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Evidence found on a second Indian activist’s computer was planted, report says
- 2Gkashmiri 5y agowell india is a democracy so this is obviously not possible /s edit: yeah, one of the activits died yesterday while being incarcerated so yeah
- ChemSpider 5y agowell india is a democracy and that is why you are able read about it here.
- Sr_developer 5y agoThat's why you never learn about shenanigans in N Korea, Russia and China.Yep!
- zepto 5y agoFor the most part we don’t.
- FpUser 5y agoNot sure about NL/China but being able to read Russian freely I'd say they make more than enough stink in the media when someone gets problems for political activity. Whether the person gets a relief is of course a different question.
- Sr_developer 5y agoYour logic is impeccable. There is a lot going on that you dont know, but you know it is happening. I suppose you are doing a lot of shady stuff in your basement but we dont know it.
- zepto 5y agoI know you’re casting shade, but we know for sure that China suppresses many kinds of politically sensitive news. They don’t hide that fact.
- FpUser 5y agoIndia openly admits putting activists in prison on bogus charges. What a relief, a shining example of democracy in action. Although when planting false evidence in the computer I have a bad feeling that unless the victim is some kind of VIP they might have big problems even in the traditional democratic countries.
- blocked_again 5y ago> India openly admits putting activists in prison on bogus charges. What a relief, a shining example of democracy in action. Name five democratic countries which has not done this?
- 2Gkashmiri 5y agoso according to you, your neighbors committing murder gives YOU the right to do the same because what ?? why are you bringing other countries into it? the question is on india here. india does this and there should be consequences regardless of what anyone else does or does not do
- blocked_again 5y agoNever said that. The comment I replied back make it sounds like India is the only democracy which does this and is not a real democracy like the other democracies. Obviously it's stupid to put activists in jail for bogus claims. And there is no justification in doing it even though other countries are doing it. It's pretty obvious to anyone with a decent IQ.
- FpUser 5y ago>"so according to you, your neighbors committing murder gives YOU the right to do the same because what ??" Problem is when said murderers assume self-righteous position and pontificate how bad everyone else is. If they punish the perpetrators and fix the situation than sure, full respect. But just for the fuck of it: who for example got punished in UK for deporting and otherwise ruining lives of their own citizens (Windrush scandal)? The answer is most likely zilch. Still they teach everyone else. And yes I agree that the scale of abuse is way smaller in the countries like the US. But they compensate by abusing citizens of the other countries by dropping democratic bombs.
- DyslexicAtheist 5y agoIndia under BJP/Modi right now is as much a "democracy" as Victor Orban's Hungary (in name only): https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/india https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/india
- zozbot234 5y agoIndia has always been quite far from a perfect democracy. Do we even have proof that this targeting of dissenters and opposition activists only started with BJP/Modi?
- DyslexicAtheist 5y agodoesn't matter because we can't change the past. what's relevant today is that technology has created opportunities for power structures to exploit and take advantage at a much bigger scale. Planting of evidence (as this title points to) is just one of many things that are a problem when we pretend digital roots of trusts are flawless as is the case with the totally broken Aadhaar: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=aadhaar&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- barbazoo 5y agoI'm unable to figure out how this has anything to do with "being a democracy". Can someone explain that please?
- news_user 5y agoThe evidence was most likely planted by the investigating government agency. This adds to the several cases of crackdown against dissent, activism and criticism against the government.
- barbazoo 5y agoSo are parents implying that this could not have happened in a democracy? If so, that's most likely wrong.
- pjc50 5y ago"Democracy" is not a boolean, and trying to make it a yes/no criterion for any country just collapses into whataboutery.
- tinuviel 5y agoThe activist who died yesterday died in a multi-speciality hospital.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rajup 5y agoNot sure how or why this belongs on HN.
- elliekelly 5y agoIt seems like state-sponsored hackers were used by a democratic government to plant digital evidence on the devices of people critical of high-ranking politicians. I think that’s interesting because we know state-sponsored hacking is increasing but this is one of the first cases I’ve read about where the targets/victims are individuals within the sponsoring country’s borders as opposed to entities outside of their borders.
