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Comment by jraph | Hacker News Reader

> audited for what?

To find backdoors?

> what is this signal fanboyism online when there are competing products doing the same thing?

You are completely misreading me. I actually prefer Element/Matrix than Signal (and I use both). But that does not matter one bit, so I hadn't mentioned it so far.

I'm a fanboy of nothing, that's not how I work. Take it easy.

> if whatsapp is using signal protocol then by effect isn't it as secure as signal?

WhatsApp is closed source. We only have Facebook's words for trusting it. Which is a bit weak if ask me.

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i am currently being blocked from accessing element.io because this ban is directly affecting me. That is why i am able to speak on it.

my matrix access has not stopped but i guess it probably will in the next few days. There are thousands of matrix servers so being connected isn't an issue.

The issue is specifically making the government understand that e2ee is necessary for the very reason they do not want it in the first place.

terrorism is never an issue. the target, like china is on dissent and these are just propaganda

Good luck with the censoring happening in your country! That's quite shitty.

Hopefully their search results also aren’t manipulated like in the US. At least they have a shot if they are allowed to even know the app exists :)

You can use any other client, right?

Yep. For now the element.io keeps coming up and getting blocked on a 10-20 minutes schedule for some reason.

No stoppage of service is happening for now. Even matrix.org is working.

All clients are working, all servers are working

I would like to understand how blocking element suppresses dissent in India. Every month there is somebody protesting in Delhi with media coverage.

I would agree with you if the terrorism problem was more like that in the west. But people are killed by terrorists almost every week in India.

Dissent is a dirty word in India today.

https://scroll.in/article/954711/in-kashmir-a-spree-of-arres...

Few years who when India unilaterally changed the status of Kashmir so they just banned the while internet. For like 6 months.

Then when it was allowed, the boogeyman of "misuse" which was a dirty word for dissent.

People have been arrested for posting dissent, for having VPN apps on their phones.

Their only aim is to obtain complete control. Dissent is not allowed.

Element does not give them a punching bag rep nor gives them backdoor access. Both things are mentioned in the original news.

WhatsApp does both so their e2ee is irrelevant.

My question on the terrorism is, did terrorism not exist before e2ee? Were they able to stop them completely before now that they are unable to?

> Few years who when India unilaterally changed the status of Kashmir

You must not know how laws work. Kashmir agreed to join India in 1948. It was given a special status, enshrined in Article 370 of the Constitution of India. Now, that "special status" has always bothered a lot of Indians; what's so special about Kashmir? Why not any of the other 537 states that formed India in 1947?

There were certain conditions on which Article 370 could be removed. Those conditions were met in 2019 and the Central Government took the decision to remove Article 370 to much rejoicing in areas like Ladakh and Jammu. This was challenged in the Indian Supreme Court (the final arbiter of things Constitutional) and found to be valid.

"Kashmir agreed to join India in 1948"

What you are saying seems to be factual true, but for context one should probably add, that the only other option would have been Pakistan. Whose troops were already inside Kashmir. Independence, which is what most Kashmiris likely would have preferred, was not on the table offered to them, by any of the bigger empires around them. And the Kashmir independence movement in its whole, seems to be considered terrorism by india since day one.

There were many other independent to semi independent nations in India then who agreed to join India due to various forms of pressure. E.g. south Kerala Travancore was a princely state where the king gave up the throne and joined India, Bhutan was a princely state and became an independent kingdom. What makes Kashmir special. It could've stayed independent and gotten destroyed I guess. Who knows, speculative history.

"It could've stayed independent and gotten destroyed I guess. "

Kashmir as a independent state is also destroyed in the current timeline.

"What makes Kashmir special. "

Lot's of things. But yes, other states are also special.

I am open for them, to go for independence, or at least local autonomy as well, if they like.

Depends on your definition of destroyed I guess, point was various events and conditions led to nations joining India and Kashmir shouldn't have special status because of whatever conditions at the time. About independence etc, I'm not diving into fantasy territory lol.

This was a very controversial and shady decision. While legally the conditions were met, according to the Supreme Court, I understood it was only possible because there was no elected government in Kashmir at that moment, and it has been put under direct supervision of the central government. But correct me if I misremembered or misinterpreted of course.

Legally it was defensible. That's what matters. Was it controversial? Sure.

But India has several "union territories". Kashmir is not unique.

On the other hand, citizens of Jammu and Ladakh were overjoyed, so there lots of people who supported it.

Now Kashmir is getting tons of investment. They'll be spending nearly a billion dollars on building metros in Srinagar. Such progress would not have been possible under the old regime.

> Their only aim is to obtain complete control. Dissent is not allowed.

Terrorism is not allowed. FTFY.

> People have been arrested for posting dissent, for having VPN apps on their phones.

This is only going to get worse, and spread to other countries.

We need a real, reliable, decentralized solution, but we also need a solution that allows plausible deniability.

So if some cop looks at a phone, they can't see anything that would arouse suspicion.

A custom rom masquerading as an official Android release, with some kind of secret set of actions to launch an app, and a way to instantly hide all traces of it like a boss key.

It is not banned since years where I live and you can say whatever you want to anyone strange you are behaving like every one in entire country is facing same issues . You should ask someone to visit there and feel the terror. Who can be killed anytime. First learn to stay with others.

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