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Indian government blocks access to forty-three mobile apps
- madcow00 6y agoFrom the names, it looks most of these are Chinese Apps. I find no issue in banning apps for national security interests.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y agoNice. Can you also promote Foss apps while you are at it instead of pushing for more proprietary hacks in exchange of foreign proprietary hacks? Money will flow on its own.
- RegnisGnaw 6y agoWhy? Its in the government's interest to promote MII (Made In India) rather then some foreign FOSS app.
- antepodius 6y agoIs it? If everyone in a country used FOSS apps rather than paying (in money, data, or letting ads into their heads) for proprietary ones, wouldn't that country's people be better off? And nobody's saying there can't be indian-made FOSS. Unless you're talking about the government putting its own interests above the people's, which makes sense.
- RegnisGnaw 6y agoIf you look at the list of apps, pretty much all of them requires some kind of back-end. Even if its 100% FOSS, the back end will cost money. Therefore someone has to pay for it somehow and someone will profit. Its obvious to their best interest that the one that profit is an Indian company, with ties to the government.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y agoYou are reading me wrong. There is a scanner app and here is a solid foss alternative https://github.com/Ethereal-Developers-Inc/OpenScan https://github.com/Ethereal-Developers-Inc/OpenScan
- whydoyoucare 6y agoIt isn't that simple - Governments require Support, Scale, Stability, and Usability. FOSS lacks in all four, unless someone picks up the Support tab, makes the app scale to several billion people, ensure upgrades don't break functionality, and makes the app actually usable all citizens. As a consequence, the app may be free in theory, but the Support and other contracts cost a lot of money. As it is often said Linux is free if your time has no value.
- 2Gkashmiri 6y agoWho said about not charging fees? There are hundreds of apps that are Foss on f droid but charge a fees for some features on play store. It works for them, why cant TNT be replicated ? A total win win. https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools
- thatguy0900 6y agoI wonder how long it will be until every country just has its own segregated internet. Will it happen on its own for economic reasons or will it take a real war that involves massive hacking attacks from both sides?
- abecedarius 6y agoPlease don't frame a political thing as inevitable, unless you want to contribute to it happening or persisting. "I wonder if every country will... how long might that take?" avoids that problem. Yes, I'm quibbling about words. In politics words aren't separate from reality.
- ihaveajob 6y agoI don't get the downvotes. This is a perfectly logical position. Looking back, the fall of the Berlin wall may seem predictable, but who would have forecast it in 1988?
- abecedarius 6y agoYes, I remember the 80s, and the USSR was one of those things you just assumed would be around for the foreseeable future, like marijuana prohibition (though for that one there was more of an inkling of possibility given more time). What you can say "within reason" depends on what you think everyone else thinks you can say, so equilibria are both really stable and subject to surprising flips when they finally tip over -- sort of like digital logic.
- swirepe 6y agoI wonder what we can do to prevent a segregated internet?
- cookieswumchorr 6y agoon small scale, consistently ignore and boycott all attempts by governments to do so. They are not allmighty, they cannot place an armed cop behind every single citicen. If you are in a country that has some functioning democratic institutions, you may also try using them
- revicon 6y agoI'm curious what CamCard - Business Card Reader did to be blocked by the Indian government.
- chapium 6y ago"This action was taken based on the inputs regarding these apps for engaging in activities which are prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order." Being based in Shanghai, CN.
- m3nu 6y agoOr WeWork??
- ffpip 6y agoIt's Chinese. All these scanning apps sent every scan to remote servers. Passports, Aadhar Cards, and all docs were uploaded by these apps.
- cat199 6y agosend contents back to the mothership? #massivespeculation
- rafaelturk 6y agoOff topic. There is a page `counter` at the very end of the page... Thinking if its susceptible to a DDOS, or any other crazy stuff.
- fireattack 6y agoProbably just a relic from 90/00s? Page counter was very prevalent during that era.
- rafaelturk 6y agoyep. Looks like the 90s, is kind of cool. equally dangerous.
- whydoyoucare 6y agoNot necessarily dangerous.
- temp345675634 6y agoYou are right, this is a govt. site, they are known to use super old tools and tech. Won't be surprised if this is built on some ancient CMS.
- abhigupta 6y agoJust for background: These actions are targeted against Chinese companies, in the continued battle by Indian government to fight against recent land grab near Himalayas by Chinese Army and long term economic war e.g., New Silk Road, Trade Deficit etc.
- nomoreusernames 6y agoalso india has one of the worlds largest muslim populations, and india is also the most populous democracy in the world. most people forget that india has been one of the most vocal countries regarding the persecution of the chinese muslim population. more so than for example turkey, pakistan, saudi, even US and EU has not said much about the muslims being put into concentration camps. i would say blocking apps and starting sanctions would be the logical steps to take. much better than waging war i would say.
- Ericson2314 6y agoSo you are saying the current Indian goverment cares more about the wellbeing of Muslims in Xinjiang than Muslims in India? (I don't want to diminish the awful things going on in Xinjiang, but I think giving the rest of what Modi does this would be more cynically down by the Indian government than you make it out to be.)
- youeseh 6y agoHow did you arrive to this analysis of his comments?
- spdebbarma 6y agoThe Government pretty much caused this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Delhi_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Delhi_riots
- choicenotchance 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- freebuju 6y agoData is the new oil and India is just now fully recognizing how equivalent it is to an Iraq-style reserve; in this digital economy
- dragonelite 6y agoYet it allowed US big tech to buy a lot of stake in its biggest data platform Reliance Jio?
