[HN Gopher] Indian ISPs: We already give govt full access to web...
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       Indian ISPs: We already give govt full access to web traffic
        
       Author : instagraham
       Score  : 278 points
       Date   : 2022-11-10 09:40 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (entrackr.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (entrackr.com)
        
       | bheadmaster wrote:
       | GNU Net [0] seems more relevant than ever:
       | 
       | "The Internet is broken."
       | 
       | "The conventional Internet is currently like a system of roads
       | with deep potholes and highwaymen all over the place. Even if you
       | still can use the roads (e.g. send emails, or browse websites)
       | your vehicle might get hijacked, damaged, or long arms might
       | reach into its back and steal your items (data) to use it against
       | you and sell it to others - while you can't even notice the
       | thievery nor accuse and hold the scroungers accountable. The
       | Internet was not designed with security in mind: protecting
       | against address forgery, routers learning metadata, or choosing
       | trustworthy third parties is nontrivial and sometimes
       | impossible."
       | 
       | [0] https://www.gnunet.org/en/
        
         | eternalban wrote:
         | Thanks. Great bib!
         | 
         | https://bib.gnunet.org/
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | naring2 wrote:
         | this is just a bad analogy. the internet is not transporting
         | anything like a road would. the whole system works by copying
         | "your data" every step along the way.
         | 
         | they are not thieving your precious bits, they are copying them
         | as they are transmitting them. this s also why you cannot even
         | notice the "thievery".
         | 
         | furthermore, this analogy is mangling together data legitimacy,
         | security, and property rights all into one big ball of "be
         | worried, the internet is _stealing you_ because it wasn't
         | designed with safety in mind"
        
           | npteljes wrote:
           | Sending postcards could be a more apt analogy. Even if a bit
           | outdated, still a widely familiar activity, and postcards can
           | be copied. And they are just as open to people in between as
           | HTTP packets are.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | > the internet is not transporting anything like a road
           | would.
           | 
           | Comparing the internet to a highway system is a common and
           | useful thing to do. Your objections are strange.
           | 
           | > they are not thieving your precious bits,
           | 
           | If I look over your shoulder at the ATM and learn your PIN,
           | is it not clear what I mean when I say that "I've stolen your
           | PIN?"
           | 
           | > mangling together data legitimacy, security, and property
           | rights all into one big ball
           | 
           | Is entirely intentional, because these are things to be
           | worried about on the internet.
        
           | bheadmaster wrote:
           | If you happen to come up with a better analogy, I'm sure the
           | GNU Net development team will appreciate your input: gnunet-
           | developers@gnu.org
           | 
           | GNU Project is community-driven, after all.
        
         | thr83away wrote:
        
       | mdp2021 wrote:
       | An important point is whether legislation exists which allows
       | such "monitoring".
       | 
       | Edit:
       | 
       | I would also like to add, one of the latest news was about
       | malicious access of administrative data in Australia - which
       | surely has in general more funds to invest in security than
       | others. I would be concerned about personal data being copied in
       | more repositories (multiplying chances of malicious access).
        
         | mathieuh wrote:
         | Isn't that why countries passed non-specific laws? E.g. in the
         | UK we have the Snoopers' Charter:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigatory_Powers_Act_2016, I
         | believe in the US the Patriot Act did something similar.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | That's an important thing to note, so you can recognize it
           | where you live i.e. under what obscure interpretation, of
           | what strangely written law, passed under what conditions,
           | enabled unlimited network surveillance in the countries that
           | have it? Who in your country supports similar legislation?
        
         | nisegami wrote:
         | >An important point is whether legislation exists which allows
         | such "monitoring".
         | 
         | One thing that people from the "global north" need to remember
         | is that in most of the world, laws are just loose guidelines.
        
           | hulitu wrote:
           | It is the same in the "global north". See Assange Swedish
           | cases.
        
       | UltraViolence wrote:
       | The real canary in the coalmine was actually a movie from 1999
       | called "Enemy of the State."
       | 
       | The plot for the movie was actually based on an account from an
       | NSA employee who tipped one of the producers or director (I
       | forget which) of the mass surveillance the agency was involved
       | in.
       | 
       | To me this movie is iconic just because it predicted events so
       | vividly almost a quarter of a century ago.
        
