VideoLAN has issued a legal notice to Indian Gov for banning their website | Hacker News Reader

VideoLAN has issued a legal notice to Indian Gov for banning their website

internetfreedom.in

124 pointsashleshbiradar27 comments

For context: (not sure if this is right, just something I heard somewhere) the VLC website was banned because some people were distributing versions of VLC that included malware (not through the official VLC website, but through other websites), and for some reason instead of banning those unofficial websites they banned the official website

(conspiracy mode on:) Maybe the version with malware is linked to some high-earning scam company located in India

Supposedly it was linked to Chinese hackers. To my knowledge, India has never explained the ban so we can't be sure.

The dates don’t match for this explanation.

edit moving this discussion to the active thread.

Sounds like a good idea when you need to disseminate state trojans

>some reason instead

As with all things follow the money

Ask why would the scam capital of the world banned the legit site.

> Ask why would the scam capital of the world banned the legit site.

I thought only Reddit had excessive racism.

A comment so absurd it's not worth debating

Blatantly racist and bigoted statement. Really has no place on HN. Probably a troll.

First not a troll

and in no way is it racist, it is a provable statement and the India government is doing nothing to stop the scammers and in some area's of the nation actively protecting them

See the recent reporting by Mark Rober and Jim Browning.

ALOT of scamming is currently originating from India, this is fact.

It is racist because you are indicating that India is a land of scams. There’s an equal number of small $$ scams that happen all across Southeast Asia and Africa. For big $$ scams, look no further than NYC. Just by a dollar figure I think Madoff’s scams may eclipse anything all the scammers put together have done.

Don’t single out an entire set of people.

No, a racist statement would be "this person is a scammer because they're from India" (though technically still not racist, because India is a nation, not a race).

The majority of all scams world-wide originate in India and the income generated through these are a significant part of India's GDP, so their statement is very much understandable.

I certainly doubt it's truth though. It's probably just the usual incompetence in public office.

That’s bullshit and you claim has no data. Which what I call targeting an entire class of nation & people. Yes - you’re racist and bigoted.

I need to see some real source on GDP bit. You realise this is the 5th largest economy in the world right now? If scamming Americans was that lucrative and easy then some country in South America or Mexico would be one of the larger economies in the world rather than India, because of cultural and geographic proximity. If scamming Americans was that easy, the largest source of the scams would be local. Also I don’t think economists account for the proceeds from criminal activities into GDP calculations. Even if it is in some way, crime GDP would definitely be underaccounted.

Also state support to criminal organisations would have been highlighted in intelligence reports by now and would be a major topic of diplomatic interactions. As the government is pretty incompetent it would be impossible to keep it a secret.

Your and the other dude’s assertions seem paranoid and irrational. You’re probably just a racist.

>these are a significant part of India's GDP

India's GDP is 3.5 trillion dollar while the most pessimistic (or optimistic if you like) amount of money involved in tech scams is $7.5 million.

It's much less than a rounding error but probably garbage comments like this is good to vent your frustration about getting laid off and replaced by some indian programmer

You will get no debate from me that NYC is a cesspool for financial scams including legal ones.

your whataboutism however does not change the fact that when it comes to Computer Fraud cases, which is what is being claimed as the justification for banning the VLC site, India is in fact either #1 or at minimum in the top 10 for fraud the originates as malware or "tech support" or simplar scams

and Just like the US Government has an incentive to protect NYC Scammers (and they do) the India government has an incentive to protect scammers there

I fail to understand how me stating the truth and reality of the situation is somehow attacking the people of India nor racism

Just like when people call out the US government for the bullshit it does I don't view it as an attack on me. My government sucks, it is terrible, fuck the US Government.

I am pretty much anti every government

bhai yahan ke log aise hi hei, The dang mod bhi kuch nahi karta, Better to steer clear of these conversations.

don't worry they will have a "diversity week" celebration and have some bullcrap conversation about inclusion etc all while at the same time having blatantly racist conversations like india is land of scams, indians are scammers.

these kind of conversations should prove the point that most of these diversity nonsense is just facade so that they feel better about them behaving shitty in real life

President of VideoLAN here: it is what I did this weekend with the help of the IFF.

We’ll see what happens next… AMA

What is the deadline for the Indian government to respond? Is there a deadline?

I don't think there is.

Some nameless bureaucrat must have been trigger happy while banning VLC URL.

Indian IT ministry is one if the worst ministries in the central government (from all governments formed until now)

The general state of IT and software development in India tracks the same

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32441911 ("VLC media player banned in India", August 2022, 168 comments)

Always knew authoritarian and corrupt regimes are irrational, but banning vlc? What kind of mental gymnastics have they employed in doing so?

More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33077441

Awesome!! Governments should be held responsible for their actions. Way to go...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com