- lazyninja987 5y agoThe whole process of discovery reeks of conflict of interest. The audit was done by a firm at the behest of defense lawyer. Is the security firm going to get paid if they claim their is no evidence of a plant ? Also, its not proven its a state sponsored plant.
- elliekelly 5y ago> Is the security firm going to get paid if they claim their is no evidence of a plant ? No, they won’t. The article says the security group has worked on the case pro bono so the consultants don’t get paid either way.
- lazyninja987 5y agostill does not resolve the conflict of interest. the defendant lawyer hired a firm which found evidence the defendant is not guilty. The pro bono part raises more suspicions. One of the accused activist died of old age in a top tier hospital, not exactly a poor client requiring pro bono work.
- elliekelly 5y agoSo it was suspicious when you thought they were getting paid and now it’s even more suspicious when you learn they aren’t getting paid? Your logic is... suspicious.
- mkl95 5y agoI recently learned that a region known as the red corridor that spans over the eastern, central, and southern parts of India experiences considerable Naxalite–Maoist insurgency. These are also areas that suffer from the greatest illiteracy, poverty and overpopulation in modern India [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_corridor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_corridor
- gen_greyface 5y agoNot sure what you're getting at.
- mkl95 5y agoThe news focuses on two activists who were jailed for allegedly plotting an insurgency in their country, and how the evidence is likely fake. However there is already a major insurgency in that country that is virtually unknown in the West.
- lazyninja987 5y agoi live in the red corridor you highlighted. I agree with illiteracy, povery, but not overpopulation. Naxalite's are popular for various reasons. . they are popular in telengana because of oppression by muslims. . they are popular in bihar because of cate based oppression. . they are popular in andhra because of exploitation by landlords. . also they are mainly dependent on forest area for shelter.
- unmole 5y ago> are popular in telengana because of oppression by muslims I am from Telangana. My grandfather was a card carrying Communist who was jailed by the Nizam's government for seditious activities. Any pretense of Muslim hegemony ended in Hyderabad state after Operation Polo. That was 72 years ago. I have no idea what you're talking about.
- kumarvvr 5y ago> they are popular in telengana because of oppression by muslims Yeah No. I am from Telangana. They are popular here because most of the land in not fertile enough and thus, there is poverty and general lack of development, compared to other parts of the state. Also, the workforce does not migrate much to other parts of the world for work. It's not a coincidence that large areas of Bihar have seen reduced Naxalism, because their labor and workers have moved across India in search of jobs. You will not find such thing happening in Odisha or Telangana.
- upofadown 5y ago>Any of the recipients who opened the attachment would have installed malware capable of monitoring and controlling their computers. What kind of attachment? These articles tend to concentrate on trivia while omitting the actual attack.
- tyingq 5y agoYou can follow a chain of links and see the actual report here: https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/fa704edd-3328-4ce5-a9ce-c0863c20d114/note/efd9f765-845a-4cd0-92f5-479e53557a2e.#page=1 https://context-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/do... Amnesty International also has an article with a lot of technical detail: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2020/06/india-human-rights-defenders-targeted-by-a-coordinated-spyware-operation/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2020/06/india-hum... Scroll down to "Variant 1" for a pretty detailed answer to your question.
- rualca 5y agoThe article links to another WaPo article that describes how these activists were targeted with malware emails used to install NetWire on their computer, which was then used to plant evidence.
- pm90 5y agoBeing a responsible journalist today requires a certain amount of digital savvy especially if you’re covering controversial topics. Not victim blaming or anything but stuff like this is why journalists try to use secure messaging apps (well at least those they think are secure). I wonder if this is something that should be taught in school…
- lazyninja987 5y agoThe weekly anti india rant.
- 8458e112e7b2 5y agoFunny, most of these stories originate from the legacy media. Wonder what axe they have to grind? Modi belongs in the same boat as Putin since he does not pander to globalist interests.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- whycombinatore 5y agoHow so? You sound more like - how dare you criticize someone I blindly support? Do you even have an argument to make?
- lazyninja987 5y agomy comment is based on observation that, periodically articles criticizing indian govt is posted to a tech feed that too at a regular frequency as if its planned to push such articles to front page. Even if i take the tech part of the above article into consideration, the title hints its the govt planted it, which is again not proved yet. Hence my comment.
