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How India Censors the Web

iamkush.me

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Re: How India Censors the Web

#41

Post by kranner »

milankragujevic wrote: post #40
kranner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every couple of weeks one of my internet connections (here in India) slows down dramatically. I used to call and complain, and my ISP would say they would "reset my account" which always brought things back to normal. For months I tried to persuade them to find and fix the underlying problem. Now I just call and ask if they can reset my account, please.

In Eastern Europe I use 4G home internet when visiting my parents' village house. Every week like clockwork, the quality will drastically decrease from the usual 100 Mbps, on Saturday to 40 Mbps (minimum for the package) and Sunday to 10 Mbps. This will remain forever on 10 Mbps, even on Monday at 4am. The only fix was to call the support line on Sunday and ask for a "network reset". Since this is a home internet, it…

Very amusing except for your connection troubles.

I also had intermittent disconnection issues with the same ISP that they fobbed off with "maybe your WiFI is bad/has interference" or "you may be running other processes that are saturating the network connection". I had no devices with ethernet ports so I bought a USB ethernet adapter, booted up a barebones linux dist, ran a script that tried to connect to an upstream server, plotted a graph (which showed a disconnection every 20 minutes) and presented that to them. To their credit they admitted there was a problem and moved my microwave antenna to another tower. (For all I know the former tower still has that issue)

Re: How India Censors the Web

#42

Post by higerordermap »

ananth22by7 wrote: post #32
piyushpr134 wrote: post #18

India is going to dogs under current leadership

I know this is an “in” opinion to have among urban, middle class or liberal circles, but I disagree. Life for me has been just fine. I can’t speak for the majority, only for myself.

I am not an "Indian liberal" or "urban". But India is dogs under current leadership and that's obvious if you observe. The media is very pro-govt and doesn't tell anything that remotely harms the government, while hyping about the current government. Thus lot of people live under the illusion.

Re: How India Censors the Web

#43

Post by milankragujevic »

kranner wrote: post #41
milankragujevic wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Eastern Europe I use 4G home internet when visiting my parents' village house. Every week like clockwork, the quality will drastically decrease from the usual 100 Mbps, on Saturday to 40 Mbps (minimum for the package) and Sunday to 10 Mbps. This will remain forever on 10 Mbps, even on Monday at 4am. The only fix was to call the support line on Sunday and ask for a "network reset". Since this is a home internet, it…

Very amusing except for your connection troubles. I also had intermittent disconnection issues with the same ISP that they fobbed off with "maybe your WiFI is bad/has interference" or "you may be running other processes that are saturating the network connection". I had no devices with ethernet ports so I bought a USB ethernet adapter, booted up a barebones linux dist, ran a script that tried to connect to an upstrea…

At least you reached someone who can interpret the graph, or even if they could, are even allowed to and able to (and willing to) forward the issue upstream.

Usually ISPs here optimize for lowest possible maintenance cost (right away), which means leaving things in a degraded state forever, and fix it when it finally breaks (which can cost more than fixing it right away).

So in general nobody wants to do a costly fix for one user in a small semi-rural area, especially if nobody else complains (and they don't, they don't know or suffer through it, or have a 10 Mbps package anyway so they don't notice anything unusual).

Re: How India Censors the Web

#44

Post by srean »

sbmthakur wrote: post #27
piyushpr134 wrote: post #18

India is going to dogs under current leadership

How exactly?

One wrong decision at a time. Starting with demonetization.

The economy has tanked and our minister attributes that to an act of god rather than take responsibility of the ill-conceived partisan measures.

Mishandling Covid.

Giving a fee pass to cow-urine-prevents-Covid bandwagon while planting stories about Jamaat being a conspiracy to spread Covid in India. This plays to their political base but has been recently called out by the court. Court has declared these to be cases of politically motivated misreporting.

Filling WhatsApp groups by fakenews and fake incidents of Muslims killing/burning/human-sacrificing Hindus to incite more communal violence which plays to the ruling parties narrative and a polarized society, the latter earns them more votes. Close ties with BJP cell and WA comes convenient.

Doing nothing to give protection to medical staff against violence (Covid related) other than platitudes. The perpetrators of such violence gets bail immediately, whereas university professors get jailed under made up charges of terrorism that conveniently do not require a proof in court and is nonbailable. Essentially throwing the medical staff under the bus for their own political gains.

Incarcerating sources of credible criticism by abuse of laws that do not require allegations to be proved in court.

Looking the other way while hate crime against Muslims and other beef eaters increases. Stopping the record of hate crime by government order, so that one cannot point to statistics.

Moving towards a "papers please" society.

I don't maintain the urls of the news I read so I don't have the links immediately available. However with a few hours on google, one should be able to get to the primary sources of the examples I have called out.

Re: How India Censors the Web

#45

Post by ksec »

milankragujevic wrote: post #40
kranner wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every couple of weeks one of my internet connections (here in India) slows down dramatically. I used to call and complain, and my ISP would say they would "reset my account" which always brought things back to normal. For months I tried to persuade them to find and fix the underlying problem. Now I just call and ask if they can reset my account, please.

