[HN Gopher] Indian court orders blocking of Proton Mail
___________________________________________________________________
Indian court orders blocking of Proton Mail
Author : impish9208
Score : 254 points
Date : 2025-04-29 16:41 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Are those essentially just sham cases orchestrated by the
| government to justify blocking an encrypted service?
|
| It seems like such an insane over-reaction to an absolute non-
| issue.
| hengheng wrote:
| The built-in overreach makes it look like a structure set up in
| a way that encourage corruption, even though it won't happen in
| this case and is likely not even intended.
| shash wrote:
| Doubtful. The petitioner in this case is an international
| architecture firm, hardly a typical group to be used for a sham
| case. The judgement itself isn't out so we can't see the
| court's reasoning.
|
| This is a bit more comprehensive:
| https://www.barandbench.com/amp/story/news/karnataka-high-co...
| and the Delhi case in which the ban is previously mentioned is
| only peripherally about email (the mail used by one of the
| parties is proton). The court makes an observation there that
| it should already have been banned so how is it still around.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| I mean this is just absurd.
|
| > On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court directed the Indian
| government to block Proton Mail, a popular email service known
| for its enhanced security, following a legal complaint filed by
| New Delhi-based M Moser Design Associates. The local firm alleged
| that its employees had received emails containing obscene and
| vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.
|
| How does this make any sense. Would the court block gmail if the
| same happens via gmail?.
|
| India somehow is stuck in the worst of all worlds. There is no
| freedom like democratic countries and there is no good government
| like China.
|
| To any westerners commenting, this is not same as think of the
| children. Government or courts mostly don't even need to give
| such excuses in India (max they might say to counter traitors).
| There is obscene amount of corruption in the country at every
| step from the local to the highest, and it is internalized by the
| citizens so much that everyone knows and nobody cares.
|
| Edit: good government above means competent government
| umvi wrote:
| > there is no good government like China
|
| Here "good" means "is competent and calculating" I suppose.
| China's government wouldn't even blink blocking Proton Mail or
| any other non-Chinese technology without even giving a reason,
| though.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Yeah that is a good tradeoff (IMHO) if it gives the citizens
| a tradeoff of infrastructure and social services. Indian
| government can jump through hoops to do the same thing but
| somehow can never do all that when it comes to rapid
| infrastructure development.
| __rito__ wrote:
| > "[...] never do all that when it comes to rapid
| infrastructure development."
|
| India is now building 100 km highway per day. It created
| 24,000+ km in the last 5 years. [0]
|
| It has the second-largest road network in the world, second
| only to the US. [1]
|
| [0]: https://pib.gov.in/PressNoteDetails.aspx?NoteId=151963
| &Modul...
|
| [1]: https://www.financialexpress.com/business/roadways-
| indias-ro...
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Yes the current government is doing some things well and
| that does include road development which has been
| extensive.
| luckylion wrote:
| Isn't 100km per day their goal while their record is at
| 37km on a single day? That's impressive by itself, but
| it's not quite the same (and those 5 year numbers would
| take them less than one year at that speed).
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Yes, "completely different from China's government" is really
| what's meant.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| No, I did mean "competent"
| ivell wrote:
| I wouldn't consider ghost cities and wasteful expenditure
| on infrastructure to just prop up GDP as good governance.
| As the saying goes not all that glitters is gold.
|
| Democracy is messy, but there is some kind of
| transparency (freedom of press) that brings up issues out
| in the open.
|
| Let's not be impatient with Democracy lest we lose all
| that we valued without us realizing it.
|
| Democracy needs patience and preserverence.
| hmm37 wrote:
| A lot of the ghost cities news has been debunked as of
| late. When the news stories were coming out, a lot of the
| cities were just recently built. A decade+ later, a lot
| of the areas have been filled in...
|
| E.g. this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR4EYQ6JFUI
| luotuoshangdui wrote:
| > Good government like China
|
| This is a bad joke. For starters, China blocked Proton Mail
| years ago.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| I am not claiming China is free or democratic at all, just
| that Government in turn is able to use it's authoritarianism
| to do stuff for the country.
| duxup wrote:
| Every government is busy with some form of "do stuff for
| the country".
