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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
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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 56 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

The majority of users on Lemmy are probably not from India, I would say our userbase skews US/Europe.

This is a very, very interesting and important story, if it's true.

Do you have any other evidence of this happening? It's okay if your sources are not in English, that's just the nature of local media, it speaks the local language.

Would love to hear more about this from your perspective, @Ritsu4Life@lemmy.world because this is a big, important issue that needs discussion if it's really happening. Please expand your thoughts and any evidence you may have in the comments section, please and thank you.

Finally, thank you for bringing this to our attention at all. Cheers.

[–] Ritsu4Life@lemmy.world 22 points 5 days ago (5 children)

Thanks for the comment. I haven't found any local news for this. I may update this once I find any

And for my story: A guy came from the police station he had a list all the people who were using "signal, element and bip (not open source, full of ads but encrypted) and a buch more end to end encrypted apps. Shown my mobile number, address and my name.

Told me why I was using signal and element and also had to show my chats. Didn't look at all the chats, was curious tho.

Said that these apps were used by terrorist and all and you should switch to WhatsApp.

WhatsApp runs India. It is a backbone all Indian users and it is also e2ee for all I know

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 23 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (4 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

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[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Why I was using Signal

WhatsApp, Instagram and Discord are used by terrorists, iOS and Windows too.

Join the police. Make all your friends join the police. Report your new boss for terrorism.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 4 days ago

Didn’t look at all the chats, was curious tho.

Probably just skimmed through the group names looking for something like "Anti-Modi Protest Group".

[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 10 points 4 days ago

I wonder how they'd detect their usage. Signal is understandable, it has central servers (although I thought they were blocked and thus their usage wouldn't be detectable under a good VPN anyway). But Matrix? Are they looking for connections to known public servers? Or the usage of the protocol itself stands out so that even selfhosted servers would stand out?

If I were in such a situation, I'd start to hide traffic to anything they might dislike anyway.

[–] Stewbs@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

That is very concerning. I always chuckle to myself whenever I hear this "terrorist" pov thrown around. Like, okay? So many things are used by terrorists, let's just ban them all! It's like when a bill shows up in the US with the aim of "protecting children" (read: increasing surveillance and taking away your privacy)

Btw if you don't mind me asking, which state are you from? I'm from the North and I've not heard of this till now. Would love to know. Stay safe out there man, India is going through a lot of shit right now.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

*aussie.zone has entered the chat*

(did you also know our instance admins are Australian?)

[–] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I would have never guessed that...😂😂😂

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 4 days ago

That the Blahaj admins are aussie? x3

[–] Stewbs@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Fancy seeing 'Straya here!

[–] toastal@lemmy.ml 19 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Host your own XMPP node outside the country’s jurisdiction, turn on E2EE if it weirdly wasn’t on by default, & don’t trust the big centralized servers they could easily ban. Apparently everyone wants to dismiss XMPP since you can disable the E2EE (since it is a generic protocol for lots of stuff) despite encryption being on by default on every modern client—so there is your deniability 🙃 Unlike Matrix, the average user can afford to run it on a toaster too.

[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 4 points 4 days ago (3 children)

What about Simplex? About equally easy to host and doesn't even give an option to not encrypt. I use both.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think the above poster is saying the ability to not be E2EE gives plausible deniability, and therefore is a feature, not a bug, in this instance.

[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I thought the opposite: "well I like the app, I just can't use it unencrypted and not even sure what encryption is!"

[–] toastal@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

It’s still quite immature & I have my reservations that a big Haskell project can be maintained for the long-term seeing a lot of Haskell failings even in the short-term. It is a promising idea, but I am not ready yet to try it.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 1 points 4 days ago

Not very easy. No sync across devices is a killer.

[–] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 31 points 4 days ago (3 children)

It's true Indian government has banned Element and other Apps and forced Signal, WhatsApp and other such apps to have a local representative so that they can arrest someone and force their will. But there is one silver lining, it is that these politicians don't fully understand how open source software works. So just banning Element app doesn't do much I can switch to schildiChat or just download element source code and change the name and logo and boom I'm back in.

And also most of their app bans are just requests sent to Google play store and Apple App store, You can always download from FDroid or from other sources

and there is no real way they can enforce these stupid laws.

They started going through chats on traffic stops, but there are ways to avoid that also

If you are interested and want to support then you can donate to https://internetfreedom.in/ or if not possible just share the word.

[–] Stewbs@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wait wait wait when did Element get banned? I did not know this. Also you're right, these politicians are faaaar from understanding how Open-Source works or even how software works lol, this is just pathetic at this point. Also the traffic stops point, when did this start happening? and in which states? This is scary and extremely concerning.