         | a4isms wrote:
         | Digression:
         | 
         | If you like "Enemy of the State," you absolutely must watch
         | "The Conversation"[1] if you haven't already. You may decide,
         | as many have before you, that it exists in the same universe as
         | "Enemy of the State," and that Gene Hackman's character in
         | "Enemy of the State" is an older, even more cynical Harry Caul
         | from "The Conversation."
         | 
         | [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversation
        
         | varispeed wrote:
         | Predicted or inspired... Imagine a young, going to be
         | politician, kind of person watched it and thought "Hmm, this is
         | not a bad idea at all!" and then climbing the political ladder
         | lobbying for these kind of measures.
        
         | 0x445442 wrote:
         | Even before that, Sneakers "predicted" the NSA spying on its
         | own citizens. I use quotes because it happens too often to be
         | happen stance IMHO.
        
         | i_am_jl wrote:
         | I remember watching Enemy of the State in theaters with my dad.
         | I remember thinking it was a cool movie, but sort of
         | unrealistic and over-the-top, like James Bond.
         | 
         | Now I think it's unrealistic because Will Smith and Gene
         | Hackman survived the first 25 minutes of the film.
        
       | jphsnsir wrote:
       | Don't all ISPs do this? They can be stubborn and lose connecting
       | with the rest of the net.
        
       | openasocket wrote:
       | I'm confused, are they actually getting the plaintext content of
       | HTTPS traffic, or are they just harvesting connection metadata?
       | Not that bulk metadata collection isn't bad, but getting access
       | to unencrypted data would be much worse.
        
       | azalemeth wrote:
       | Many, if not most, nations have similar provisions to this. I
       | think it's wrong and just over the top. However, encrypting
       | everything and using multi-hop routing wherever possible at least
       | will add noise to this sort of dragnet surveillance. Personally,
       | I've taken steps to obsfucate my traffic since similar
       | legislation was introduced in the UK.
        
         | raxxorraxor wrote:
         | It is most often old people scraming at the cloud/internet. I
         | hope the next generation is more aware about the severely
         | negative foundations the current generation gifts to us in
         | their cynicism shortly before their end of life.
         | 
         | But seriously, to me this is a sign that a state is never the
         | friend of its people. There are no sensible security arguments
         | without also looking at the dangers of dragnet surveillance.
         | The US isn't different, the EU isn't different.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | kurmouk wrote:
         | Could you possibly share the tools you use to obfuscate your
         | traffic?
        
           | _trampeltier wrote:
           | I did start with Yacy. First I would bould something thet
           | search a list on Google or so and the just follow links
           | forever. Finally I just found Yacy a P2P search. I did run it
           | for a couple of years.
           | 
           | https://yacy.net/
        
           | danuker wrote:
           | I would guess Tor, I2P, Freenet, GNUNet.
           | 
           | But also configuring or avoiding certain other software:
           | https://spyware.neocities.org/articles/index.html
        
         | roenxi wrote:
         | Snowden released his trove back in 2013. At that point it
         | became obvious that anyone with power to surveil would use it.
         | 
         | I suppose the news here is that the response was so relaxed
         | that governments started doing it publicly and explaining the
         | tech.
        
           | altcognito wrote:
           | It was obvious before Snowden.
           | 
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
        
             | mitchell_h wrote:
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON
             | 
             | This started in the 60s! I remember hearing about it in the
             | mid 90s on random internet forums.
        
       | Neil44 wrote:
       | But how... I mean presumably they don't install a root cert on
       | every client device?
        
         | willis936 wrote:
         | The internet doesn't run on pre-shared keys. Asymmetric
         | encryption is weak against wiretapping.
         | 
         | Otherwise there wouldn't be illegal dragnets (Room 641A, DITU,
         | PRISM).
        
