4 ms·

For an Indian example where the links between crime and government are more direct, there was a recent scandal where a disgraced Mumbai Police Commissioner wrot

by qart 5y ago

For an Indian example where the links between crime and government are more direct, there was a recent scandal where a disgraced Mumbai Police Commissioner wrote an open letter where he said his (also disgraced) subordinate was tasked by the state's Home Minister to extort 13 million USD from the city's businessmen every month. Heck, I assumed that nearly all politicians and a lot of policemen here are thoroughly corrupt. This open letter showed me I had underestimated the extent of it. The aspect of Vaze's "encounters" are worth a read too. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Vaze#Extortion_allegation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sachin_Vaze#Extortion_allegati... Edit: I wonder how imprudent it was of me to not use a VPN'd account to write this comment. On the one hand, this information is on Wikipedia. On the other hand, the political party I wrote about has a history of sending their police dogs after ordinary citizens for comments made on the internet.

CryptoPunk 5y ago
>>Edit: I wonder how imprudent it was of me to not use a VPN'd account to write this comment. Unless they can hack HN servers to check its logs, I don't see how they'd track down the IP from where your comment was submitted from.
- qart 5y ago
  They don't hack. The send legal notices to the companies. They have sent legal notices to get people on Google, Facebook, etc. I still wrote my comment assuming that HN is obscure enough for them not to be aware of it.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    Why would a site hosted outside of India respond to a legal notice from India?
    - qart 5y ago
      The usual reason is that if they don't, the website gets banned in India.
- nsomaru 5y ago
  Could be posting from inside India?
  - CryptoPunk 5y ago
    Given HN uses HTTPS, there's no way they can determine how a particular user is interacting with HN just by monitoring the data being routed by India-based internet switches.
    - bostik 5y ago
      I would say that depends on how intensely you are being watched. Traffic analysis and timestamp correlation are a powerful tool. Small traffic bursts going out, slightly larger ones coming in: surfing, reading the front page. (Or new post page.) Small traffic burst going out, lots of traffic coming in: loading an active topic thread page. Slightly bigger traffic burst going out, lots of traffic coming back in: posting a comment to an active, non-trivial thread. Number of packets (and total outgoing bytes) are useful for bucketing the size of the comment posted. Short comments should fit into a single payload packet. Longer comments obviously have their payload split across multiple packets, and by counting the total bytes sent, you have a decent estimate to the size of the comment posted. Combine comment timestamps with their lengths and you can infer quite a bit.
      - atatatat 5y ago
        Metadata defines the difference between security and privacy. HTTPS is a great first-base — it is not enough.
- crossroadsguy 5y ago
  Are you saying HN doesn’t log IPs? @dang, you don’t?
  - darkhorse22 5y ago
    HN logs IPs.
  - darkhorse23 5y ago
    HN logs IPs.
  - darkhorse24 5y ago
    HN logs IPs.
pvsukale3 5y ago
Yes, in India a lot of police force acts as extortion agents for whoever is in power. I have some extended family members as officers in police. They told me in every police station there is a policeman whose only job is to collect ransom from local bars, businesses and crime lords. This money is collected all over state and the majority of the cut goes to heads of political party in power. These funds are then used for elections. Everyone gets a cut. The cut depends on which level of bureaucracy you are employed at. This arbitrage exists because India has a lot of very strict and obscure laws around everything and to not have law interfere you have to pay this ransom. This is also known otherwise as licence raj.
sateesh 5y ago
About your statement on posting via VPN, I think you are overreacting a bit here. I don't deny that institutional persecution doesn't happen in India. But what you have posted is already there in the public domain and has been widely reported.
raincom 5y ago
When PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) ruled Mexico, things were stable. There was a plaza system. Whatever you see in India today is a microcosm of such a plaza system in Mexico. As PRI lost power, also because of the kingpin strategy used by the USA, Mexico is in shambles: emergence of many ruthless cartels. Many believe that Ex-president Carlos Salinas and his brother made billions from such a collusion between PRI, plaza system and crony capitalists. For instance, people say, Carlos Slim funneled money for Salinas, etc. "Narcotrafficking had formerly been integrated into the PRI corporatist state, an under-the-table equivalent of labor, peasant, and business organizations. As such it was subject to a certain degree of regulatory control, and to unofficial taxation, in return for the de facto licensing of smuggling (the plaza system). The state’s abandonment of this form of corporatist inclusion contributed to the independent growth and power of organized crime syndicates."[1] 1. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/mexico-drug-cartel-neoliberalism/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/mexico-drug-cartel-neolib...

