Indian court orders blocking of Proton Mail | Hacker News Reader

Indian court orders blocking of Proton Mail

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420 pointsimpish9208226 comments

I have been using Proton Mail and Proton VPN for over 3 years now. I firmly believe in the fundamental right of privacy online. Indian government has been taking steps like these for quite some time now. They previously asked VPN companies to log and gather every bit of information they could about their users including their name and address (effectively driving all VPN companies out of India) Sometimes, I question the meaning of freedom in India. On paper we are free citizens, but essentially we never seem to get the benefits of living in a free country.

> On paper we are free citizens, but essentially we never seem to get the benefits of living in a free country

India has been mimicking Chinese and Gulf authoritarianism for a decade now. New Delhi is not truly authoritarian, but more an an elected federal government with autocratic powers, not dissimilar from the U.S. Both are mimicking China, to a certain extent, in ways good (industrial policy, moderating hyperindividualism like NIMBYism) and bad (suspending habeus, jingoism).

It's becoming an illiberal democracy like Turkey. Which is still a lot different than the US imo.

e.g.:

-After a decade of Modi rule, India now ranked 161 out of 180 in the world press freedom index: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/22/media/india-elections-press-f...

-Political opponents have been arrested on trumped up charges before elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Arvind_Kejriwal

-Extrajudicial killings on Canadian soil and possible attempt on US soil before they were caught (despite extradition agreements between India and these countries): https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/india-government-agent-as...

I saw an interesting interview from 50's by one of India's founders on the topic of democracy in India: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WyWUlIbcRH8 . It seems India still has a long way to go, and the current government is reversing the trend.

I really hope the west thinks long and hard about foreign investment in/free trade with India without preconditions (although these are doubtful from the US under the current administration, maybe the EU can step up). The west had this idea that opening up trade with China would make the country more democratic and free, but it had the opposite impact (the extra resources only made things worse in these areas at home and aborad, especially after Xi's takeover in 2014).

I'm unclear which of those things you don't think applies to the US as well?

It may not be as blatant, but the current administration is openly attempting to muzzle the press (i.e. banning the AP from Whitehouse), the last few US elections have been mired in law enforcement interactions (FBI investigation into Hilary's emails, Trump's various trials), and extrajudicial killings on foreign soil have openly been a thing since Obama's drone-strike-happy administration.

it's still no where near the same. Adani, india's richest man, has close connections to Modi and is under indictment by the US for bribery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_against_Gautam_Adan... .

He also bought one of india's last major independent traditional media outlets (NDTV) years ago. The comparison I can think of is if MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News were all run like Fox news in terms of alignment with Trump. In a country where 25% the population is illiterate this is especially concerning as a significant portion of the electorate can only access their news from traditional media (TV, radio).

oh i forgot to add, the internet penetration rate is around 50% in India, so 50% of the population can't even access youtube on demand.

The first point is completely invalid, here a lot of press, YouTubers berate Indian government in daily basis they do not suffer any setbacks except when netizens call out false propaganda in numbers for both pro and anti government media.

Second point the Indian leader arrested was involved in huge scams in liquor and policy, he used to live in a lavish palace and got called out by enforcement directorate. It's good he got arrested.

Canada has not provided even a single proof for Indias involvement in extrajudicial killings but instead harbor people who threaten Indians regularly. Despite extradition treaty Canada has become a safe harbor of terrorists and refused to extradite terrorists even after repeated requests by India.

Reversing the trend ? Are you kidding me, previous government imposed emergency rule when their position was threatened and commited human rights abuses.

> Despite extradition treaty Canada has become a safe harbor of terrorists and refused to extradite terrorists even after repeated requests by India.

This seems troubling. Can you share some examples of this?

> Canada has not provided even a single proof for Indias involvement in extrajudicial killings

I don't know about Canada, but did you read this about the case in the US?

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-c...

It's pretty comprehensive that the person hired was connected to the Indian govt.

Some examples:

https://www.opindia.com/2024/12/khalistani-terrorist-pannun-...

https://www.opindia.com/2024/12/we-take-threats-very-serious...

https://www.opindia.com/2024/11/us-supported-khalistani-terr...

Regarding extrajudicial killings if I remember correctly arrested person was Indian, not sure if it was proved that he was connected to Indian govt. And for Canada yes they didn't provide any proof but instead had to backtrack on their statements:

https://www.opindia.com/news-updates/canadian-pm-justin-trud...

Wait, all your links are from opindia

From wikipedia -

OpIndia is an Indian far-right[2] news website known for frequently publishing misinformation.[11][12][28] Founded in December 2014,[18] the website has published fake news and Islamophobic commentary on numerous occasions.[37][43] OpIndia is dedicated to criticism of what it considers liberal media,[14] and to support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)[47] and Hindutva ideology.[3] According to University of Maryland researchers, OpIndia has shamed journalists it deems to be in opposition to the BJP and has alleged media bias against Hindus and the BJP.[13]

Did you get a chance to read the US attorney's indictment and alleged connections to the Indian govt?

Opindia has no hesitation on declaring itself as a right leaning site but frequently publishing misinformation? That's exaggeration. It backs whatever it writes with independent research, attached videos documents, cctv footage, other news houses as best as it can. Sure it made its mistakes but not so much as other media houses in India.

There are much worse media houses that opindia especially on the left.

And Wikipedia? That's neither reliable or consistent. It itself has been shown to be edited by whimsical propagandists to serve their own means in past.

The articles sources can be checked and not only opindia other news houses have reported on Gurpreet Singh Pannu

Hey, you didn't answer my question about whether you read the indictment or not

I didn't get a chance to read but will surely will, thanks for pointing that

My man, you are trying to reason with a person who follows opindia, just move on with your life.

> they do not suffer any setbacks

hmm: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/13/india-arrests-raids-targ...

> Second point the Indian leader arrested was involved in huge scams in liquor and policy.

unproven, and the timing could not have been more suspicious:

"Amnesty International, an international human rights group said that the arrest of Kejriwal and the "freezing of Indian National Congress’ bank accounts", a few weeks before India's general elections showed "the authorities’ blatant failure to uphold the country’s international human rights obligations".[45][46]"

> Despite extradition treaty Canada has become a safe harbor of terrorists and refused to extradite terrorists even after repeated requests by India.

How about despite an extradition treaty, India has never submitted a claim against these so called terrorists and like normal democracies use the courts to argue their case for extradition. In Canada the courts are generally far more independent than those in India. Note - speech calling for a separate state by itself is not terrorism in any country that values free speech (heck half of Quebec regularly does this), only calling or acting for violence means crossing that line, i haven't seen any evidence for the latter (but I'm open to be proven wrong - from independent credible sources unlike those you listed).

