Exactly, privacy shouldn't be India's top concern - but evidently it's the only item on the checklist that they've ticked. I'll add it's also one that doesn't help address any of the fundamental issues, and as I mentioned only slows things down in an already burdened government.

Re: Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

#32

Post by [deleted] »

redact207 wrote: post #19

In a country that's stricken with extreme poverty, a caste system that births you into such a fate until death, where women can't walk the street at night without the fear of getting brutally raped or molested, a country that starves while massive stockpiles of food reserves perish due to kafkaesque bureaucracy and corruption; I hardly think that privacy breaches are India's top concern. The political system is alrea…

[deleted]

Re: Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

#33

Post by Daniel_Newby »

r0h1n wrote: post #25
Daniel_Newby wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate? They've got missiles, nukes, a dirty little war with Pakistan, and many regional political challenges. It is not some lolcat site that takes PayPal, it is armies and central bank policies. They were caught with their intel pants down and their response was to make a show of unbuttoning their shirt. It's like a Tom Clancy story ghostwritten by Robin Williams. A little hate is warranted.

> They've got missiles, nukes, a dirty little war with Pakistan, and many regional political challenges. It is not some lolcat site that takes PayPal, it is armies and central bank policies. In short, like the USA, which does all of these at far greater scale? > A little hate is warranted. And apparently, a little racism and bigotry.

I agree! It is exactly like the USA! Like the USA, the Indian foreign service needs to use modern security techniques. Not cargo culting with typewriters and walks in the park like a bad movie script.

Indian is not a race or even an ethnicity. It is a geopolitical affiliation, like Londoner. Nor am I a bigot. If I could read Hindi, I could point you to the Indian IT discussion forums where the thousands of competent security specialists are ripping into their government in ways that make my comment look like high praise. My fury is nothing compared to the people being sold out by the imbeciles at the Indian embassy.

Re: Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

#34

Post by mayanksinghal »

[deleted] wrote: post #32
redact207 wrote: post #19

In a country that's stricken with extreme poverty, a caste system that births you into such a fate until death, where women can't walk the street at night without the fear of getting brutally raped or molested, a country that starves while massive stockpiles of food reserves perish due to kafkaesque bureaucracy and corruption; I hardly think that privacy breaches are India's top concern. The political system is alrea…

[deleted]

Please do not comment when you don't have anything constructive to offer. You embarrass the whole bunch of us as it is going to just feed stereotypes and we know how hard it is to get rid of them.

Re: Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

#35

Post by mayanksinghal »

iamshs wrote: post #17
jonknee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Send it with a person in a diplomatic bag. If it gets intercepted it will be an international incident and you'll know 100% of the time that you are compromised.

Fair enough. But it also imposes time limits for critical communication.

Yes and they may use other avenues when required. As much as I sing songs about incompetence and ineptitude of most government offices (of my country), they do have a knack to survive (or competing forces are just as inadequate, take your pick).

Re: Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

#37

Post by curiousDog »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #33
r0h1n wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They've got missiles, nukes, a dirty little war with Pakistan, and many regional political challenges. It is not some lolcat site that takes PayPal, it is armies and central bank policies. In short, like the USA, which does all of these at far greater scale? > A little hate is warranted. And apparently, a little racism and bigotry.

I agree! It is exactly like the USA! Like the USA, the Indian foreign service needs to use modern security techniques. Not cargo culting with typewriters and walks in the park like a bad movie script. Indian is not a race or even an ethnicity. It is a geopolitical affiliation, like Londoner. Nor am I a bigot. If I could read Hindi, I could point you to the Indian IT discussion forums where the thousands of competent…

Definitely agree with the premise of you comments though. The Indian govt. has been grossly negligent in the past. But with the size, bureaucracy, corruption and red-tape involved, it is incredibly hard for any generally-sane citizen to bring about change. Hopefully, thing will get better in the future. The next to-be-elected prime minister is a bit of hard nut and is expected to bring about change for the good.

Re: Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

#38

Post by menealo »

A couple of you have mentioned the traceability of typewriters as a downside. In fact that is a primary reason for using them. Like a gun, every typewriter has unique quirks that can be used to uniquely identify content typed on that machine. In the event of a leak, the Russians (for example) hope to use this forensic info to identify the leaker. The general knowledge of this acts as a deterrent.

Moreover, it's a common strategy to step back a few levels of tech innovation to defeat an opponent. Bayonets. Cops on bike patrols. Hipster bike messengers. Insurgents originally used cell phones to detonate IEDs (Iraq or Afghanistan), but then they had their phones jammed by the USM--so they switched to string. Al-Qaeda uses hand written notes, hand-delivered.

FOIA laws and e-discovery also cause people to go low tech. To get around FOIA requests government officials have simply stopped using email (others used webmail under a false name). And in my last start up, serious issues raised on email elicited a response by phone in part to avoid potential e-discovery in a lawsuit. That kind of shady behavior caused me to leave.

Re: Indian High Commission to use typewriters for sensitive information

#39

Post by codelust »

redact207 wrote: post #31
r0h1n wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allow me to quote you: > In a country that's stricken with extreme poverty, a caste system that births you into such a fate until death, where women can't walk the street at night without the fear of getting brutally raped or molested, a country that starves while massive stockpiles of food reserves perish due to kafkaesque bureaucracy and corruption; I hardly think that privacy breaches are India's top concern. Your…

Exactly, privacy shouldn't be India's top concern - but evidently it's the only item on the checklist that they've ticked. I'll add it's also one that doesn't help address any of the fundamental issues, and as I mentioned only slows things down in an already burdened government.

Privacy, or security, or both?

Nations can rarely afford to have mutually exclusive streams of work. You don't see the U.S waiting till they solve their economic crisis to figure out what to do in Syria.

One of the major problems with the rank generalizations in both domestic and international media about India is that it reduces the problem to a simple combination of inept leadership, useless bureaucracy and abject poverty.

The fact, though, is that there also a lot of good people doing good work at levels (government, leadership etc.), but there is also a large number of people who are doing crappy jobs.

And as far as something like poverty goes, the causes, extent and solution for it differ from region to region. The concept of India is one of the greatest abstractions the world has ever seen. Take away the tricolour, cricket and the movie industry and you'll find people who rarely have much to identify with each other at a national level.

Consequently, any solution will take time and it will be chaotic; at least until a better genuinely progressive leader emerges, which looks unlikely for a long time to come. Waiting for all that to fall in place till measures are taken to ensure data security and privacy may well mean those won't happen in my lifetime.

p.s: The state of IT in the government is terrible in India. Any smart citizen have to live under the assumption that everything is compromised, by the state itself and by other states.

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