         | stevewatson301 wrote:
         | They can intercept the unencrypted section of encrypted
         | connections, such as TLS ServerName, and the source and
         | destination of every IP datagram which already provides a lot
         | of information to profile individual citizens.
         | 
         | QUIC moves to a model where everything except the Connection ID
         | is encrypted[1], but it is also apparently being blocked in
         | India[2]. The mandated transition to IPv6 in India[3] would
         | also take away the need to track 5-tuples to identify
         | individual customers, easing the scaling of monitoring.
         | 
         | [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8999
         | 
         | [2] https://github.com/kelmenhorst/quic-censorship/issues/2
         | 
         | [3] https://dot.gov.in/ipv6-transition
        
           | AgrMohit wrote:
           | The blocking being observed might be one off issues. I can
           | use QUIC just fine on Reliance Jio's network.
           | 
           | This page [1] shows I am using HTTP/3 which unless I am
           | mistaken requires QUIC to work.
           | 
           | [1] https://cloudflare-quic.com
        
           | lakomen wrote:
           | How would ipv6 "take away the need to track 5-tuples" and
           | what does that even mean? That sentence doesn't make sense
        
             | stevewatson301 wrote:
             | NATing IPv4 traffic requires maintaining a 5-tuple of
             | connection state[1], which means the ISP must log these
             | 5-tuples to be able to track citizens individually.
             | Further, if there's another layer of NAT (such as a free
             | WiFi service in an airport or a WiFi router in a citizen's
             | home), cooperation is needed at that NAT layer too.
             | 
             | IPv6 obviates the need to maintain these 5-tuples since it
             | has a larger IP address space. Each citizen can then be
             | assigned an unique IP address which makes it easier to
             | distinguish traffic without the cooperation of each NATing
             | layer.
             | 
             | [1] https://support.huawei.com/enterprise/en/doc/EDOC110005
             | 5044/...
        
               | huggingmouth wrote:
               | Wouldn't people just continue using consumer-grade
               | routers which operate their own nat anyway? Even with
               | ipv6, the traffic generated by all hosts behind a single
               | isp subscription would appear to originate from a single
               | ipv6 host, no?
        
               | staringback wrote:
               | I highly doubt any consumer grade router is using NAT66.
               | You shouldn't use NAT whatsoever with IPv6 and doing so
               | is just asking for client's network functionality to
               | break.
        
               | staringback wrote:
               | > Each citizen can then be assigned an unique IP address
               | 
               | You don't understand how IPv6 works.
        
               | stevewatson301 wrote:
               | The feedback is fair enough given my phrasing. Of course,
               | IPv6 can't give you a fixed IP address everywhere you go;
               | because that's determined by network topology and IP
               | assignment.
               | 
               | All I'm saying is that there's better segregation of the
               | traffic from each IP resulting in easier analysis without
               | the cooperation of NATing layers.
        
               | ljlolel wrote:
               | You would want to use NAT with ipv6 if you want to hide
               | somewhat your traffic-- say at university as one example.
               | 
               | Couldn't reply to other comment
        
               | staringback wrote:
               | No you wouldn't. You would use temporary privacy
               | addresses in your SLAAC prefix (this is the default for a
               | few operating systems)
        
         | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
         | like the other commenter said, they have IP address information
         | which they "can" corelate from say logs from reddit and pin
         | point which anonymous user posted something. or where a
         | particular email was sent from, they find the email, they can
         | trace it back to the sender and looking at logs, can find where
         | and which device that was from.... ipv6 is very prevalent in
         | india and you don't need a wifi AP level monitoring as you can
         | do on a per-device basis
        
       | praveen9920 wrote:
       | This came as a surprise to me considering when the Indian court
       | orders to take down particular content of particular site, ISPs
       | still uses dns blocking instead of more granular blocking which
       | resulted in blanket site blockings of popular sites
        
         | rand0mx1 wrote:
         | Most Indian ISPs employ Deep-packet Inspection to block
         | websites
        
           | praveen9920 wrote:
           | Not all of them have the capabilities of course
        
       | lakomen wrote:
       | Ok so how is it different from what the USA does?
        
         | Sakos wrote:
         | Probably not at all. Still worth reporting and talking about.
         | It's not okay if the US or India or any other country does it.
         | I'm not happy that most comments here are so resigned, "well,
         | yeah, everybody does it".
        