> Reversing the trend ? Are you kidding me.

Yes, according to the article I originally cited and others, India has become less democratic. Caste violence and religious tension (i.e. chants of "love jihad") seems to have gotten worse - true to India's founders video in the 1950's I shared of democracy in India.

The first link you shared of hrw...in one of the incidents it showed the arrest of newsclick.

The problem with international media houses is that they don't report why someone has been arrested on what charges and with what process. Newsclick offices has been raided for allegedly taking funding from CCP for propaganda and also inciting Delhi riots.

The second instance when the hrw is saying that Delhi police arrested 'peaceful protesters', there were RIOTS! A police offices was stabbed in two digits, a boy' limbs were amputed while being alive and left to burn in his shop. They were not peaceful protests in any case.

Amnesty international did the same thing. It did not report why Kejriwal was arrested. Kejriwal's lavish mansion made with money of tax payers has been a topic of mockery by Indian public. His party lost elections badly because people knew that the arrest was not whimsical.

I won't comment on topic of court more, as I don't know you can be right.

Independent credible sources :p. Name any media house and I can show how they have repeatedly used media as a propaganda page with full of fake news whether left or right(except reuters maybe). The only thing credible is reading from multiple sources to know fully about an incident. What I like about Opindia is that it provides a very comprehensive coverage of every incident with sources and proofs at every line and has even corrected itself in past for mistakes.

India has not become less democratic that is just a farce by some parties who neither have any agenda, neither consistent neither in touch with what people want, they are just envious that they are being repeatedly loosing elections in multiple states of India. They only cry India is less democratic when they lose elections.

The opposing party repeatedly wants a caste census and invites regularly people of different castes against other castes. In fact caste violence is at its lowest period, since from my parents times. Young generation have stopped believing in birth castes except to make Instagram reels. Love jihad, I can show you hundreds of cases when a member of a community (you can guess) has posed as member of other religious group for an affair to be finally have his identity revealed after marriage after which domestic violence and sexual exploitation of the victim arises. Now before you say that it is a 'Hindutva majoritian' agenda, well not when the church groups of Kerala raise the same issue in their community.

and Australia. Australian government tried making encryption illegal.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/australian-pm-calls-en...

People forget until how recently India was a socialist nation, and how easy it would be to slip back

Isn't it still socialist per the Constitution?

The word “socialist” was added to the Constitution by Indira Gandhi during the 70s.

This was during her “Emergency” when Parliament was essentially dysfunctional.

There have been campaigns to remove her changes, but nothing has come of it.

I found a copy of the text here: https://legislative.gov.in/constitution-of-india/

English version: https://cdnbbsr.s3waas.gov.in/s380537a945c7aaa788ccfcdf1b99b...

In the preamble (p32), I see this text:

    > WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a [SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC] and to secure to all its citizens:

That said, I don't know how constitutional amendments work in India. This text may have been amended at a later date, but the original text remains.

“Socialist” and “Secular” were added by Indira Gandhi when she had declared an Emergency after being disqualified by a high court.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-second_Amendment_of_the_...

Socialism is an economic policy. It has nothing to do with "freedom".

See Sanjay Gandhi's forced sterilization campaign at the behest of the World Bank and IMF. Tell me that reproduction is not a freedom. Tell me that Indira and Sanjay Gandhi weren't socialists.

There was also forced sterilization in the United States. Does that make the United States a socialist country? No, of course not. The argument form "Bob did X, and Bob is an A, therefore all As do X" is nonsense.

edit: There was also forced sterilization in the United States. Does that make the United States a socialist country? No, of course not. The argument form "Bob did X, and Bob is an A, therefore anyone who does X is an A" is nonsense. The argument form "Bob did X, and Bob is an A, therefore all As do X" is similarly nonsense. It's also a very weird argument to make when you say it was done "at behest of the World Bank and IMF.", considering those are certainly not socialist organizations.

There’s a correlating factor:

Technocratic managerialism.

Communism, socialism, fascism, and progressivism are 20th century political systems based around technocratic managerialism — and all of them have attempted to control breeding in the population. That’s because technocratic managerialism is prone to such decisions.

Progressives in the US were behind both Great Society programs and forced sterilization — so it’s more or less accurate to say the US equivalent of socialists did also sterilize people.

> That’s because technocratic managerialism is prone to such decisions.

That's a nifty insight. Engineers want to engineer. If you place an engineer in charge of social policy they will likely try to engineer social and cultural changes.

Howard Taft was a a progressive/socialist? Interesting idea..

Eugenics were universally popular back in those days. Willson (hardly a progressive either) was a strong supporter of eugenics. Just like Theodore Roosevelt.

> more or less accurate

It would be more or less just as accurate to say that conservatives were the US equivalents of socialists following this silly logic..

Just like it's reasonable for America to worry about the group that conducted forced sterilization (Jim Crow racists) and worry about the slide back to them attaining power, it makes sense to do the same for socialists.

Ideologies that further concentrate power in the hands of a central state - in India's case, things like Hindutva nationalism and socialism - are risky, particularly in developing nations where liberty is less firmly-established, and should be given a stern eye when they appear.

And, just like "southern democrat" is a "bad word" in America for obvious reasons and doesn't imply "democrat from the south", "socialist" is a bit taboo in India.

> Jim Crow racists

There were forced sterilization programs in New York State in the early 20th century, and the victims weren't specifically black.

Sure, that's just less attributable to a coherent political faction; there were fewer than fifty that occurred in total on mentally ill women.

Snobs come in all colors and parties. Jim Crow racists there were plenty, but the eugenics ideas and projects of the 1920s in the North were horrible in their own right.

Eugenics and forced sterilization were a major progressive policy back in those days. It transcended political lines

e.g. in 1912 Wilson, Roosevelt and Taft all supported it.

> There was also forced sterilization in the United States.

Yes, in the 20s in New York State. It was quite rare by comparison to what happened in India. The point was not to say "this is what socialists do" but to say point out that they did it at the behest of capitalists, which is quite the incongruity -- an incongruity which you noticed yet you failed to make the connection that it made the Gandhis phonies. That should make you wonder how genuine they were as socialists.

specifically, The Population Bomb was the big book during the era, which was written by a Stanford professor. India's forced sterilization campaign was at the behest of the World Bank, and championed by the Ford and Rockefeller foundations, all of which were strongly influenced by the book. Fun fact: the author, Mr. Erlich, is still alive (at the age of 92!) and has maintained his correctness, instead saying he was "too optimistic" when his forecasted mass starvation failed to materialize.

