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Comment by 2Gkashmiri | Hacker News Reader

I know for a fact If you use "signal" matrix or whatever "security" app, you will get branded a terrorist in India, your life will be upended and you will face a long list of problems.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/ats-probes-use-of-...

https://www.aninews.in/news/national/general-news/accused-da...

https://www.deccanherald.com/india/secure-messaging-apps-lik...

https://india-employmentnews.com/tech-category/delhi-blast-n...

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech-news/Dangerous-Sign...

And it doesn't matter you use a connected phone or not, they just get data from ISPs.

And yes, using a VPN will get you knocked up as well.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/12/indias-vpn-ban-in-k...

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Yes that's bad but that's an Indian government problem, not a signal or other messenger app problem. And really, it sounds like there was a lot more going on with these people than just using a particular app. Discord and WhatsApp are mentioned too.

India also bans most satellite phones by the way. I have one so I looked into that as to not get caught out travelling.

its not really. chat control, age gate means you will have this elsewhere

And WhatsApp is E2EE with the same protocol so I don't see the big deal.

The big deal is, having talked to security people, they are "fine" with WhatsApp because the theory is, they get data from whatsapp so they have some sort of backdoor access. They are pretty chill with WhatsApp which id unexplainable

Maybe WhatsApp gives them a ton of metadata like all their contacts, when they chat and with who, IPs, etc. Signal only gives out either time registered or last used last time I checked.

WhatsApp uploads decrypted chats to the cloud once a week.

Source?

Have a look in the settings lol

No need to enable the google backup

Only if you enable it and theres a clear checkbox to enable E2EE. They should check it by default but I doubt even majority of people do backups.

> And yes, using a VPN will get you knocked up as well.

Well, damn.

For reference:

In Britain, and presumably India: "get you knocked up" = "get your door knocked on".

In the US: "get you knocked up" = "get you pregnant".

In Britain it means get you pregnant too.

Source : I'm British

Well, you're a better source than I am (for Britain). Is the "knock on the door" sense still available or has it been entirely displaced?

But the meaning of 'knock at your door' is also correct. As in 'knocker-uppers' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knocker-up

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