           | sremani wrote:
           | India is neither a 'Nation of creed' like US or a National-
           | Security state like Russia or Pakistan. It is a nation of
           | insurgencies though, so look elsewhere if Privacy to holy to
           | you, cause it ain't going to be India's forte.
        
           | ozim wrote:
           | Worth talking because there are still people who argue that
           | TLS and HTTPS is hassle that is not needed.
        
             | hulitu wrote:
             | You do realize that they are talking about "https" and
             | "tls" trafic , do you ? The only use i see for those
             | protocols is to identify you.
        
         | Ptchd wrote:
         | It's probably not as bad as what the USA is doing today...
        
         | balaji1 wrote:
         | As many have mentioned, this is probably very common in every
         | country.
         | 
         | But there is always the next target(s) to go after, to keep in
         | check, in a pop culture sense. So one way is to see this
         | (article and this HN post) as a hit piece.
        
       | Anunayj wrote:
       | People really underestimate the full scale of this, specially
       | today with so many sites using cloudflare without strict ssl
       | reverse proxy connection, Cloudflare Endpoints in India are
       | INSIDE ISP networks [1], what this means is the ISP (and
       | therefore by extension the government) sees EVERYTHING going out
       | of cloudflare servers over http in plaintext. Worse ISP will also
       | modify that content so you get the "This site has been blocked in
       | India under diretions from [...]" over https! cause that's what
       | cloudflare saw when it did it's (insecure) http request
       | 
       | 1. https://github.com/captn3m0/hello-cloudflare
        
         | dvno42 wrote:
         | If I'm understanding you correctly, you are saying that the
         | origin servers only listen on HTTP and that is where the ISP
         | intercepts. Is it not common practice for the origin servers to
         | also being using HTTPS? Afaik there's no simple way for the end
         | user to know this though.
        
           | NavinF wrote:
           | People who run the origin servers often use a CDN to do TLS
           | termination because they are too incompetent to do it
           | themselves. Not having to enable TLS is a major value-add for
           | certain types and you'll see this advertised prominently by
           | every CDN
        
         | roody15 wrote:
         | Do you honestly believe the US government doesn't have the same
         | access to cloudflare data within the states?
        
           | JumpCrisscross wrote:
           | > _the US government doesn 't have the same access to
           | cloudflare data within the states?_
           | 
           | Yes. There is almost certainly access. But it's partial and
           | adversarial, not automatic as in India.
        
             | somenameforme wrote:
             | PRISM [1] didn't end when the media stopped reporting on
             | it. If anything it's likely only become more emboldened
             | given people's tepid response. This [2] is one of my
             | favorite documents that was leaked. It's a user manual,
             | "User's Guide For PRISM Skype Collection", for NSA agents
             | spying on Skype "peer to peer" connections in real time.
             | 
             | It even includes a helpful FAQ like agents wondering why
             | they might receive copies of the same message multiple
             | times. What happens there is when somebody they're spying
             | on logs in via another device, their resync process
             | involves everything being sent right on over directly,
             | automatically, and in real time to the NSA again. They can
             | even spy on video/audio in real time, with some promises to
             | agents frustrated about audio falling out of sync with
             | video - that they were working on a technical solution.
             | 
             | The companies at the time participating in PRISM were
             | Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and others. That's
             | undoubtedly been long since expanded.
             | 
             | [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM
             | 
             | [2] - https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_docume
             | nt/Guid...
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | PRISM is a good example of the difference between America
               | and India. One, there's vocal and empowered opposition,
               | opposition granted relief by the courts from time to
               | time. Two, there _was_ opposition-MUSCULAR involved
               | hacking Google and Yahoo 's clouds. Three, there is a
               | warrant process. It's broken. It needs reform. But it
               | exists.
        