Malthusian predictions have two parts, one of which is proven time and time again, and the other which has yet to be proven but on the basis of which horrible things are justified:

  1. population growth leads to food
     production improvements which
     enables more population growth,
  
  2. catastrophic failure must result
     eventually when we really run
     into the planet's human carrying
     capacity.

Malthusians like Paul Erlich are the boy who cried wolf. They are always wrong when they cry "wolf!", but who knows, maybe someday they might be right ("someday we will be right" is their message).

So far we've only seen the inverse of Malthusian catastrophes: population collapse.

We've seen population collapse twice in recorded history, perhaps more:

  - the Roman empire
  
  - now, almost everywhere

Malthusians like mr. Erlich might argue that the reason we're reaching population peaks (followed by collapse) is precisely due to their efforts. Perhaps. But population collapse is not all that fun either. Yet even today we have a great deal of political pressure from some quarters to do things that will speed up the collapse rather than slow it.

> is proven time and time again

It’s not though. That was only the case since the 1800s. Malthus was more or less correct about the preceding periods.

> collapse twice in recorded history, perhaps more

Not perhaps. Certainly more. If you want a clear cut and well documented example look at Europe between ~1000 and the 1300s.

Massive population expansion leading to overpopulation, very high food costs and mass starvation. The Black Death interrupted that cycle and limited population growth for the next 400 years or so (which resulted in significant increase in per capita productivity across Europe).

“Socialism” in the Indian context is associated with Indira Gandhi’s repressive policies from the Emergency she declared when she was thrown out of office in the seventies. The word “socialist” was added to the Constitution by her during that time when Parliament was essentially dysfunctional.

Sure, but the premise of the economic policy is we give up freedom for equality and shared ownership.

I think freedom is a continuum. Some things are regulated even in the West so for example you need permission to open a new hospital.

Sure, but on this continuum capitalism is a lot more free than socialism.

By definition, in socialism, I can't start and/or grow a business, and I'm not free to do with it as I please. Some socialist societies let people have small business, but the state comes in and takes it once it gets too big.

>Socialism is an economic policy

...that is not taught in any school of economics.

it's actually a political platform or set of political promises

Question the meaning of freedom in the whole world instead

> Indian government has been taking steps like these for quite some time now.

In this instance though, this is from the High Court of the state of Karnataka and not the Indian Government. Karnataka isn't ruled by the same party at the center (imagine California and the current US Government). Again, the Government of Karnataka had nothing to do with this case either - it's the High Court.

Indian courts have done similar things forever. YouTube/FB etc quickly comply with court orders here; because judges would simply issue a blanket ban order on the website.

Add in Aadhaar.

> They previously asked VPN companies to log and gather every bit of information they could about their users including their name and address (effectively driving all VPN companies out of India)

in NordVPN (a paid mainstream provider without Mulvad-like conviction to privacy), you can connect to an Indian server without ever providing your personal details when signing in.

i wonder how much these rulings are enforced in reality. there is definitely no great firewall situation and outright jailing for breaching this law so far. but on the other hand, it is just a lower temperature setting in the frog-boiling process.

Does it work that way if you initially sign up from India? Your first VPN sign up is inherently from your real IP and that's enough to determine geolocation as India. They may require different data for different countries.

I'm not saying it does. Just that it's possible. Perhaps an Indian NordVPN user could provide input here

So sending someone something offensive is grounds for banning protonmail, yet the bazillion scam call centers are somehow not a problem.

In my recent history there was a email sent from peoton mail that there are bombs planted somewhere, which was fake obviously.

The scam call centers are in cahoots with the government. So… yeah. They’re not going anywhere.

I found watching the trailer to The Beekeper quite therapeutic for my scammy call center dislike (it's the best part of the movie imho).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHKn-yDCE2w

The whole film is good if a bit over the top.

I watch Jason Statham movies _because_ they're over the top.

Exactly. I misspoke. Praise be the name of Statham hah

A Jason Statham movie over the top?! No way!

A bit reductionist perhaps. I assume the reason they are pushung it further is that they didn't submit to the police requesting information. Good on them for not cooperating but this is the lever a nation can pull in response.

That reasoning only makes sense if the scam callcenters DO cooperate with Indian police/court and the state is actively happy with scam center responses (and so with their business). Because you can be 1000% sure they got sued.

So you're saying the same thing, just a more polite. You're still saying that the Indian government cooperates with scam call centers.

>That reasoning only makes sense if the scam callcenters DO cooperate with Indian police/court

Yes, or the obvious, that their ringleaders pay hefty bribes up the government food chain, as is common in many, many countries with organized crime activity.

Protonmail presumably didn't do any such thing, aside from also refusing to cooperate legally.

Either way, shame to see India going down this road of censoring X and Y or random snooping for reasons of political expediency.

Not reductionist at all. A country so steeped in corruption that even all its natural advantages (lots of English speakers, big population, low wages) can’t compete with China. They (their government specifically) needs to get their act together in the 21st century.

I think the main reason to ban was that the email provider refused to share identity of the sender. Still doesn't justify the actions

This is what happens when boomers run the government.

> yet the bazillion scam call centers are somehow not a problem.

the local population is also in the blast radius of scam calls, and is recognized by the government as well. so much so that one receives a disclaimer voice message before getting connected to a call every now and then.

robocalls are also a problem the states continue to deal with, so it is easier said than done about such cat-and-mouse issues.

> So sending someone something offensive is grounds for banning

it took a whole lawsuit to come to this ruling. in vast majority of cases, people and businesses do not resort to approaching the courts for things such as this. especially given the backlog and time/resource costs associated with the whole ordeal. the plaintiff went through the effort, which is quite impressive to be honest.

That means scam is the supported, national policy.

Seeing their unwavering support for Putler this is at least consistent with the pariah states like Iran and North Korea.

This seems ineffective on a couple levels. One is that Proton users are a population that’s much more likely to be using a VPN anyway (they even offer a VPN service themselves). Another is that unless non-blocked providers reject email from Proton this doesn’t even solve the supposed issue. An Indian user of GMail is going to still receive and view email sent by Proton, so the goal of the block isn’t even achieved.

The point isn’t to block Proton as much as give prosecutors and investigators another tool to either target folks or simplify prosecution. If a search reveals a Proton email address (or you can show someone using one), you’re done.

>If a search reveals a Proton email address (or you can show someone using one), you’re done.

But so far as I can tell, using protonmail isn't illegal yet?