- freebuju 6y agoThe big bucks allows them to stave off any competition & maintain regional dominance. I'm aware both Google & Facebook have portions invested in Jio. Maybe they need some of their expertise in extracting value out of this data.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago> Data is the new oil This is a bad analogy. Oil is a commodity. Data are not. Oil is extractive. You can fly in tech and talent, pump oil, keep the rulers happy and not concern yourself with the local population. You can’t do that with data—its value, for advertising and influencing, is linked to the population’s productivity and power. Finally, data are ephemeral in a way oil isn’t. You can’t barrel up bytes in the middle of the ocean.
- tvalentius 6y ago*You can’t barrel up bytes in the middle of the ocean. https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/project-natick-underwater-datacenter/ https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/project-natick...
- segfaultbuserr 6y agoAgree. BTW, I think there is at least one aspect which the "oil" analogy gets it correct - the flammability of data. Stockpiling private data without safeguards and regulations is dangerous, just like stockpiling oil and gas.
- ngcc_hk 6y agoGood for them to raise up against a totalitarian. If all free all free. But if one sided close boarder by china, do not blame others not to let its app to go to the world. Free is never one sided. So us trade.
- vvwvvwvvw 6y agoI'd actually prefer China to keep its population's intel from the west, even if it means getting backlashes like this.
- Quarrelsome 6y agoI think the closer we allow our peoples to be, the less likely it is that we will ever fight. IMO the great firewall of China is a stumbling block in the path to world peace.
- antepodius 6y ago1930s Germany didn't hate the japanese, despite them being very different from them (appearance, culture). Instead, they hated the German/european jews, who were basically visually indistinguishable.
- Quarrelsome 6y agoit was a few that pushed that hatred. Hatred is usually engineered as a distraction for a crime. Usually those committing the crime and pushing the hatred are very close.
- antepodius 6y agoYes. People in close proximity are in competition. When technology makes the whole world your neighbour, you're at war with the whole world.
- vvwvvwvvw 6y ago
- damnencryption 6y agoAli express? C'mon. If I could find my electronics elsewhere and for a reasonable price, I would choose that but I can't. Government butchered the manufacturing industry, imposed ridiculous taxes (even increased them during the pandemic), custom duties and all sort of red tape which makes education for young generation harder. How can individuals work on the next generation robots, electronics, whatever if you can't even get decent micro controllers and brushless motors in india? And it's not like big indian companies aren't selling data back to china. Majority of unicorns in india are taking investment from China. Paytm is china funded. Why don't they ban any investment from China?
- temp345675634 6y agoCalm down son. The government is about to tell us whom we can marry and whom not, this is nothing for them. Do you think they even care about robotics or electronics? "Make in India" BTW :)
- villgax 6y agoHow exactly does a movers-n-packers/goods shipping company become prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India let alone not be in the best interest of the citizens? Like did they conduct a poll to ban Lalamove? Real baller move would be to ban anything with a China built SoC, if at all hatred for China is a reason to begin with.
- damnencryption 6y agoIndia is trying to be china or to some extent US but without having the development of either of those countries.
- t_minus_3 6y agomovers-n-packers/goods shipping company is a front end to a sophisticated intelligence gathering &e spionage program of china. Just like how HUAWEI is threat to US. Nobody is dying by banning bunch of games, chill !!
- howlgarnish 6y agoI last used Lalamove to ship some furniture home from IKEA. I'm not entirely sure what the CCP wants to do with this information, but they're welcome to have it.
- nojvek 6y agoLike or not, the internet has been way more popular than the original inventors intended. Because it’s popular, governments want to control it for their own agendas. Just the way we have import/export sanctions, I can see why we have similar gates for the Internet. If we really want the promise of Internet to live on, then we ought to invest in more decentralized technology. Push for mobile OSs allowing other apps. As long as the reigns are controlled by only a few Mega corps, we are at risk. Our mobile phones are an extension of who we are, but they aren’t owned by us.
- known 6y agoIndian regime is intentionally keeping its people poor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_in_circulation#Total_currency_in_circulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_in_circulation#Total_...
- damnencryption 6y agoCan you explain more?
- Saint_Genet 6y agoTBH, every app on that list sound like a scam app.
- throw93 6y agoPayTM which is huge in India has Chinese investors like Ant financials and Alibaba. Ant being largest share holder with 29.71% ownership. So it’s curious to see the selective retaliation. At what point a company is Chinese? PayTM raked in immense profit following demonetization in India(overnight invalidation of several currency notes). And it continues to handle large amounts of financial transactions on daily basis.
- dartharva 6y agoAlthough these blanket bans do look like a direct offensive against the Chinese, they are not. Chinese capital is involved in a lot of India's tech sector, it would only be shooting itself in the foot if it actually went ahead and banned all Chinese products. For example, Xiaomi held the largest market share in India's smartphone market for several years. Almost the entirety of its software ecosystem is made in China, but you won't see the government banning MIUI outright.
- talal7860 6y agoI was one of the core developers on the game named "Happy fish" 7-8 years ago, I wonder why was that blocked, as I don't remember the company being Chinese owned.
- troysk 6y agoWith AliSuppliers gone, many vendors like me won't be able to get new business and with AliExpress gone, many tinkerers like me won't have access to components. Good bye innovation by many and welcome monopoly by crony.
- stevespang 6y agoThis is a welcome response - - but nothing in comparison to The Great Fire Wall of China. Hoping Starlink positions it's sats directly over all of China and hardware is smuggled in to to allow Chinese people to see truth.