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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 t

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-already-reading-your-whatsapp-chats-despite-the-governments-denial-heres-what-experts-are-saying/articleshow/119656223.cms https://m.economictimes.com/wealth/tax/is-the-government-alr...

triknomeister 1y ago
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 1y ago
  Giving the government more unchecked power reduces corruption?
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > 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 1y ago
  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.
  - triknomeister 1y ago
    I'm not saying it makes sense. But I'm pretty sure this is what majority of population thinks.
    - sangeeth96 1y ago
      Not sure from where you’re drawing out that conclusion from, esp with the “60 years” point which is a timeline where none of this tech existed. Majority of the population I’d think is grossly uneducated on aspects of privacy and security in the digital realm.
- TehCorwiz 1y ago
  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 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
    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 1y ago
    >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.
zkmon 1y ago
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.
air3y 1y ago
This is just misinformation. The Govt just gave officers from income tax department the power to access records through any means, whether breaking open locks and doors, or gain access to devices overriding access codes. Such fantasy stories unfortunately fly in the country. There was one such false claim widely spread earlier, that facebook had provided the ruling party with access to directly block any posts on facebook they wanted gone.
- sangeeth96 1y ago
  I disagree mainly because there is a big lack of transparency from the govt/courts on these matters even when pressed with RTIs unless you have sources that say very explicitly otherwise from the mouths of govt/FB. As for the second part, they sort of are still able to censor/remove posts a lot more easily so this is far from the “fantasy” you’re talking about: https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/x-takes-indian-govt-to-court-alleges-arbitrary-censorship-of-content-125032001125_1.html https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/x-takes-ind...

triknomeister 1y ago

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 1y ago
Giving the government more unchecked power reduces corruption?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > 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 1y ago
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.
- triknomeister 1y ago
  I'm not saying it makes sense. But I'm pretty sure this is what majority of population thinks.
  - sangeeth96 1y ago
    Not sure from where you’re drawing out that conclusion from, esp with the “60 years” point which is a timeline where none of this tech existed. Majority of the population I’d think is grossly uneducated on aspects of privacy and security in the digital realm.
TehCorwiz 1y ago
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 1y ago

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 1y ago
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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
  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 1y ago
  >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.

zkmon 1y ago

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.

air3y 1y ago

This is just misinformation. The Govt just gave officers from income tax department the power to access records through any means, whether breaking open locks and doors, or gain access to devices overriding access codes. Such fantasy stories unfortunately fly in the country. There was one such false claim widely spread earlier, that facebook had provided the ruling party with access to directly block any posts on facebook they wanted gone.

sangeeth96 1y ago
I disagree mainly because there is a big lack of transparency from the govt/courts on these matters even when pressed with RTIs unless you have sources that say very explicitly otherwise from the mouths of govt/FB. As for the second part, they sort of are still able to censor/remove posts a lot more easily so this is far from the “fantasy” you’re talking about: https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/x-takes-indian-govt-to-court-alleges-arbitrary-censorship-of-content-125032001125_1.html https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/x-takes-ind...