In Eastern Europe I use 4G home internet when visiting my parents' village house. Every week like clockwork, the quality will drastically decrease from the usual 100 Mbps, on Saturday to 40 Mbps (minimum for the package) and Sunday to 10 Mbps. This will remain forever on 10 Mbps, even on Monday at 4am. The only fix was to call the support line on Sunday and ask for a "network reset". Since this is a home internet, it…

Are you sure that is not part of their QoS programme? Normally there are some Fair Use policy known ( or not ) within the network where top 1% ( i.e those who are using the most Data ) would be slowed down. Especially on 4G Mobile Network where capacity are limited.

And it would reset every month.

Re: How India Censors the Web

#46

Post by milankragujevic »

ksec wrote: post #45
milankragujevic wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Eastern Europe I use 4G home internet when visiting my parents' village house. Every week like clockwork, the quality will drastically decrease from the usual 100 Mbps, on Saturday to 40 Mbps (minimum for the package) and Sunday to 10 Mbps. This will remain forever on 10 Mbps, even on Monday at 4am. The only fix was to call the support line on Sunday and ask for a "network reset". Since this is a home internet, it…

Are you sure that is not part of their QoS programme? Normally there are some Fair Use policy known ( or not ) within the network where top 1% ( i.e those who are using the most Data ) would be slowed down. Especially on 4G Mobile Network where capacity are limited. And it would reset every month.

Yes, because the FUP is 2 Mb/s and after 200 GB.

I don't use that much in a month as this Internet is used only when I visit my parents' house and stay for a week or so (though I'm staying now much longer because of COVID, less than 1000 people live here so it's safer and also easier to stay locked down).

My use a DSL connection because my mom streams TV shows and that would eat all of the data allowance quickly. She doesn't need speed though, and DSL is fast enough for HD streaming.

This is most likely a technical issue with this base station, since when I had relocated the service to a different city I had no issue with the same SIM card and modem.

Other people too experience it here, but aren't impacted enough to continuously complain.

Re: How India Censors the Web

#47

Post by ksec »

milankragujevic wrote: post #46
ksec wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure that is not part of their QoS programme? Normally there are some Fair Use policy known ( or not ) within the network where top 1% ( i.e those who are using the most Data ) would be slowed down. Especially on 4G Mobile Network where capacity are limited. And it would reset every month.

Yes, because the FUP is 2 Mb/s and after 200 GB. I don't use that much in a month as this Internet is used only when I visit my parents' house and stay for a week or so (though I'm staying now much longer because of COVID, less than 1000 people live here so it's safer and also easier to stay locked down). My use a DSL connection because my mom streams TV shows and that would eat all of the data allowance quickly. She…

Interesting, so they know there is an issue, they know it is not FUP, and decide not to investigate. Sounds like pretty much all Mobile Network around the world are the same LOL.

Re: How India Censors the Web

#48

Post by sbmthakur »

srean wrote: post #44
sbmthakur wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly?

One wrong decision at a time. Starting with demonetization. The economy has tanked and our minister attributes that to an act of god rather than take responsibility of the ill-conceived partisan measures. Mishandling Covid. Giving a fee pass to cow-urine-prevents-Covid bandwagon while planting stories about Jamaat being a conspiracy to spread Covid in India. This plays to their political base but has been recently ca…

Good compilation. I think spreading propaganda over WhatsApp and circlejerking is not exactly specific to BJP supporters and followers. As for assaults on medical personnel, it also happens in states where BJP doesn't rule.

I completely agree about the economy part, but they will not accept it because that doesn't get you votes, just like the previous regime.

Re: How India Censors the Web

#49

Post by milankragujevic »

ksec wrote: post #47
milankragujevic wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, because the FUP is 2 Mb/s and after 200 GB. I don't use that much in a month as this Internet is used only when I visit my parents' house and stay for a week or so (though I'm staying now much longer because of COVID, less than 1000 people live here so it's safer and also easier to stay locked down). My use a DSL connection because my mom streams TV shows and that would eat all of the data allowance quickly. She…

Interesting, so they know there is an issue, they know it is not FUP, and decide not to investigate. Sounds like pretty much all Mobile Network around the world are the same LOL.

It's cheaper to ignore it, as I wrote here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24636661

And yes, that's how most mobile network operators work. There are exceptions, but it's not a "standard" thing even in the EU with the strict consumer protection laws.

Re: How India Censors the Web

#50

Post by FerretFred »

justDankin wrote: post #16

I'm one of the authors of the paper in the post, we're trying to extend this work by crowdsourcing censorship measurements from different vantage points in India. We've compiled these tests into an android app, please consider running it if you live in India and would like to contribute to the research :) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.censorwatc... It's completely anonymous, doesn't require any pe…

Thanks! This is interesting/useful/worrying. I note that there's an emphasis on web censorship, but do you have a feel for how other protocols are affected? I know that if the "plug" is pulled, everything would be affected, but what about file transfers using SFTP or FTP?
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