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It seems clear above commenters are referencing that
| China performs better at accomplishing certain tasks,
| such as large scale infrastructure development, that
| isn't comparable to other countries that "do stuff".
| duxup wrote:
| I'm always skeptical of what I will call the admiration
| of "despotic efficiency / accomplishments".
|
| I'm not sure how efficient or how long accurate their
| success / failure rates are.
|
| Especially when blocking a service would seem to have no
| impact on it...
| l33tfr4gg3r wrote:
| If that's what you really believe, then I'd say Chinese
| government propaganda is working as intended.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Have you ever really visited China? I would just say go
| to your preferred youtube channel and watch any chinese
| city and any indian city and then say the same thing as
| above.
| InsideOutSanta wrote:
| Don't base your opinion of China on YouTube channels that
| show you a few modern places in Chongqing or the high-
| speed train and pretend that this represents all of
| China. They don't show you the homeless people, the
| abandoned half-built high-rises, the dirty parks full of
| plastic waste, the barred-up windows because break-ins
| are so prevalent.
|
| And travel 30 minutes outside of any major city. You'll
| see people living in broken-down buildings without
| heating when it's below zero, roads that haven't been
| maintained in decades, and poor people trying to jump in
| front of your car for insurance money.
|
| China is neither the technological wonder of the world
| portrayed in these videos nor a bunch of peasants. It's a
| vast, complex country with a lot of good _and_ a lot of
| bad.
| xmprt wrote:
| I would love to say the same of India but unfortunately
| India has all of those problems and even the best parts
| of India don't hold a candle to even tier 2 cities in
| China.
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Exactly the same could be said about several 1st world
| democratic countries. The point is India level of
| development is far lower than its neighbor having a
| similar population size and having come from as far down,
| or worse than India. The difference is a government that
| provided (more) benefits to its population.
| decimalenough wrote:
| I have traveled widely across both India and China. China
| is wealthier and better off across the board: HDI, GDP
| per capita, healthcare, you name it.
|
| https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?
| sc=...
|
| China has its problems for sure, but vast slabs of India
| remain mired in sub-Saharan Africa levels of poverty and
| squalor.
| JCharante wrote:
| I mean the everyday people are happy and their GDP is
| high.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I have been under the impression that China has been
| lying about their GDP for years and years, I thought this
| was commonly known.
|
| I have also been under the impression, for years and
| years, that it isn't a good idea to speak ill of the one-
| party regime, to anyone ever.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I highly doubt GDP numbers in China are falsified, but
| GDP per capita doesn't matter much when median household
| incomes in China remain in the $250-350/mo (EDIT:
| $400-500/mo, good callout, needed to update priors from
| covid) range according to Chinese government statistics.
|
| This is why Chinese overproduction exists - incomes are
| too low for most Chinese consumers to purchase higher
| value goods that are made in China, because you aren't
| upgrading your cellphone or car every year when your
| household income is in that range.
| bdangubic wrote:
| maybe those numbers are right decades ago - now it is
| double that, in _disposable_ income
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/278698/annual-per-
| capita...
| alephnerd wrote:
| 2024 - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/2024
| 08/t202408...
| bdangubic wrote:
| income of $300-ish vs disposable income of almost $3k are
| quite different things :)
| 201984 wrote:
| That's 3k per 6 months, so about $500/month disposable
| income.
| croes wrote:
| The poverty rate in China declined even outside Chinese
| propaganda.
|
| So there are benefits for the Chinese population.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| You can disagree with their motives and methods but it's
| undeniable that the Chinese government is working
| incredibly hard for themselves and their citizens. The
| sheer manufacturing dominance of China speaks for itself,
| as does their presence on the global stage, as does their
| looming influence over geopolitics.
|
| And yeah, they put out a shit ton of propaganda too. But
| it being propaganda doesn't by virtue of that fact make
| it lies. One would argue the more effective kind of
| propaganda is the kind that's verifiable fact, even if
| ideologically slanted in delivery.
|
| And you know, I'm also biased as an American currently
| living under the "group of incompetent jackasses"
| administration, but I'd love for my government to do
| anything besides shutting down departments that make
| business owners mad and handing out tax breaks to the
| richest assholes here every fuckin day.