by qart 5y ago

CryptoPunk 5y ago

>>Edit: I wonder how imprudent it was of me to not use a VPN'd account to write this comment. Unless they can hack HN servers to check its logs, I don't see how they'd track down the IP from where your comment was submitted from.

qart 5y ago
They don't hack. The send legal notices to the companies. They have sent legal notices to get people on Google, Facebook, etc. I still wrote my comment assuming that HN is obscure enough for them not to be aware of it.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  Why would a site hosted outside of India respond to a legal notice from India?
  - qart 5y ago
    The usual reason is that if they don't, the website gets banned in India.
nsomaru 5y ago
Could be posting from inside India?
- CryptoPunk 5y ago
  Given HN uses HTTPS, there's no way they can determine how a particular user is interacting with HN just by monitoring the data being routed by India-based internet switches.
  - bostik 5y ago
    I would say that depends on how intensely you are being watched. Traffic analysis and timestamp correlation are a powerful tool. Small traffic bursts going out, slightly larger ones coming in: surfing, reading the front page. (Or new post page.) Small traffic burst going out, lots of traffic coming in: loading an active topic thread page. Slightly bigger traffic burst going out, lots of traffic coming back in: posting a comment to an active, non-trivial thread. Number of packets (and total outgoing bytes) are useful for bucketing the size of the comment posted. Short comments should fit into a single payload packet. Longer comments obviously have their payload split across multiple packets, and by counting the total bytes sent, you have a decent estimate to the size of the comment posted. Combine comment timestamps with their lengths and you can infer quite a bit.
    - atatatat 5y ago
      Metadata defines the difference between security and privacy. HTTPS is a great first-base — it is not enough.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
Are you saying HN doesn’t log IPs? @dang, you don’t?
- darkhorse22 5y ago
  HN logs IPs.
- darkhorse23 5y ago
  HN logs IPs.
- darkhorse24 5y ago
  HN logs IPs.

pvsukale3 5y ago

Yes, in India a lot of police force acts as extortion agents for whoever is in power. I have some extended family members as officers in police. They told me in every police station there is a policeman whose only job is to collect ransom from local bars, businesses and crime lords. This money is collected all over state and the majority of the cut goes to heads of political party in power. These funds are then used for elections. Everyone gets a cut. The cut depends on which level of bureaucracy you are employed at. This arbitrage exists because India has a lot of very strict and obscure laws around everything and to not have law interfere you have to pay this ransom. This is also known otherwise as licence raj.

sateesh 5y ago

About your statement on posting via VPN, I think you are overreacting a bit here. I don't deny that institutional persecution doesn't happen in India. But what you have posted is already there in the public domain and has been widely reported.

raincom 5y ago

When PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional) ruled Mexico, things were stable. There was a plaza system. Whatever you see in India today is a microcosm of such a plaza system in Mexico. As PRI lost power, also because of the kingpin strategy used by the USA, Mexico is in shambles: emergence of many ruthless cartels. Many believe that Ex-president Carlos Salinas and his brother made billions from such a collusion between PRI, plaza system and crony capitalists. For instance, people say, Carlos Slim funneled money for Salinas, etc. "Narcotrafficking had formerly been integrated into the PRI corporatist state, an under-the-table equivalent of labor, peasant, and business organizations. As such it was subject to a certain degree of regulatory control, and to unofficial taxation, in return for the de facto licensing of smuggling (the plaza system). The state’s abandonment of this form of corporatist inclusion contributed to the independent growth and power of organized crime syndicates."[1] 1. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/mexico-drug-cartel-neoliberalism/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/mexico-drug-cartel-neolib...