> so far as I can tell, using protonmail isn't illegal yet?

Not an expert on Indian law. But we have a court order blocking Proton Mail across India. Circumventing the block could be found tantamount to wilfully violating the court order.

no, i dont think that's how it works. if someone is using protonmail they won't be violating court's order. the order is just for protonmail to be blocked. doesn't say anything about the people using it.

You’re done with what though? What’s the penalty for using a Proton email address? Death?

Steps like this are all the more reason the decentralized internet has to start being given more priority. It's only a matter of time until the open internet stops being a thing.

That’s a pipe dream. Like „untraceable, not-controlled-by-banks, decentralised currency bitcoin“. As soon as it becomes popular, it gets regulated.

Yes, it’s stupid. But it’s the reality of things.

Regulated and decentralized are not opposing ends on the same spectrum, under a mature government one can have both.

> Regulated and decentralized are not opposing ends on the same spectrum, under a mature government one can have both

The point is it's regulated irrespective of the government's maturity. If it only works under a mature government, it's superfluous as a social tool. (Technology usually is.)

it is, when the regulating authority is centralised

> [...] bitcoin“. As soon as it becomes popular, it gets regulated.

And, before it gets popular and regulated, it gets overrun by criminals?

Definitely the case with Bitcoin. I don't know about ProtonMail, though.

What is a criminal but a person who acts against pre-existing regulation anyway?

Bitcoin's 'criminal' use is/was 95% narcotics. In a world without a superficial 'war on drugs', where a state had no right to tell a citizen what to put into their own body, no user, no dealer would be criminal.

If you wish to fight crime, the solution might not be to 'make more things criminal', but to 'make less things criminal'.

On the other hand, I have been using bitcoin for cross-border value transfers where banks would have taken ridiculous fees, and I have used bitcoin for online micro-transactions where setting up other payment systems would have been expensive.

The fact that governments have regulated cryptocurrency does not change the value proposition of the technology.

The governments have also regulated cocaine. It didn’t work there, either.

Governments would certainly like to regulate Bitcoin, and many have passed laws to this effect. But it's still possible to use it in a way that effectively skirts all this regulation, because of its decentralized nature.

Would you care to remind everybody how they can guarantee that the party they are interacting with is in fact Proton even though anybody watching or facilitating the interaction won't be able to know?

Today? Use their .onion address[0] over Tor and TLS. The TLS certificate is secured by the tor secret service key. No WebPKI or centralized CAs required.

For tomorrow we should keep exploring and adopting improvements. Pick your poison.

[0]: Discovery left as excercise for reader

By this logic one could simply download Protonmail's TLS certificate instead of trusting a CA and access the service via clearnet. Fully decentralized. Discovery, once again, left as excercise for reader.

Presumably the ISPs and vendors will be forced to block you/Proton there via regular means, so no.

And how exactly would that work?

Consider the way BitTorrent works. You don't have to know what your peers are going to be, or where. You don't have to trust your peers: as long as they serve blocks with correct hashes, you are safe to take data from them. Equally, they don't have to know you or trust you.

It, of course, does not work for email. OTOH protocols like briar [1] theoretically could.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briar_(software)

Alright, so how do you propose we decentralize the Internet physically? Because that's really the crux of this. And what has allowed the mass surveillance by state actors.

and when that happens, immediately every government ll step inside and turn your decentralized internet into a regulated firewalled one. I think don't understand the drawbacks of this stuff enough. Terrorists and drug cartels leave no trace behind on such networks.

Replace "decentralized internet" by "uncensorable internet".

To me, the most promising such technology is reticulum[0]. I'm interested if someone knows of good alternatives

[0] https://reticulum.network/

I tried to connect a couple of Android-based "Sideband" clients over anything except public Internet, to no avail, not sure why.

(I have several relevant devices, amateur licence and radios, etc)

I succeeded! Can't really help though very wilm start donating to them.

Good publicity for proton mail

Wanted to do a TL;DR of this order:

* Some company’s employees receive some inappropriate emails from a ProtonMail address.

* They file complaints and approach the court to identify who sent the emails.

* ProtonMail does not respond to queries about its users from foreign authorities unless the Swiss government directs it to. [1] It didn’t respond to this request.

* The court decides that blocking ProtonMail in the entire country will solve this problem and such problems forever.

[1]: https://proton.me/blog/india-block-proton-mail (key text snippet below)

> Under Swiss law, Proton is not allowed to transmit any data to foreign authorities, and we are therefore required by law to reject all requests from foreign authorities that are addressed directly to us. However, Proton is legally obligated to respond to orders from Swiss authorities, who do not tolerate illegal activities conducted through Switzerland and may assist foreign authorities in cases of illegal activity, provided they are valid under international assistance procedures and determined to be in compliance with Swiss law.

Thanks for the helpful summary. Unfortunately, I can’t imagine what the courts could do differently in this case.

Regardless of whether Proton mail is a useful service with a principled stance, their refusal to engage under a sovereign legal system makes them simply “ungovernable” from the perspective of any sovereign government (lacking any relevant arbitration treaties). The only natural reaction seems to be to unperson them from engaging in transactions within the land. What other options does any sovereign government have when an entity simply refuses to engage?

It would be a different situation if Proton mail appeared in Indian court and argued why these details must be protected (within the contours of Indian law).

We take for granted the freedom to send bits anywhere in the world, and forget that we have an intricate system of decentralized governance (countries with local sovereignty, treaties, etc) in the physical world to regulate our ability to ship atoms around the world. As much as we all like our freedom, (and maybe exactly for that reason) decentralized self-governance feels like a value we ought to uphold.

"Swiss authorities, who do not tolerate illegal activities"

lol

Same old:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/5re9s1/h...

Sounds like an endorsement of Proton Mail to me.

Why not simply block the senders? How on earth does a high court support the demand of a single entity at the cost of the wide public, risking freedom oppression and censor of speech?

It's India. That's how.

I mean this is just absurd.

> On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court directed the Indian government to block Proton Mail, a popular email service known for its enhanced security, following a legal complaint filed by New Delhi-based M Moser Design Associates. The local firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.

How does this make any sense. Would the court block gmail if the same happens via gmail?.

India somehow is stuck in the worst of all worlds. There is no freedom like democratic countries and there is no good government like China.

To any westerners commenting, this is not same as think of the children. Government or courts mostly don't even need to give such excuses in India (max they might say to counter traitors). There is obscene amount of corruption in the country at every step from the local to the highest, and it is internalized by the citizens so much that everyone knows and nobody cares.