| keybored wrote:
| Pro-Chinese sentiment _has_ increased lately here in the
| West it seems, and part of that must be because the
| Chinese have managed to put their best propaganda
| forward. But I don't see how we can have any sane
| discussion when one side of the argument can be bad-faith
| dismissed off the bat.
| blitzar wrote:
| I used to believe the western propaganda "they are all
| peasants" - then I went to see with my own eyes.
|
| If you are going to parrot western talking points then it
| would be insane conversation.
| lossolo wrote:
| > then I went to see with my own eyes
|
| Exactly the same here. I went to see with my own eyes,
| and the reality is very different from what I hear in
| some news outlets and from politicians.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| There are undeniably ways in which the command economy is
| simply more efficient. The party can decide that in 10
| years they will be world leader in this or that, put
| resources toward it, and accomplish that goal. That
| doesn't mean the Chinese way is best for everyone, and
| there are certainly humanitarian issues, there are
| inefficiencies typical of a command economy, and there
| are unintended consequences, (tofu dreg, etc) but it's
| undeniable that they're currently getting stuff done.
| lossolo wrote:
| And where are you getting your information? The most
| interesting thing is how U.S. politicians often use the
| phrase 'Chinese Communist Party' when talking about
| China, invoking Cold War-era connotations of communism.
| But everyone knows that the only things still 'communist'
| about China are the party's name, its symbols, and the
| flag.
|
| I've been to both the U.S. and China. There's
| significantly more propaganda about China in the U.S.
| than there is about the U.S. in China. Stop blindly
| believing what others say--go see for yourself. In the
| coastal and Tier-1 cities, you'll witness how a
| population the size of the entire United States enjoys a
| higher standard of living than the American middle class,
| with greater affordability, and clean, safe, and
| beautiful urban environments (with infrastructure that is
| way ahead of US).
| indoordin0saur wrote:
| FYI, a good term for this is "state capacity"
| keybored wrote:
| What's the relevance of authoritarianism? Is it necessary
| for the good government or is it neutral or other?
| tehjoker wrote:
| Protonmail did not comply with Chinese law. I can't say I'm a
| fan, but this wasn't targeted at Protonmail, it was the same
| with Google. China requires this because China is a target
| for U.S. imperialism and must protect itself. The internet,
| mainly owned by the USA, is basically like radio free asia
| dot com.
|
| Protecting Chinese technology firms also allowed China to
| grow highly competitive national companies, a phenomenon we
| don't see as much anywhere US technology companies were
| allowed free reign.
|
| > The applicable Chinese law is the China Internet Security
| Law which came into force in 2017. The law essentially
| stipulates that foreign companies which operate in China and
| process the private information of Chinese citizens, must
| store such data in China and make it available to Chinese
| authorities upon request. An example of a company which has
| had to comply with this law is Apple, which has extensive
| operations in China. A similar law went into effect in Russia
| back in 2015 (known as Federal Law No. 242-FZ).
|
| https://proton.me/blog/clarifying-protonmail-and-huawei
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Explain how the "internet [is] mainly owned by the USA."
|
| The robust Chinese technology sector is no doubt a
| reflection of smart and industrious Chinese people. Those
| smart and industrious people include those in the CPC
| engaged in wholesale industrial espionage.
| tehjoker wrote:
| The largest technology companies are headquartered in USA
| and have extensive ties with the US state??? I don't
| understand how you can think Europe, Africa, Australia,
| Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are unable to develop
| comparable technology, it's simply that the market
| opportunities are gobbled up by behemoths grown where the
| internet was invented backed by US diplomacy.
|
| Anyways, you can read more here:
| https://www.amazon.com/Surveillance-Valley-Military-
| History-...
| Yeul wrote:
| Chinese infrastructure is light years ahead of India and
| frankly a police surveillance state does make the streets
| safe.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I agree. The fact that India is so behind China while not being
| a free country is just horrible. Add to that massive amounts of
| pollution. People cannot breathe and no clean water.