               | somenameforme wrote:
               | What empowered opposition or successes? Many seem to have
               | confused the highly publicized 'telephone metadata
               | collection is unconstitutional' ruling with PRISM. That
               | was related to other domestic spying bills - section 215
               | of the Patriot Act and its subsequent renewal under
               | another spying act, the "USA Freedom Act." These
               | cases/acts had nothing to do with PRISM.
               | 
               | Numerous cases have been filed against the NSA in regards
               | to PRISM, with nothing even remotely close to success.
               | They are invariably thrown out because the NSA acting
               | illegally or unconstitutionally can only be challenged by
               | somebody with standing. You only have standing if you can
               | prove you have been surveilled and affected because of
               | such. Nobody can prove standing, so it's impossible to
               | legally challenge a likely illegal program. Great system
               | we have.
        
           | xfer wrote:
           | Do you see a green lock with message saying "your access is
           | restricted" in the US?
           | 
           | Do you see any TLS connection resets based on SNI? If not,
           | most(all?) indian ISPs already visibly do far more than
           | average American ISP.
        
           | themitigating wrote:
           | No where in the parent's comment did they mention the US.
           | What's the point of your comment?
           | 
           | It's like if we were discussing a serial killer and you were
           | like "don't you think other people have killed?"
           | 
           | The second reply to this post and someone is already
           | redirecting the conversation to a country not mention in the
           | story. Are you upset because you think India is being singled
           | out? No where on the article or the comment does it imply
           | that.
           | 
           | On HN there are a massive amount of discussion about US
           | government spying already, it's not something that people
           | aren't aware of.
        
             | kshacker wrote:
             | The parent comment is valid. The GP comment specially
             | highlighted the Indian networks as different so that
             | factoid being challenged (in efficacy rather than
             | implementation) is a pretty valid stance.
        
         | gsatic wrote:
         | pfft it's India. Ppl with access to sensitive data get paid
         | peanuts. So you too can see "everything" by giving the right
         | person a bag of nice mangoes.
        
         | MichaelZuo wrote:
         | Does cloudflare mention this anywhere?
        
         | switch007 wrote:
         | It's unethical of CloudFlare et al to offer such a feature.
        
       | petya0812 wrote:
        
       | neets wrote:
       | What is India turning into China lite?
        
         | user_7832 wrote:
         | Well if you look at the Snowden/Five Eyes/9 Eyes etc by that
         | logic USA/Aus/France etc are already "turning" into China
         | (except, of course that this has been going on forever and no
         | one really paid too much attention to Snowden). Not blaming you
         | as mainstream media also often paints Snowden negatively but
         | something to be aware of.
        
       | m33k44 wrote:
       | This happens because the Indian government does not yet have the
       | infrastructure of NSA and or GCHQ :) They have to demand for the
       | information instead :)
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | mritun wrote:
       | Yes they do, mainly because it's the law.
       | 
       | That it's a misguided law is open for debate, but I don't believe
       | there is any state in the world that doesn't monitor and control
       | tele-communications (internet is regulated as tele-communications
       | WW).
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | It is the details of the law that count here.
         | 
         | "Rights of investigation" and "capillary monitoring" are poles.
        
         | quietbritishjim wrote:
         | The level of surprise does seem overblown. This bit stuck out
         | to me:
         | 
         | > ... access to this data is so accessible remotely that
         | physically visiting an internet provider's premises is no
         | longer required for government agencies.
         | 
         | They were expecting government agents to have to physically
         | visit the ISP's offices? Were they perhaps going to get their
         | data on a floppy disk?
        
           | stevewatson301 wrote:
           | The model where law enforcement officers have to visit ISP
           | facilities reduces the duration and scope of surveillance.
           | Throw in a process where you need to get court approval into
           | the mix, and this provides some level of oversight into the
           | surveillance machinery. (Though abuses are certainly possible
           | with this model, see [1]).
           | 
           | [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/05/foriegn-
           | intelligence-s...
        
           | Lealen wrote:
           | They weren't asking for floppy disks, they were sending their
           | people to connect directly to infrastructure.
           | 
           | One of examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
        
             | quietbritishjim wrote:
             | Ah ok that does make a bit more sense.
        
           | yardstick wrote:
           | Just because data can be made accessible remotely doesn't
           | mean it should be.
           | 
           | Airgapped systems are also still a thing.
           | 
           | On-site access would also make it harder to abuse the data at
           | scale.
           | 
           | I'm not surprised that the data is accessed remotely. But I
           | can also understand scenarios where it makes sense to require
           | physical access, and not because of long gone floppy disk
           | drives or other ancient hardware.
        