Edit: good government above means competent government

> there is no good government like China

Here "good" means "is competent and calculating" I suppose. China's government wouldn't even blink blocking Proton Mail or any other non-Chinese technology without even giving a reason, though.

Yeah that is a good tradeoff (IMHO) if it gives the citizens a tradeoff of infrastructure and social services. Indian government can jump through hoops to do the same thing but somehow can never do all that when it comes to rapid infrastructure development.

> "[...] never do all that when it comes to rapid infrastructure development."

India is now building 100 km highway per day. It created 24,000+ km in the last 5 years. [0]

It has the second-largest road network in the world, second only to the US. [1]

[0]: https://pib.gov.in/PressNoteDetails.aspx?NoteId=151963&Modul...

[1]: https://www.financialexpress.com/business/roadways-indias-ro...

Yes the current government is doing some things well and that does include road development which has been extensive.

Isn't 100km per day their goal while their record is at 37km on a single day? That's impressive by itself, but it's not quite the same (and those 5 year numbers would take them less than one year at that speed).

Yes, "completely different from China's government" is really what's meant.

No, I did mean "competent"

I wouldn't consider ghost cities and wasteful expenditure on infrastructure to just prop up GDP as good governance. As the saying goes not all that glitters is gold.

Democracy is messy, but there is some kind of transparency (freedom of press) that brings up issues out in the open.

Let's not be impatient with Democracy lest we lose all that we valued without us realizing it.

Democracy needs patience and preserverence.

A lot of the ghost cities news has been debunked as of late. When the news stories were coming out, a lot of the cities were just recently built. A decade+ later, a lot of the areas have been filled in...

E.g. this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR4EYQ6JFUI

"A lot" isn't really doing much for your argument that the existance of ghost cities is "debunked", given that it implies there are still ghost cities.

> Good government like China

This is a bad joke. For starters, China blocked Proton Mail years ago.

I am not claiming China is free or democratic at all, just that Government in turn is able to use it's authoritarianism to do stuff for the country.

Every government is busy with some form of "do stuff for the country".

It seems clear above commenters are referencing that China performs better at accomplishing certain tasks, such as large scale infrastructure development, that isn’t comparable to other countries that “do stuff”.

I’m always skeptical of what I will call the admiration of “despotic efficiency / accomplishments”.

I’m not sure how efficient or how long accurate their success / failure rates are.

Especially when blocking a service would seem to have no impact on it…

If that's what you really believe, then I'd say Chinese government propaganda is working as intended.

Have you ever really visited China? I would just say go to your preferred youtube channel and watch any chinese city and any indian city and then say the same thing as above.

Don't base your opinion of China on YouTube channels that show you a few modern places in Chongqing or the high-speed train and pretend that this represents all of China. They don't show you the homeless people, the abandoned half-built high-rises, the dirty parks full of plastic waste, the barred-up windows because break-ins are so prevalent.

And travel 30 minutes outside of any major city. You'll see people living in broken-down buildings without heating when it's below zero, roads that haven't been maintained in decades, and poor people trying to jump in front of your car for insurance money.

China is neither the technological wonder of the world portrayed in these videos nor a bunch of peasants. It's a vast, complex country with a lot of good and a lot of bad.

I would love to say the same of India but unfortunately India has all of those problems and even the best parts of India don't hold a candle to even tier 2 cities in China.

Exactly the same could be said about several 1st world democratic countries. The point is India level of development is far lower than its neighbor having a similar population size and having come from as far down, or worse than India. The difference is a government that provided (more) benefits to its population.

That's the cost of having people protesting, blocking and badmouthing govt, for example you are doing right now. Try something like this in China against CCP, your account will be blocked within hour and cops will visit you in a day.

I have traveled widely across both India and China. China is wealthier and better off across the board: HDI, GDP per capita, healthcare, you name it.

https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/china/india?sc=...

China has its problems for sure, but vast slabs of India remain mired in sub-Saharan Africa levels of poverty and squalor.

"But the trains ran on time."

For anyone who didn't get this reference:

'In fact, there's an old saying about Mussolini that goes something like this: "Mussolini made the trains run on time." In other words, even dictators have their good points. Sure, fascism is an often brutal model of efficient government, full of poverty and corruption, but hey, at least the trains were newly punctual.

https://history.howstuffworks.com/history-vs-myth/did-mussol...

The fact check goes on to explain:

"Italy's railway had entered into a state of disrepair after World War I, but after the war ended, there had been a number of measures implemented to boost efficiency. Mussolini, of course, liked to say he was responsible for those improvements. However, those changes actually took place before he assumed power, so technically, he couldn't really take credit (although that didn't stop him). More to the point, the trains didn't always run on time, either."

I mean the everyday people are happy and their GDP is high.

I have been under the impression that China has been lying about their GDP for years and years, I thought this was commonly known.

I have also been under the impression, for years and years, that it isn't a good idea to speak ill of the one-party regime, to anyone ever.

I highly doubt GDP numbers in China are falsified, but GDP per capita doesn't matter much when median household incomes in China remain in the $250-350/mo (EDIT: $400-500/mo, good callout, needed to update priors from covid) range according to Chinese government statistics.

This is why Chinese overproduction exists - incomes are too low for most Chinese consumers to purchase higher value goods that are made in China, because you aren't upgrading your cellphone or car every year when your household income is in that range.

maybe those numbers are right decades ago - now it is double that, in disposable income

https://www.statista.com/statistics/278698/annual-per-capita...

2024 - https://www.stats.gov.cn/english/PressRelease/202408/t202408...

income of $300-ish vs disposable income of almost $3k are quite different things :)

That's 3k per 6 months, so about $500/month disposable income.

yup! a whole world apart from $250-ish income originally stated

Hence why I edited it once you pointed out the issue. But my initial point still stands.

The poverty rate in China declined even outside Chinese propaganda.

So there are benefits for the Chinese population.

You can disagree with their motives and methods but it's undeniable that the Chinese government is working incredibly hard for themselves and their citizens. The sheer manufacturing dominance of China speaks for itself, as does their presence on the global stage, as does their looming influence over geopolitics.

And yeah, they put out a shit ton of propaganda too. But it being propaganda doesn't by virtue of that fact make it lies. One would argue the more effective kind of propaganda is the kind that's verifiable fact, even if ideologically slanted in delivery.

And you know, I'm also biased as an American currently living under the "group of incompetent jackasses" administration, but I'd love for my government to do anything besides shutting down departments that make business owners mad and handing out tax breaks to the richest assholes here every fuckin day.