| briandear wrote:
| > no good government like China // good government means
| competent government
|
| As someone that lived in China for 5 years, competent is the
| last adjective I'd use.
|
| Sichuan Earthquake --> https://circa.art/ai-weiwei-recapturing-
| the-tragedy/
|
| The Shanghai Lockdown --> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
| china-59890533.amp
|
| Local Chinese government corruption -->
| https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/how-local-corruption-evolved...
|
| Tai Lake pollution -->
| https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/taihu-green-wash-or...
|
| Land seizures --> https://rightsandresources.org/blog/the-
| guardian-chinese-vil...
|
| Xinjiang --> https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-
| uyghurs-musl...
|
| One could call China's government competent the same way one
| could say Stalin was a competent administrator. Nazis were also
| very "competent" and efficient. In no universe should that be
| considered "good government."
| musicale wrote:
| For a moment I thought you might be the Brian Dear who wrote
| The Friendly Orange Glow (a fascinating history of the PLATO
| system).
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| It really is between 2 choices:
|
| 1. An authoritarian government that can actually do things
| but also mess up and be harsh against anyone opposing it -
| China
|
| 2. A democratic government that can't get anything done,
| citizens can't rely on police for any crimes, courts for any
| justice, politicians for any development, where the politics
| of the nation just constantly seeks to divide on basis of
| caste, religion, language etc, and the nation as a whole
| wallows in mediocrity.
| noxs wrote:
| People often underestimate how much impact the education of
| certain aspect (Infrastructure in China and Democracy in
| Westerner countries) has made to their values to a government,
| and meanwhile the education is controlled by the government to
| certain degree.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Interesting. As a Brit, I imagine (possibly ideally) by the
| time I'm an old man in 20-30 years that India will be a beacon
| of democracy and freedom in the East, given its historical
| Western ties and a large English speaking population.
|
| But your argument against their ruling speaks for itself, IMO.
|
| There will come a point where India has to lead on this kind of
| thing.
| alephnerd wrote:
| India's legal system is based on the paternalistic British
| judicial system from the mid-19th to mid-20th century.
|
| India, Malaysia, and Singapore all share the same common
| judicial origins because they were forked off in the 1940s to
| 1960s, and never saw the reforms that the UK, Canada,
| Australia, and NZ saw in the 1980s-90s.
|
| Furthermore, civil libertarianism is more of an American
| judicial innovation, and even European countries are aligned
| with the primacy of the state over platforms.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| A pretty good starting point considering the USA
| constitution was based much off Scotland's enlightenment
| 200 years prior.
| alephnerd wrote:
| The Scottish Enlightenment never took hold in much of the
| UK though. That's why America was so "revolutionary" for
| the 18th and 19th century.
|
| The British system remained paternalistic for a long time
| (eg. universal male suffrage only happened in 1918,
| collective bargaining was only legalized in 1945)
| ricardo81 wrote:
| It definitely took hold. It was an act of political
| union, albeit the democratic vote was heavily biased
| towards a larger English population, but the Scottish
| influence is imprinted in UK law, US law and any ex-
| colony.
|
| The works of Adam Smith and David Hume arguably shaped
| the modern capitalist world which India is part of and
| branched off from.
|
| Maybe there are nuanced arguments why it's less of a
| democracy, but I'm fairly sure nowadays every democracy
| has similar arguments.
| alephnerd wrote:
| But from a judicial standpoint, most of the strengthening
| around civil liberties as mentioned in the Scottish
| Enlightenment only happened in the 20th century.
|
| Indian (and Malaysian and Singaporean) jurisprudence
| largely forked off from British jurisprudence in the
| 1940s-1960.
|
| A number of the reforms in jurisprudence that happened
| post-WW2 weren't incorporated in the judicial codes for
| most colonies at that point, so judicial norms remain
| paternalistic.
|
| > Scottish influence is imprinted in UK law, US law and
| any ex-colony
|
| In Canada sure (Scots were overrepresented in
| "anglophone" Canada), but not the rest of the
| Commonwealth.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| You edited a bit but I appreciate your point and I'll
| defer to you as I don't know much about Indian Democracy
| or the behaviour of the current government. I suspect
| that the seed of self-determination has well and truly
| been planted though.