- news_user 5y agoBut there is tech involved here, isn't it? It has been established that the evidence was planted, regardless of who did it, this qualifies to be a tech post. And as courts usually say, if you don't like it, don't watch it :)
- lazyninja987 5y agohaha. the article does not shy away insinuating that govt planted it with out any evidence. Having watched maoists for the last 20 years, i doubt they are the good guys in this story.
- msravi 5y agoNotice how that none of the reports mention how the sanctity of the chain of custody of the hard disk has been preserved. The forensics lab in Pune, which is the authorized lab for examining this kind of data, and which examined the disk when the chain of custody was preserved, found no such planted evidence when the hard disk was taken in.
- matthewdgreen 5y agoThey didn’t identify it? Or they are claiming it’s not present? Those are two wildly different claims. Presumably if both labs did their documentation correctly, it should be easy to compare hashes and see whether they examined different filesystems, which would be a prerequisite for any claim that the malware was added at some point following the initial government custody chain.
- elliekelly 5y agoAre you suggesting the consulting firm planted the planted evidence? FTA, I gather the chain of custody goes: police seized the hard drive, made a copy, and provided the copy to the defense attorney who (correctly) engaged outside experts investigate. State labs can (and do) make mistakes and miss evidence. State prosecutors can (and do) fail to turn over exculpatory evidence. The whole point of a trial is that we the people and the defendant don’t just have to take the state at their word. We can ship evidence off to a lab of our liking and, if the results differ from the state’s lab, ask them about it in open court. That’s _exactly_ how the system works. The charges must be proven by the government, not merely asserted.
- msravi 5y agoThe defense team contended that the evidence in question was planted by the NIA to target the "activists". But even by the Arsenal report, that malware was installed some 22 months before the outbreak of violence - which means the malware, even if it did exist, was installed a lot earlier than when the investigative agency entered the picture. Besides, the NIA has proof in the form of video evidence of the seizure and procedures followed thereafter that establishes the chain of custody of the hard drive in question. Also, the laptop's contents are not the sole evidence based on which the charges have been framed. Are the hashes of the drives examined by Arsenal the same as that examined by Pune FSL? Were they tampered with before being provided to Arsenal? Why are these reports put out without sufficient technical details establishing chain of custody?
- lazyninja987 5y agoThis story was close to my heart. Having grown with naxalite-maoist ideals, I used to rever them. During 1940-1990s Moaists did an phenomenal job in fighting for oppressed, they were solely responsible for minimum wage enforcement, stopping the exploitation of tribals. They fought off razakars with armed guerilla groups and saved innocent women from getting raped and mutilated. Post 1990s, The land reforms, abolition of feudal landlord system, employment creation actually solved most of the problems the poor were facing. Migration of people to urban areas increased. Thus, The maoists lost their purpose, and started searching for monsters to fight. Post 1990, maoists are bunch of thugs living in forests doing contract killings in their free time. They claim to fight for poor, but they oppose anything that bring out poor tribal people out of their poverty. In the last 10 years there were hunderds of incidents of maoists killing contractors laying roads to remote villages fearing the tribals will be out of their grip. Hence I have zero sympathies for these 'activists' aka hired thugs.
- zozbot234 5y ago> maoists are bunch of thugs living in forests doing contract killings in their free time. They claim to fight for poor, but they oppose anything that bring out poor tribal people out of their poverty. This is a familiar dynamic, seen also with the Shining Path violence in Peru. A very well-regarded book, "The Other Path" was written by a Peruvian economist to refute the common radical narratives and lay down a pathway for development that actually provides wider benefits for the population.
- kumarvvr 5y agoYup. The naxalites have been reduced to isolated pockets in backward areas of the country, which, for various reasons have remained backward. The reason for their existence is being strained for past few decades. It would not be far fetched to think that they will be out of the minds of the public in another 20 years.
- AlexCoventry 5y ago> Hence I have zero sympathies for these 'activists' aka hired thugs. This is a weird derail, since the point of the posted article is that the evidence implicating the accused in Maoist sympathies was illegally planted.