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There was a great post from a VPN provider about how they've honed circumvention tactics in China for years, and that whatever Russia was doing post-Ukraine was
by brucethemoose2 4y ago
There was a great post from a VPN provider about how they've honed circumvention tactics in China for years, and that whatever Russia was doing post-Ukraine was just primitive in comparison.
If India really tries to go down the internet censorship rabbit hole, its probably not gonna go well, as they are decades behind more seasoned despotic regimes.
- jonny_eh 4y agoThey're not competing with anyone here, so why does it matter that China's censorship mechanism are superior?
- brucethemoose2 4y agoOh but they are competing. The circumventors get access to tools and methods developed for those other countries, the global circumvention market if you will. But the Indian government is not getting China's or Russia's censorship experience.
- ipaddr 4y agoBecause tools developed for China could be used in India and it would take them awhile to reach the levels China which isn't effective
- jonny_eh 4y agoAren't China and India political enemies? I find it hard to imagine the Indian govt procuring core information technology from China.
- causi 4y agoIs that significant, though? These nations aren't trying to keep things secret. They just have to keep them out of the day to day thoughts of 95% of their population. Even trivial measures like a DNS-redirect will be effective in that regard.
- brucethemoose2 4y agoI think they would fail to meet that 90-95% threshold, as India just can't be as physically restrictive as China or Russia. Circumvention measures would proliferate like crazy.
- vkou 4y agoIf you give me the ability to cripple the internet for 50% of the population, I will easily be able to rig an election for you. Hell, in the US, 10% should probably be sufficient.
- snapcaster 4y agoInteresting thought. So going further, what specifically would you do?
- vkou 4y agoBlackhole any sites people of the opposing political use for political organization, donations, news, propaganda. As a first pass, you don't even need to block general-purpose platforms like reddit and Twitter and Facebook, you just need to kill the centralized sources of political information. The point of this exercise isn't a full on repression of all dissent, it's just shifting the political window to topics and mouthpieces that are friendly to you. Most people have mainstream opinions, and if you tilt the mainstream landscape towards you, by driving your opponents into high-friction underground echo chambers, a first past the post system lets you turn a close election into a landslide.
- coliveira 4y agoThe VPN doesn't matter a thing. The goal is to avoid mass access to subversive content, so it doesn't matter if someone somewhere can find a way to circumvent these measures.
- ketralnis 4y agoAt steady state yes, you want to control the overarching narrative sufficiently that nobody knows to ask the questions. But in the midst of protests like in Hong Kong a couple of years ago you may want specific measures to crack down in case the overarching narrative becomes "you should use a VPN"
- toast0 4y agoIndia is pretty good at cracking down on communications in Jammu and Kashmir, yes? Pretty simple to roll that out to the whole country, if that's what you're looking for.