| blitzar wrote:
| I thought this 20-30 years ago.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| India is as the commenter said, the worst of both worlds. The
| government managed to drive a comedian into hiding, for a
| make a crude (non political) joke about sex with parents. The
| government drove another comedian into hiding, for making a
| political joke and closed down the bar where he was
| performing, for the sole crime of hosting him. The government
| regularly censors movies, bans books, censors speech etc. At
| the same time we get no development, the drain outside my
| house is still not covered. It's just arbitrary
| authoritarianism on the most pointless use cases.
|
| India should have just been given to a monarch who liked the
| country and its people unlike the British or the Mughals
| m4rtink wrote:
| Yeah, that would be like the football lobby forcing the
| blocking of Cloudflare just because someone used it for
| unauthorized football streaming!
| sangeeth96 wrote:
| > Would the court block gmail if the same happens via gmail?.
|
| I mean, G will happily cough up the data and so will other big
| corps. Proton doesn't... unless they go through the Swiss
| relationship route?
|
| But this decision is stupid and harmful regardless.
| DesiLurker wrote:
| people will get stuck on 'good govt china..' but I get what you
| mean. moving on to core message. Indian courts are some of the
| dumbest, red-tape laden, corrupt entities out there. for
| westerners, its common for basic things like property disputes
| or even divorces to run for decades (yes -s plural). In India
| the legal process is itself a punishment. plus there is no
| consistency in case law or precedent. people often perjure
| themselves and walk around like its nothing. it really is free
| for all with Indian judiciary so I am not surprised at-all that
| they will do something stupid like this.
| bloppe wrote:
| Good publicity for proton mail
| zombiwoof wrote:
| I imagine now hackers using Gmail and outlook to spam Indian
| courts with all sorts of nice images
| timonpimba wrote:
| Please don't give them ideas. You can not underestimate the
| indian court. They almost ordered to block Wikipedia.
| JCharante wrote:
| Don't they already block internet access to certain regions in
| order to slow down the spread of information? I'm not very
| surprised by these actions.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| I never wanted a Proton email address before now.
| dokyun wrote:
| You probably still don't want one, given they've been known to
| divulge user info to various authorities in the past.
| tristan957 wrote:
| How do you expect businesses to operate if they do not comply
| with legal requirements?
|
| Proton is obligated to cooperate with authorities just like
| any other company. Proton has a distinction in that it also
| takes certain cases to court when it argues there is no legal
| justification.
| bombcar wrote:
| I believe you can access proton mail at https://protonmailr
| mez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7...
|
| The best way to make sure they don't divulge information is
| to make sure they don't have information to divulge.
| naughtyfinch wrote:
| I have been using Proton Mail and Proton VPN for over 3 years
| now. I firmly believe in the fundamental right of privacy online.
| Indian government has been taking steps like these for quite some
| time now. They previously asked VPN companies to log and gather
| every bit of information they could about their users including
| their name and address (effectively driving all VPN companies out
| of India) Sometimes, I question the meaning of freedom in India.
| On paper we are free citizens, but essentially we never seem to
| get the benefits of living in a free country.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _On paper we are free citizens, but essentially we never seem
| to get the benefits of living in a free country_
|
| India has been mimicking Chinese and Gulf authoritarianism for
| a decade now. New Delhi is not truly authoritarian, but more an
| an elected federal government with autocratic powers, not
| dissimilar from the U.S. Both are mimicking China, to a certain
| extent, in ways good (industrial policy, moderating
| hyperindividualism like NIMBYism) and bad (suspending _habeus_
| , jingoism).
| guywithahat wrote:
| People forget until how recently India was a socialist nation,
| and how easy it would be to slip back
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| Isn't it still socialist per the Constitution?
| GenshoTikamura wrote:
| Question the meaning of freedom in the whole world instead
| lurkshark wrote:
| This seems ineffective on a couple levels. One is that Proton
| users are a population that's much more likely to be using a VPN
| anyway (they even offer a VPN service themselves). Another is
| that unless non-blocked providers reject email from Proton this
| doesn't even solve the supposed issue. An Indian user of GMail is
| going to still receive and view email sent by Proton, so the goal
| of the block isn't even achieved.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The point isn't to block Proton as much as give prosecutors and
| investigators another tool to either target folks or simplify
| prosecution. If a search reveals a Proton email address (or you
| can show someone using one), you're done.