[–] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Hyderabad also a fun fact Indian supreme Court has ruled that WA messages are not admissible in court.

https://internetfreedom.in/iff-assisted-in-sending-a-legal-notice-to-the-hyderabad-police-commissioner-regarding-search-of-mobile-phones-for-keywords-such-as-ganja/

Apps were banned only in Jammu and Kashmir

https://tuta.com/blog/apps-banned-india

[–] Stewbs@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Really ironic but also sad cause it shows the dysfunction of the Indian legal system, laws are there but proper enforcement is not and the distrust people have in the police is for a good reason. Laws are subject to the ruling party's will, it can be legal when it benefits them and illegal when it does not and the loopholes some of them have is another story unto itself lmao

Oh yeah I knew that, I thought another ban was enforced which made it nation-wide. My bad!

[–] Sentau@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

It's true Indian government has banned Element and other Apps and forced Signal, WhatsApp and other such apps to have a local representative so that they can arrest someone and force their will.

Wait what! When did this happen. I live in India and just saw the element app on the play store.

They started going through chats on traffic stops, but there are ways to avoid that also

I have also yet to see this but then again this seems like something the conservative (read authoritarian) government could do

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They started going through chats on traffic stops

What in the actual fuck?

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Authoritarian countries do that all the time. The only surprising thing is that a supposed democratic country is doing it.

[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Why would anyone leave any chat history if this is the case?

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

  1. The average person is quite careless.

  2. Depending how how suspicious they get, they might sometimes plug in your phone into a computer and copy everything, there might be traces left behind when you "delete" something.

  3. Government policies/procedures don't always make sense. (Example: The USA's TSA misses most prohibited items at airports, including weapons)

  4. Or may its a way to psychologically intimidate people into not doing any act of dissent.

[–] Sentau@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 4 days ago

Dude what the fuck. That is scary. And here I am trying to somehow convince my friends to join signal.

By the way which state do you live in¿?

[–] Stomata@sh.itjust.works 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

😆 Indian government is so weird.

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

government is so weird There, fixed it for ya.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Ay yo wtf.

I thought India was a democracy?

🤔

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

democracy?

The definitions for that seem pretty loose nowadays.

Also made me think of this:

[–] n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The largest democracy in the world. Democracy is majority rule so unless the majority are firm about not wanting this no reason for the government to prevent it. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of Indians are in favor of such things.

[–] Stewbs@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

Oh trust me, so many Indians blindly follow what the government says. Remember when ProtonMail was under the threat of being banned because some dumbfuck used PM to send bomb threats to schools in Chennai? Yeah I remember when that happened, I went through so many news articles covering this and so many comments on those articles were in favour of the ban with the most stupidest reasons possible and logic that exceeds human comprehension. It's scary.

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[–] potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fish 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Looks like they did ban them if this is trustworthy source

(e)People are speculating that because india didn't ban signal or whatsapp, they have backdoors. Source

[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Hmm, so they've been banned for over a year. I wonder why they'd start actually doing a door-to-door crackdown now.

Also, Tuta is relatively trustworthy. It's more that since they offer encrypted email services, they often get blocked under these kind of orders as well, so they are pretty active in arguing against such blocks. Tuta has been blocked in Egypt and Russia, for example. Despite that being true, in many ways, it's an ad for their service, and a type of public relations that involves them "showing" that they "care" about this issue, so they seem like a "responsible" corporate entity.

[–] potentiallynotfelix@lemmy.fish 8 points 4 days ago

I'd never heard of them before but they seem like a solid alternative to proton.

[–] Stewbs@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Strangely enough I can access Element's website just fine. I've heard it being blocked by some ISPs but my ISP hasn't blocked it (yet). I'm glad that the privacy conscious and open source crowd in India are aware of and use F-Droid so this stupid and illogical ban (which I've known about since December of 2023) is easily circumvented. Funnily enough, BJP's hold over the Indian people seems to be loosening because of some really poor decisions taken by the government after they won last year in the elections, especially with taxes. Satisfying to watch them slowly crumble.

[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah now we'll have to suffer INC's tyranny, yet again, will India ever get a good politcal party ?

[–] Stewbs@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Indian politics basically works on cult of personality atp and considering the trend of the last 20-30 years regarding which party formed the government, it feels like it's a dual party system in all but name to be honest.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

So I looked into India and found quite a lot of attacks, that the Indian Government deems to be "Terrorism".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_India

I mean look at the long list.

Government is getting paranoid and have justification to starting to deem "encryption" as "suspicious activity". It would be easy to use these "terrorist attacks" to convince the legislature and the population that this is necessary.

I just read an article on reddit that a foreigner having a Garmin InReach satellite messenger got arrested and interrogated for several hours for "not having a license". https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/hiking-and-backpacking/india-garmin-inreach/

Not saying its right, it is what is is.

[–] jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 points 4 days ago

Element doesn't have an office or bank accounts in India, do they? If not, they'll be fine.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Modi is a gangster.

[–] red@lemmy.zip 1 points 4 days ago

they asked cause they think its only used for sus purposes, they are not cracking down or anything

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