             | mdp2021 wrote:
             | On the other hand, if your purpose is automated analysis of
             | data, you will probably create an automated update of the
             | records - a direct connection.
        
             | nix23 wrote:
             | Data diods are also a thing (physical oneway traffic) but
             | that so many are unaware of it is mindblowing.
             | 
             | https://owlcyberdefense.com/learn-about-data-diodes/
        
         | 0x445442 wrote:
         | I've wondered about this for a while now with all the social
         | media banning. The FCC requires one to have a license to
         | broadcast over the airwaves and from what I understand these
         | regulations stem from a limited number of frequencies. But I
         | wonder if the FCC would have been created if that physical
         | constraint did not exist. Was the FCC more about the
         | constrained physics or controlled information?
        
           | triceratops wrote:
           | Constrained physics.
           | 
           | The FCC doesn't regulate content on cable TV.
           | Technologically, there's no reason cable radio couldn't have
           | existed.
        
             | 0x445442 wrote:
             | But I was talking about airwaves, and they do regulate
             | what's on those. It's not just physics.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Communications_Commis
             | s...
        
         | adrian_b wrote:
         | Yet there was a time, not long ago, when many countries had
         | written in their constitutions, among the fundamental rights of
         | their citizens, the rights of secrecy for both their written
         | correspondence and their telephone conversations.
         | 
         | Such rights were included even in the constitutions of many
         | communist countries, despite the fact that there it was a
         | routine activity for the secret police to open all suspect
         | private correspondence and listen to many telephone calls.
         | Nonetheless, they had to be careful to not get caught, because
         | the official version was that their activities were illegal and
         | even anti-constitutional.
         | 
         | Unfortunately, now almost everywhere such rights have been
         | weakened or completely eliminated, without any good
         | justification and without the opposition that such changes
         | deserved.
        
           | hulitu wrote:
           | > Unfortunately, now almost everywhere such rights have been
           | weakened or completely eliminated, without any good
           | justification and without the opposition that such changes
           | deserved.
           | 
           | What do you mean "without any good justification" ? It is for
           | your own good to protect you from terrorists (the bad ones
           | specifically), hate speech (anything which is against the
           | official narative) and child porn. /s
           | 
           | Why would change deserve opposition when it is for your own
           | good and the change is in better [1] ? /s
           | 
           | [1] See Monty Python's Life of Brian - Ex-lepper scene.
        
       | LatteLazy wrote:
       | And US and UK and Australian and basically all countries at this
       | point.
        
         | mtgx wrote:
        
       | sidcool wrote:
       | Use VPNs. Most are quire expensive from Indian standards.
        
       | hunglee2 wrote:
       | I think we must all agree that national governments have a duty
       | of care towards their citizens.
       | 
       | From the Indian govt perspective, the dominance of the Internet
       | by foreign owned businesses means that the country is vulnerable
       | to malfeasance should those foreign governments mean India harm
       | or come to decide - _over the head of the government_ - what the
       | Indian people want or need.
       | 
       | This is about national sovereignty and national security. We have
       | seen how those values trump privacy concerns for individuals in
       | any country, including the US, so must accord the same
       | understanding for other nations also.
        
         | raxxorraxor wrote:
         | I agree that most western democratic nations are a very bad
         | example when it comes to defending their own values. But
         | government should simply not have the ability to monitor
         | citizen communication. It was a problem in the past and it
         | should not be a problem in the future.
        
           | hunglee2 wrote:
           | > But government should simply not have the ability to
           | monitor citizen communication.
           | 
           | What if the citizens were agents of the enemy?
        
         | ruminator1 wrote:
         | How is violating someone's privacy caring for them? "Forfeit
         | your rights so your rights can be protected"
        
           | hunglee2 wrote:
           | the use case most commonly cited by government(s) is national
           | security.
           | 
           | for example, the government might suspect a citizen to be an
           | agent of the CCP. Would you defend that individuals right to
           | privacy, vs the nations right to security?
        