| gruez wrote:
| >If a search reveals a Proton email address (or you can show
| someone using one), you're done.
|
| But so far as I can tell, using protonmail isn't illegal yet?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _so far as I can tell, using protonmail isn 't illegal
| yet?_
|
| Not an expert on Indian law. But we have a court order
| blocking Proton Mail across India. Circumventing the block
| could be found tantamount to wilfully violating the court
| order.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| You're done with what though? What's the penalty for using a
| Proton email address? Death?
| ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote:
| Sounds like an endorsement of Proton Mail to me.
| JCattheATM wrote:
| Steps like this are all the more reason the decentralized
| internet has to start being given more priority. It's only a
| matter of time until the open internet stops being a thing.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| That's a pipe dream. Like ,,untraceable, not-controlled-by-
| banks, decentralised currency bitcoin". As soon as it becomes
| popular, it gets regulated.
|
| Yes, it's stupid. But it's the reality of things.
| tremon wrote:
| Regulated and decentralized are not opposing ends on the same
| spectrum, under a mature government one can have both.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Regulated and decentralized are not opposing ends on the
| same spectrum, under a mature government one can have both_
|
| The point is it's regulated irrespective of the
| government's maturity. If it only works under a mature
| government, it's superfluous as a social tool. (Technology
| usually is.)
| freeopinion wrote:
| Would you care to remind everybody how they can guarantee that
| the party they are interacting with is in fact Proton even
| though anybody watching or facilitating the interaction won't
| be able to know?
| 3np wrote:
| Today? Use their .onion address[0] over Tor and TLS. The TLS
| certificate is secure by the tor secret service key. No
| WebPKI or centralized CAs required.
|
| For tomorrow we should keep exploring and adopting
| improvements. Pick your poison.
|
| [0]: Discovery left as excercise for reader
| vlan0 wrote:
| And how exactly would that work?
| sangeeth96 wrote:
| Related but India has been on a slow march to becoming a
| totalitarian surveillance state. Recently, we got public
| confirmation on govt. having backdoor access to WhatsApp to
| surveil on citizens when the FM talked about the Income Tax dept.
| scanning WhatsApp messages to catch offenders:
| https://m.economictimes.com/wealth/tax/is-the-government-alr...
| triknomeister wrote:
| Majority Indian citizen understand this but this is a risk they
| are willing to take against the pervasive corruption (almost 60
| years). Whether it actually leads to reduction in corruption is
| of course debatable.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| Giving the government more unchecked power reduces
| corruption?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Giving the government more unchecked power reduces
| corruption?_
|
| It's a weirdly-effective pitch! ("Drain the swamp.")
|
| The stupidity of it is compounded by the fact that it's
| often not about giving the government unchecked power, but
| a subset of the _powerful_ unchecked power.
| crop_rotation wrote:
| Do you honestly believe that ? Almost all government adjacent
| people (politicians/ civil servants) own land holdings way
| beyond their means. Everyone knows that everywhere. If the
| government wants to crack down on corruption there is extreme
| low hanging fruit that doesn't require big brother watching
| you.
| TehCorwiz wrote:
| Giving the people responsible for corruption more power to
| suppress speech and communication will not stop corruption.
| It just gives them new tools to entrench themselves.
| Brybry wrote:
| That article doesn't confirm an Indian government WhatsApp
| backdoor?
|
| > Due to WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption, messages sent
| between two users are only readable by them; even the service
| provider cannot decrypt the contents of the messages. This
| prevents any third party, including service providers
| (WhatsApp, Telegram), from accessing the messages
|
| > no verified evidence to suggest that the government is
| directly accessing private WhatsApp chats
|
| > WhatsApp itself does not store message content, and it
| explicitly states that it cannot and does not produce the
| contents of user messages in response to any government request
|
| Reading between the lines, it sounds like they're getting
| encrypted chat content directly from the phones (and also
| metadata from providers).