Yeah, but maybe it is a powerful country because it has a lot of hard-working people with improving conditions, not because it has a communist government. I mostly think that the Chinese government harmed Chinese development in the future with their shortsighted policies, like the one-child policy.

Also, does the government really work for its citizens if they are doing a genocide of one nation in the country?

Yeah, I agree that the Trump situation is frustrating and idiotic, however, we should not resort to shifting towards totalitarians. That's problematic thinking.

one child policy was disastrous, yeah.

It's a powerful country because of the leadership though. Policies and culture shape the country. China was extremely poor for a long time, and it wasn't because the people were lazy back then.

Pro-Chinese sentiment has increased lately here in the West it seems, and part of that must be because the Chinese have managed to put their best propaganda forward. But I don’t see how we can have any sane discussion when one side of the argument can be bad-faith dismissed off the bat.

I used to believe the western propaganda "they are all peasants" - then I went to see with my own eyes.

If you are going to parrot western talking points then it would be insane conversation.

> then I went to see with my own eyes

Exactly the same here. I went to see with my own eyes, and the reality is very different from what I hear in some news outlets and from politicians.

There are undeniably ways in which the command economy is simply more efficient. The party can decide that in 10 years they will be world leader in this or that, put resources toward it, and accomplish that goal. That doesn't mean the Chinese way is best for everyone, and there are certainly humanitarian issues, there are inefficiencies typical of a command economy, and there are unintended consequences, (tofu dreg, etc) but it's undeniable that they're currently getting stuff done.

Yeah, more efficient in making suboptimal decisions for everyone in the country.

With freedom of thought and markets, you get competition of ideas, which ultimately selects a better solution than any central planner can plan.

This is simply and verifiably false. How much new transmission infrastructure has China built in the last 2 decades? How much renewable generation? Say what you will about competition of ideas, but when it comes to getting the big iron projects completed and objectives met China has us beat, hands down. Building and maintaining infrastructure isn't working in the US right now.

And where are you getting your information? The most interesting thing is how U.S. politicians often use the phrase 'Chinese Communist Party' when talking about China, invoking Cold War-era connotations of communism. But everyone knows that the only things still 'communist' about China are the party's name, its symbols, and the flag.

I’ve been to both the U.S. and China. There's significantly more propaganda about China in the U.S. than there is about the U.S. in China. Stop blindly believing what others say—go see for yourself. In the coastal and Tier-1 cities, you’ll witness how a population the size of the entire United States enjoys a higher standard of living than the American middle class, with greater affordability, and clean, safe, and beautiful urban environments (with infrastructure that is way ahead of US).

FYI, a good term for this is "state capacity"

What’s the relevance of authoritarianism? Is it necessary for the good government or is it neutral or other?

You mean like the Stalin's 5 year plan from 70 years ago ?

Don't believe what any government pretend, especially communist ones. Chinese standard of living improved ? Absolutely.

Just like it did in previous emerging market, which were not ruled by communist party.

Protonmail did not comply with Chinese law. I can't say I'm a fan, but this wasn't targeted at Protonmail, it was the same with Google. China requires this because China is a target for U.S. imperialism and must protect itself. The internet, mainly owned by the USA, is basically like radio free asia dot com.

Protecting Chinese technology firms also allowed China to grow highly competitive national companies, a phenomenon we don't see as much anywhere US technology companies were allowed free reign.

> The applicable Chinese law is the China Internet Security Law which came into force in 2017. The law essentially stipulates that foreign companies which operate in China and process the private information of Chinese citizens, must store such data in China and make it available to Chinese authorities upon request. An example of a company which has had to comply with this law is Apple, which has extensive operations in China. A similar law went into effect in Russia back in 2015 (known as Federal Law No. 242-FZ).

https://proton.me/blog/clarifying-protonmail-and-huawei

Explain how the "internet [is] mainly owned by the USA."

The robust Chinese technology sector is no doubt a reflection of smart and industrious Chinese people. Those smart and industrious people include those in the CPC engaged in wholesale industrial espionage.

The largest technology companies are headquartered in USA and have extensive ties with the US state??? I don't understand how you can think Europe, Africa, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea are unable to develop comparable technology, it's simply that the market opportunities are gobbled up by behemoths grown where the internet was invented backed by US diplomacy.

Anyways, you can read more here: https://www.amazon.com/Surveillance-Valley-Military-History-...

Chinese infrastructure is light years ahead of India and frankly a police surveillance state does make the streets safe.

I agree. The fact that India is so behind China while not being a free country is just horrible. Add to that massive amounts of pollution. People cannot breathe and no clean water.

> no good government like China // good government means competent government

As someone that lived in China for 5 years, competent is the last adjective I’d use.

Sichuan Earthquake —> https://circa.art/ai-weiwei-recapturing-the-tragedy/

The Shanghai Lockdown —> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59890533.amp

Local Chinese government corruption —> https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/how-local-corruption-evolved...

Tai Lake pollution —> https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/taihu-green-wash-or...

Land seizures —> https://rightsandresources.org/blog/the-guardian-chinese-vil...

Xinjiang —> https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-musl...

One could call China’s government competent the same way one could say Stalin was a competent administrator. Nazis were also very “competent” and efficient. In no universe should that be considered “good government.”

For a moment I thought you might be the Brian Dear who wrote The Friendly Orange Glow (a fascinating history of the PLATO system).

It really is between 2 choices:

1. An authoritarian government that can actually do things but also mess up and be harsh against anyone opposing it - China

2. A democratic government that can’t get anything done, citizens can’t rely on police for any crimes, courts for any justice, politicians for any development, where the politics of the nation just constantly seeks to divide on basis of caste, religion, language etc, and the nation as a whole wallows in mediocrity.

This is such a deeply simplistic and childish way of looking at the world.

Easy for you to say, I presume you don’t live in India

What is special about India that condemns it specifically to these two choices? There are other countries (which aren't China) which somehow manage to have democratic governments that aren't incompetent.

People often underestimate how much impact the education of certain aspect (Infrastructure in China and Democracy in Westerner countries) has made to their values to a government, and meanwhile the education is controlled by the government to certain degree.

Interesting. As a Brit, I imagine (possibly ideally) by the time I'm an old man in 20-30 years that India will be a beacon of democracy and freedom in the East, given its historical Western ties and a large English speaking population.

But your argument against their ruling speaks for itself, IMO.

There will come a point where India has to lead on this kind of thing.

India's legal system is based on the paternalistic British judicial system from the mid-19th to mid-20th century.

India, Malaysia, and Singapore all share the same common judicial origins because they were forked off in the 1940s to 1960s, and never saw the reforms that the UK, Canada, Australia, and NZ saw in the 1980s-90s.

