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Crackdown on open source E2EE apps in India (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago by Ritsu4Life@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Is it just me, or the government of India is cracking down of all end to end encryption apps like signal and element.

Cause I guy who works for the police came to my house and asked whether I use signal and element

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

That's very curious. The push to WhatsApp is especially interesting considering it is owned by Meta/Facebook, which is a company that has a long history of working with the US government for extrajudicial surveillance of the US populace. I wonder if they're working with the Indian government in a similar capacity.

As such, I fully personally expect WhatsApp to have officially sanctioned government backdoors. If they're willing to build them for the US government, maybe they're building them for the Indian government, too. Which is perhaps why there is a push towards the corporate, non-open solution, because the other options have more ways for individuals to avoid backdoors.

We really need more community owned and operated communications groups, like the barbed wire telephone of the past.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There could be another reason for pushing towards WhatsApp. If the police have operatives in anti government protest groups only on a single platform, they already know everyone in them via their phone numbers and can monitor them more easily. Signal in contrast has the option to hide your phone number and only expose a username to the public.

[–] WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago

Signal in contrast has the option to hide your phone number and only expose a username to the public.

don't worry, the app of all participants knows all the numbers, they just dont show them on the UI. a patched app will show them just as well

https://community.signalusers.org/t/beta-feedback-for-the-upcoming-android-7-0-release/59024/51

the feature got implemented in this commit: https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/commit/bb30535afb79c8570fc7aa75b56d03892be6b70f

[–] n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The only people I know who use WhatsApp are Indian. The only reason I have ever used WhatsApp is many of my Indian friends are unreachable by any normal means. And it was that way since before Meta ever bought them. If Modi tried to completely eliminate WhatsApp than people would be upset about it.

[–] shawn1122@lemm.ee 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

WhatsApp is the most commonly used messaging app globally. What would be considered 'normal' means here? SMS or iMessage?

[–] n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Good point. I would consider SMS, MMS, Phone call & email "normal" but it woulda probably been better if I used a different term, maybe "long established protocols?"