| rlpb wrote:
| I can't comment on what they're doing or not doing. But if
| they're getting chat content directly from the phones, say
| for example by having arranged with the app to cooperate with
| that exfiltration, then that is, by definition, a back door.
| perching_aix wrote:
| A backdoor would be a feature of the service (be it on
| server or clientside) that'd explicitly allow for data
| exfiltration. The service provider complying with metadata
| requests and having vulnerabilities in their software are
| not backdoors, unless you can demonstrate that the metadata
| are oversharing info, or that the vulnerabilities are
| intentional.
| loufe wrote:
| You must admit the way GP framed it strongly implies Meta
| gave the Indian government carte blanche access to
| intercept decrypted messages. That is a massive, order-of-
| magnitude different story than the Indian Gov't hacking
| phones (installing spyware, etc.) to exfiltrate messages
| decrypted on device. They are very different stories with
| very different implications.
|
| (edit: you weren't GP)
| gruez wrote:
| >But if they're getting chat content directly from the
| phones, say for example by having arranged with the app to
| cooperate with that exfiltration, then that is, by
| definition, a back door.
|
| Keyword being "if". There's no indication such backdoors
| exist, as opposed to something like malware being placed,
| or the phone being physically being tampered with.
| sangeeth96 wrote:
| I mean, right above the stuff you quoted, there is mention
| that govt. does now have the provision to access under
| exceptional circumstances:
|
| > However, as Ashish Mishra, Partner-Cyber Security,
| NangiaNXT notes, "As of now, the government has the provision
| to access the encrypted messages under certain exceptions
| such as legal request, court matters, surveillance, and
| criminal investigations. The DPDP (Digital Personal Data
| Protection) Act, along with the Telegraph Act and IT Act,
| gives the government power to request such data from service
| providers."
|
| Given the general attitude towards digital privacy from the
| govt, I think it's safe to assume they do have means to
| request.
|
| That's not the only incident to draw this conclusion from
| btw: https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/supreme-
| court-s...
| gruez wrote:
| It's unclear whether the government actually have the
| ability to read/intercept e2e messages, or merely declared
| they have the right to. That's an important distinction,
| because the government can declare it has the right to
| access such messages, without the service providers (ie.
| whatsapp) being able to follow through with it. We've seen
| something similar in uk, where a bill passed a few years
| ago gave the government the right to access encrypted data,
| and forced tech companies to provide access, but Apple
| didn't actually implement a backdoor. They instead decided
| to (very loudly) disable encryption entirely for the uk
| market.
| sangeeth96 wrote:
| The problem here is the govt/courts here downplay/ignore
| even the most straightforward RTI public (Right to Info)
| requests on many of these matters, the pegasus one still
| ongoing in courts even after all this time. Meta (FB's)
| track record on these situations is spotty at best.
| WhatsApp is pretty much central to everything happening
| in India, whether for chatting with close ones, running
| businesses or amplifying political propaganda. IDK what
| WhatsApp looks like outside India but every govt. org,
| political party have verified accounts and directly
| message folks like me using the Biz APIs even though I've
| NEVER given them consent to do so before and AFAIK,
| there's ZERO controls from user's end to stop these.
|
| I'd also have given WhatsApp a fair pass but Meta/Zuck
| has never shown any concrete proof that they stand by
| their users and not the ruling govt's desires.
|
| That along with all these events, quotes from ministry
| should suffice to have a reasonable assumption to not put
| trust on these platforms for private messages.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Isn't the end to end encryption just not a default setting?
| It could be as easy as that.
| zkmon wrote:
| The trick the government has found is, just saying that gov can
| access messages is enough to make 99% of the whatsapp users to
| believe it, and make them scared of using tech for any goofy
| stuff. Why take risk? - wins always.
| kburman wrote:
| India lack technical capability to decrypt web traffic at scale
| or power to force companies to do it for them. Like what happened
| with Apple and Telegram.
|
| So this is what they come up with.
| _blk wrote:
| ...Just use Proton VPN to access Proton Mail ;)
| kazinator wrote:
| [delayed]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-04-29 23:00 UTC)