             | kitchi wrote:
             | So rather than blanket surveillance, wouldn't it make more
             | sense for the government to build a case against a suspect,
             | and then issue a warrant to track their behaviour etc?
             | 
             | Unless the assumption is that all citizens of a country are
             | potentially enemies of the state and we are all highly
             | trained spies operating under deep cover for years...
        
               | hunglee2 wrote:
               | the question would be 'building a case' - how would do
               | you this if you didn't conduct some sort of profiling?
               | The entire purpose of national security apparatus is to
               | identify enemies of the state _before_ they are able to
               | act. Do you think this is always unjustified? Genuine
               | question, don 't know the answer myself!
        
         | instagraham wrote:
         | This government's police agencies have used Israeli spyware to
         | plant incriminating evidence on journalists and activists.
         | "National security" has come to mean "anything critical of the
         | government".
         | 
         | Loose terms like "national security" are like good times that
         | breed weak leaders. I think we must all agree that citizens
         | have a right against persecution.
         | 
         | What track record does this government have that suggests they
         | will do no wrong with their internet history logs?
        
           | hunglee2 wrote:
           | "National security" has come to mean "anything critical of
           | the government".
           | 
           | Yes this is true!
           | 
           | Hence government needs to invest in indoctrination in order
           | to better convince the people of the justness of their
           | actions. Singing the national anthem, waving the flag,
           | inventing enemies without and within - it's pretty easy to
           | build the 'cognitive infrastructure' required to carry the
           | day
        
       | evnix wrote:
       | we need a decentralized list for holding key pair signatures.
       | 
       | it could something like adblocker list, No more central CA.
        
       | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
       | 5 days ago i wrote about UK govt doing scans of all websites
       | hosted in UK for "security" reasons and i was downvoted for "
       | Stop lying and not relevant, you clearly came here with an
       | agenda"... i guess we really do have an agenda when the
       | government has access to full internet web traffic and they can
       | pick and choose their targets with impunity
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33470079#33470409
        
         | mdp2021 wrote:
         | And in some countries we are starting to see "Adopt electronic
         | payment: simple and safe" - which implies, "create tracks" -,
         | as generic anonymous advertisement... Even on the electronic
         | billboards of motorways!!!
        
         | dspillett wrote:
         | Looking at that, I'd suggest the downvotes are from being
         | technically wrong (the "Scanning for vulnerabilities won't help
         | you find critics. If you wanted to look for critics, you would
         | scan for critics." argument - there are better/easier ways to
         | achieve what you are talking about a government trying to
         | achieve so why would they go to that effort?). Maybe some
         | considered the comment concerning India on a thread about the
         | UK was pulling things off-topic, though as not all voters
         | replied with clarifying comments we'll never know.
         | 
         | The lying/agenda thing seems to just be one comment. Try not to
         | assume that one angry reply represents a larger chunk of HN's
         | readership. The Internet is full of bus-stop boxers, it is best
         | to not let them wind you up overly.
        
           | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
           | oh no, not that. >Try not to assume that one angry reply
           | represents a larger chunk of HN's readership.
           | 
           | you get to have a thick skin when you are on an anonymous
           | public platform. i accept that....
           | 
           | i live in a place where i have to actually assume malice on
           | part of the government because the government "is" hostile
           | against me. Again, this isn't some tin-foil conspiracy but as
           | you might've guessed from my handle, its yeah...
           | 
           | So that comment earlier and the current article about ISPs
           | tracking users, this is primarily to catch critics and
           | dissenters.
        
             | dspillett wrote:
             | _> So that comment earlier [was that] this is primarily to
             | catch critics and dissenters._
             | 
             | I was suggesting that the downvotes there, complained about
             | above, where people disagreeing with this possibility, on
             | the basis that it would not offer a practical amount of
             | extra information (considering the effort involved) than
             | already being gleaned with other methods they are already
             | using. Not generally how downvotes should be used IMO, but
             | it happens.
        
       | syntaxing wrote:
       | Curious how this works technically, does the Indian government
       | have control over ca certs and every ISP uses them to MiTM it?
        
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