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).
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).
> 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.
> 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
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
* 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.
> 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.
Readit News
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).
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).
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/australian-pm-calls-en...
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.
Dead Comment
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.
I'm not saying it does. Just that it's possible. Perhaps an Indian NordVPN user could provide input here
So you're saying the same thing, just a more polite. You're still saying that the Indian government cooperates with scam call centers.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHKn-yDCE2w
Seeing their unwavering support for Putler this is at least consistent with the pariah states like Iran and North Korea.
But so far as I can tell, using protonmail isn't illegal yet?
Yes, it’s stupid. But it’s the reality of things.
The governments have also regulated cocaine. It didn’t work there, either.
And, before it gets popular and regulated, it gets overrun by criminals?
Definitely the case with Bitcoin. I don't know about ProtonMail, though.
[0] https://reticulum.network/
(I have several relevant devices, amateur licence and radios, etc)
For tomorrow we should keep exploring and adopting improvements. Pick your poison.
[0]: Discovery left as excercise for reader
It, of course, does not work for email. OTOH protocols like briar [1] theoretically could.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briar_(software)
Deleted Comment
* 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.
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.
lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/PropagandaPosters/comments/5re9s1/h...