If the app requires an on device backdoor, Apple won’t likely cave to it. If it’s sandboxed, the amount of things it can do is limited to tracking user location, given Apple also disabled turning off location sharing
India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
151–160 of 783 posts
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#152Earlier 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.…
So a pretty transparent way to tie IMEI to someone's identity and track their location under the guise of "finding lost phones" and "checking your phone's authenticity"
That's already the case for most places around the world, unfortunately. Though, this does make the link rather obvious, which is a bit more surprising. Normally shady tracking just happens through a combination of data brokers and leaked databases.
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#153[flagged]
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they actually have a choice? Usually with laws and orders from the government, you can't do much than either go with the flow, try to lobby against it afterwards, or straight up refuse and leave the market. Considering Apple's ties to India, I feel like Apple is unlikely to leave, so that really only leaves Apple with the first; comply and complain.
> Do they actually have a choice? Yes. Apple's revenues are half as much as the government of India's [1][2]. That's a resource advantage that gives Cupertino real leverage against New Delhi. [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/10/apple-reports-fourth-... $102.5bn / quarter [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... $827bn / year
Apple has built an entire alternative iMessage+iCloud setup in China to comply with government regulation. They also bowed to the UK's demands to disable E2EE backups.
They'll probably try to make the app as non-shitty as they possibly can, and will probably leverage all kinds of geographical restrictions and whatnot to isolate the impact of these changes, but when threatened with a large market share hit, Apple will comply.
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#155I'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.
> I'm shocked
India is currently run by a nationalist regime headed by the so called "butcher of Gujarat"[1], there isn't much that would shock me wrt to that lot's totalitarian tendencies.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Narendra_Modi
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Maybe but there’s a fair amount of corruption going on in India. For example, they got caught spraying water near air quality monitors (at them?) to make the data seem better than it is instead of actually tackling the problem.
That's sadly how the culture is in India. I wish it improved to be more like Japan or China but I'm not sure how one can solve this sort of issue.
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#157I wouldn’t venture in the direction that many here will take. I will point out that India have the highest number of victims of cyber-fraud. I personally know many people who have lost significant sums through social engineering attacks. The money is transferred to multiple mule accounts and physical cash is siphoned off to the fraudsters by the owners of those account. They choose helpless, illiterate, village dwell…
> I will point out that India have the highest number of victims of cyber-fraud Based on what? > Another huge issue is unregulated loan apps You don't need to root everyone's phones to regulate financial crime. > Then there are obvious security issues with terrorism and organized crime India is building a centralised backdoor into every phone in the country. That's a massive national security risk.
> Based on what?
Yahoo Finance report that's 3 years old, puts India at #4: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/15-countries-most-cyber-crime...
But 2024 data from PIB puts the number of occurrence much higher at 2.27 million: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressNoteDetails.aspx?NoteId=155384&M...
> You don't need to root everyone's phones to regulate financial crime.
Yes, I agree. Read this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46113070
> India is building a centralised backdoor into every phone in the country. That's a massive national security risk.
Are these what backdoors are? It's an app. It can be uninstalled, right? Are there physical backdoors like American agency NSA tried to install? Or like the Chinese phones that many suspect?
- https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/privacy-scandal-n...
- https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/xiaomis-phones-had-a-securi...
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I abhor any decision that robs even a grain of my individual freedom. Living in a society already means giving up more than a grain of personal freedom. Try entering a store naked. The real deal is the balance between loss and gain
Ye, and this move is not balanced.
They take more than a grain and the gain is debatable
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#159What 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.
> It doesn’t matter what the app does today it can be made to do anything they want after the fact.
This is an extremely important point of universal application that can't be emphasized too much.
Even if one agrees with a current politician's position, once the precedent is set, there's nothing stopping an administration down the line extending the reach of an already installed and by then socially accepted mechanism.
Someone called this the "totalitarian tip toe"; that guy (who shall rename unnamed) was "a bit weird", but his concept stands anyway imo.
Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app
#160Indian government is big on pronouncements. It will be a garbage app that most likely will not work, considering the historical incompetence of the Indian government's expertise in all things tech. I am pretty certain Apple and Samsung will pay off someone in the government.
Isn't one of the largest payment processors in the world made by the Indian Government? Personally I wouldn't risk my personal digital privacy on the incompetence of the government. I'd assume the opposite.
Not really, UPI is developed and operated by several large banks.
Maybe you were thinking about PIX in Brazil which is developed and operated by their central bank.