Furthermore, civil libertarianism is more of an American judicial innovation, and even European countries are aligned with the primacy of the state over platforms.

A pretty good starting point considering the USA constitution was based much off Scotland's enlightenment 200 years prior.

The Scottish Enlightenment never took hold in much of the UK though. That's why America was so "revolutionary" for the 18th and 19th century.

The British system remained paternalistic for a long time (eg. universal male suffrage only happened in 1918, collective bargaining was only legalized in 1945)

It definitely took hold. It was an act of political union, albeit the democratic vote was heavily biased towards a larger English population, but the Scottish influence is imprinted in UK law, US law and any ex-colony.

The works of Adam Smith and David Hume arguably shaped the modern capitalist world which India is part of and branched off from.

Maybe there are nuanced arguments why it's less of a democracy, but I'm fairly sure nowadays every democracy has similar arguments.

But from a judicial standpoint, most of the strengthening around civil liberties as mentioned in the Scottish Enlightenment only happened in the 20th century.

Indian (and Malaysian and Singaporean) jurisprudence largely forked off from British jurisprudence in the 1940s-1960.

A number of the reforms in jurisprudence that happened post-WW2 weren't incorporated in the judicial codes for most colonies at that point, so judicial norms remain paternalistic.

> Scottish influence is imprinted in UK law, US law and any ex-colony

In Canada sure (Scots were overrepresented in "anglophone" Canada), but not the rest of the Commonwealth.

You edited a bit but I appreciate your point and I'll defer to you as I don't know much about Indian Democracy or the behaviour of the current government. I suspect that the seed of self-determination has well and truly been planted though.

I thought this 20-30 years ago.

India is as the commenter said, the worst of both worlds. The government managed to drive a comedian into hiding, for a make a crude (non political) joke about sex with parents. The government drove another comedian into hiding, for making a political joke and closed down the bar where he was performing, for the sole crime of hosting him. The government regularly censors movies, bans books, censors speech etc. At the same time we get no development, the drain outside my house is still not covered. It’s just arbitrary authoritarianism on the most pointless use cases.

India should have just been given to a monarch who liked the country and its people unlike the British or the Mughals

Don’t forget the guy who had to flee India because he explained that the weeping statue of Jesus was not a miracle, but the result of capillary action from a nearby clogged drain.

Yeah, that would be like the football lobby forcing the blocking of Cloudflare just because someone used it for unauthorized football streaming!

> Would the court block gmail if the same happens via gmail?.

I mean, G will happily cough up the data and so will other big corps. Proton doesn’t… unless they go through the Swiss relationship route?

But this decision is stupid and harmful regardless.

people will get stuck on 'good govt china..' but I get what you mean. moving on to core message. Indian courts are some of the dumbest, red-tape laden, corrupt entities out there. for westerners, its common for basic things like property disputes or even divorces to run for decades (yes -s plural). In India the legal process is itself a punishment. plus there is no consistency in case law or precedent. people often perjure themselves and walk around like its nothing. it really is free for all with Indian judiciary so I am not surprised at-all that they will do something stupid like this.

> The local firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.

How bad is the 'vulgar content' that it warrants banning of the service? This seems like extreme snowflake behavior

Can someone please explain how the Karnataka High Court can order New Delhi (nat'l gov't) to ban a website? I'm not doubting their authority to issue the command, rather I am confused how a regional high court can issue a national ban. Does this ban only apply in the state of Karnataka?

That’s not how the law works in India. Any ruling by an Indian court on matters applicable to the entire country will apply to the entire country. There’s only one Supreme Court in India, and it cannot (and in many cases will not) handle all the cases relevant to national interest.

Very helpful! That sounds like this court is similar to the United States district court.

Can I ask: If someone wishes to challenge this decision from a regional High Court, do they petition the India Supreme Court?

Late reply: yes, if someone wishes to challenge a High Court order, they’d typically appeal in the Supreme Court. There are avenues for “review petitions”, but those don’t work well. The backlog of cases across all the courts is really huge.

I never wanted a Proton email address before now.

You probably still don't want one, given they've been known to divulge user info to various authorities in the past.

How do you expect businesses to operate if they do not comply with legal requirements?

Proton is obligated to cooperate with authorities just like any other company. Proton has a distinction in that it also takes certain cases to court when it argues there is no legal justification.

I believe you can access proton mail at https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7...

The best way to make sure they don't divulge information is to make sure they don't have information to divulge.

Sibling comment rightfully points out that a legitimate company will follow the laws. Proton is a legitimate company, so they follow the laws. This is detailed in their published threat model:

"“The Internet is generally not anonymous, and if you are breaking Swiss law, a law-abiding company such as Proton Mail can be legally compelled to log your IP address.” This cannot be changed due to how the internet works. However, we understand this is concerning for individuals with certain threat models, which is why since 2017, we also provide an onion site for anonymous access (we are one of the only email providers that supports this)."

And, in the case you are presumably talking about, Proton took it through the courts and ended up getting a ruling that "email services are not telecommunications providers. Consequently, email services are not subject to the data retention requirements imposed on telecommunications providers and are exempted from handing over certain user data in response to Swiss legal orders"

Which paints an incredibly different story than the one you are trying to paint.

Third, emails weren't handed over (nor were files, calendars, etc.). Which is another important distinction your comment does not mention.

Why parrot half of a story disparaging one of the only large email providers that fights in court to protect the privacy of its users?

I was aware of the story beforehand. The context you've pasted here hasn't changed the intent of my statement, but I'm glad you took the time to type it.

> Third, emails weren't handed over

That they weren't, however the information that was handed over was enough to identify the target.

> Why parrot half of a story disparaging one of the only large email providers that fights in court to protect the privacy of its users?

Because despite their apparent and commendable work in trying to preserve the privacy of their users, they have regretfully failed to do so in the past, and it will more than likely proceed that way in the future.

It's not that I want to badmouth their efforts, but it has tainted them so I think it would be wrong not to bring it up. An email provider that has never divulged info (of which several exist) isn't tainted the same way as one that has. It may only be a difference of time and scale, but it's your freedom of choice, and I think freedom of choice is a very important thing. Email is decentralized, and the more email providers that exist and hold themselves to high standards the better. If more people moved between or started smaller email providers, it would help relieve these kinds of issues.

So that is why I would recommend against it.

If you believe "freedom of choice is a very important thing", you shouldn't have written your comment the way you did -- stripped of all detail and purely negative, as an attempt to make the decision for the readers.

Instead, you should have mentioned the context, and allowed people to come to their own conclusions. Your quote: "Because despite their apparent and commendable work in trying to preserve the privacy of their users, they have regretfully failed to do so in the past, and it will more than likely proceed that way in the future." alongside a bit more detail would have been a fantastic comment, instead of the vague accusatory one-liner you wrote.

Since I don't consider it my job to provide context or be constructive, I let other people like you do it for me. I might follow up on it, as is my freedom of choice, but since I can't guarantee that happening I tend to do things that way. See, isn't that a fun system? I've augmented my own freedom with yours!

I had a glimmer of hope from your previous comment, but you managed to whisk it away immediately. Figures.

No point in placing your hope in people you don't even know. You couldn't figure an eight, with the way you're going.

It intrigues me to wonder, in this day and age, what the legal meaning of "blocking" is.

In any given nation with a default-open Internet, what are the ramifications of a court or legal process "blocking" a service?

Protonmail is clearly more than a mere website; it's a full-featured communications platform; I'm sure it has a mobile app or at least access via the typical POP/IMAP interfaces.

So, "blocking" Protonmail could mean all sorts of things:

- Excise it from DNS

- Demand removal from Play Store, Apple Store, other mobile OS providers

- filter any IP traffic attempting to connect to service via web, IMAP, POP3

- inhibit or interfere with SMTP traffic to/from Protonmail servers, e.g. mail sending and delivery (MTA activity)

- expel/prohibit colocation of physical servers, VPS systems, or middleware that may be within jurisdiction

- deal legally with any physical office presence or employee contingent within the jurisdiction

Now within the Great Firewall of China and other default-deny Internet services, it's not difficult to see that Protonmail could easily be blackholed. But what if you're accustomed to open access like the USA?

There are so many considerations here. A simple court order to "block" an Internet service introduces quite a few layers to peel back. The USA's action against TikTok was fraught with confusion and ambiguity. Because TikTok is likewise a powerful communications service. So, tech people like us need more insight on what it means to "block" a service when a court says so!

Probably the ISPs would be required to block a given list of domains, and they will do it at DNS requests. Porn sites and torrent sharing sites used to be blocked this way. Some ISPs wont even do it properly. A decade or more ago, when these were banned, I could circumvent it by simply moving to using encrypted dns protocol by running dnscrypt. It is rarely implemented with a zeal, unlike chinese GFW reportedly does.

Don't they already block internet access to certain regions in order to slow down the spread of information? I'm not very surprised by these actions.

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-alr...

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.

Giving the government more unchecked power reduces corruption?

> 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.

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.

I'm not saying it makes sense. But I'm pretty sure this is what majority of population thinks.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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)

>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.

I mean, right above the stuff you quoted, there is mention that govt. does now have the provision to access under exceptional circumstances:

> However, as Ashish Mishra, Partner-Cyber Security, NangiaNXT notes, “As of now, the government has the provision to access the encrypted messages under certain exceptions such as legal request, court matters, surveillance, and criminal investigations. The DPDP (Digital Personal Data Protection) Act, along with the Telegraph Act and IT Act, gives the government power to request such data from service providers.”

Given the general attitude towards digital privacy from the govt, I think it’s safe to assume they do have means to request.

That’s not the only incident to draw this conclusion from btw: https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/supreme-court-s...

It's unclear whether the government actually have the ability to read/intercept e2e messages, or merely declared they have the right to. That's an important distinction, because the government can declare it has the right to access such messages, without the service providers (ie. whatsapp) being able to follow through with it. We've seen something similar in uk, where a bill passed a few years ago gave the government the right to access encrypted data, and forced tech companies to provide access, but Apple didn't actually implement a backdoor. They instead decided to (very loudly) disable encryption entirely for the uk market.

The problem here is the govt/courts here downplay/ignore even the most straightforward RTI public (Right to Info) requests on many of these matters, the pegasus one still ongoing in courts even after all this time. Meta (FB’s) track record on these situations is spotty at best. WhatsApp is pretty much central to everything happening in India, whether for chatting with close ones, running businesses or amplifying political propaganda. IDK what WhatsApp looks like outside India but every govt. org, political party have verified accounts and directly message folks like me using the Biz APIs even though I’ve NEVER given them consent to do so before and AFAIK, there’s ZERO controls from user’s end to stop these.

I’d also have given WhatsApp a fair pass but Meta/Zuck has never shown any concrete proof that they stand by their users and not the ruling govt’s desires.

That along with all these events, quotes from ministry should suffice to have a reasonable assumption to not put trust on these platforms for private messages.

Isn't the end to end encryption just not a default setting? It could be as easy as that.

WhatsApp does not have a setting without E2E encryption.

So then the government is picking and choosing which apps to go against based on how angry their voter base will be then.

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.

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.

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-ind...

Are those essentially just sham cases orchestrated by the government to justify blocking an encrypted service?

It seems like such an insane over-reaction to an absolute non-issue.

The built-in overreach makes it look like a structure set up in a way that encourage corruption, even though it won't happen in this case and is likely not even intended.

Doubtful. The petitioner in this case is an international architecture firm, hardly a typical group to be used for a sham case. The judgement itself isn’t out so we can’t see the court’s reasoning.

This is a bit more comprehensive: https://www.barandbench.com/amp/story/news/karnataka-high-co... and the Delhi case in which the ban is previously mentioned is only peripherally about email (the mail used by one of the parties is proton). The court makes an observation there that it should already have been banned so how is it still around.

Typically it's amazingly great evidence for the high quality of a mail service that certain governments hate them.

They ban proton mail nationwide over a few offensive emails. Will they ban YouTube next if they make offensive videos about them?

I imagine now hackers using Gmail and outlook to spam Indian courts with all sorts of nice images

Please don't give them ideas. You can not underestimate the indian court. They almost ordered to block Wikipedia.

This is just the best marketing for Proton Mail. I want to sign up for one immediately after reading it.

Slippery sloping awa-ay: Oh, so now you support Pakistan, eh?

If only the court order made India block all their SMTP servers from contacting Proton Mail, so I’d stop getting contract role requests thousands of miles from my home with three-week lengths and $20/hr pay to be an AWS Architect and/or Lab Assistant.

Is there any possible action against other vendors like fastmail, etc?

National security above all. Good for India

First the ban on VPN and now Proton Mail. Facepalm.

India lack technical capability to decrypt web traffic at scale or power to force companies to do it for them. Like what happened with Apple and Telegram.

So this is what they come up with.

...Just use Proton VPN to access Proton Mail ;)

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