Indian Government to block ProtonMail after bomb threats were sent using a ProtonMail account

Stewbs@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 209 points – Government to block ProtonMail after bomb threat: Company responds to India | - Times of India
timesofindia.indiatimes.com

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11998237

The IT ministry has reportedly decided to issue an order blocking end-to-end encrypted email service ProtonMail. According to a report in Hindustan Times, the government is planning to block the email service at the request of the Tamil Nadu police over a hoax bomb threat sent to at least thirteen private schools in Chennai on February 8. The report says that the decision to block ProtonMail was taken at a meeting of the 69A blocking committee on Wednesday (February 14).

A Proton spokesperson told the publication that the company has received the request from MeitY “a few days ago”. “We are currently working to resolve this situation and are investigating how we can best work together with the Indian authorities to do so. We understand the urgency of the situation and are completely clear that our services are not to be used for illegal purposes. We routinely remove users who are found to be doing so and are willing to cooperate wherever possible within international cooperation agreements,” the spokesperson said.

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When the people who know nothing about technology make the decisions about technology.

Maybe they should shut down phone service when someone calls in a bomb threat and shut down the postal service when someone mails one in too.

Wish our government officials had a basic understanding of tech so they could see this and go "the fuck are we doing?"

Strange they're willing to block a service for 'allowing' this but somehow can't be bothered to figure out their giant scam industry.

Scams in India primarily target foreign nations while bringing cash into the country that then gets spent in the local economy.

As long as they're not targeting others within india, the authorities have little incentive to stop them.

That's before you get to the corruption poisoning the investigations/prosecutions that do happen.

They target Indians too. I live there, I received those calls too. Since I am not stupid, I just waste their time describing their mothers and some other things.

I like to tell them “your mother must be so ashamed to have you in the family; so worthless as a breadwinner that you have to resort to theft”.

That always riles them right up.

They will target anyone they can get sadly, Indians are not exempted from this and are often times, the primary targets

Actions have been taken against the scam industry, the offices have been raided by police officers several times but once again the collective action is too little and too late

So..... If someone did it the old fashioned way by telephone from a public phone, or sent out a letter, or shared leaflets, would we be looking at disconnecting public phones, stopping the postal service and banning home printers?

By applying Indian government logic, yes! this just in, Microwaves have been banned after a bomb was sent inside a microwave....

Pathetic authoritarian fucks ugggh... Please remember... India is NOT a democratic counterbalance to China. They're just like China. The only difference is that they both hate each other.

Mother of Democracy they said....

Never heard "Mother of Democracy", but I've heard a lot of "the world's largest democracy". Yea, bs either ways.

Wonder if they’d block Gmail, too.

Seeing how google will hand all user data when asked to, yeah that's not gonna happen unfortunately

Wait till they ban talking for threatening verbally

Wait till they ban staring cause it's intimidating!

I swear these dumb bureaucrats and politicians would've banned torrent, tor, etc. too if it was possible.

Torrenting sites are banned/blocked on many ISPs and on Jio VPNs are blocked too so you're not that far off

If you don't receive the email containing the bomb threat because you banned the email domain, does the bomb really exist?

No! The bomb just goes away. Checkmate, terrorists.

Has real ‘stop testing for covid to reduce case count’ energy.

Isn't that a bit overkill.

It really is but who knows what goes on the minds of out government's officials lol

What goes on the minds of government officials: “Oooh! I can use this as an excuse to take away the rights of our people under the guise of security!”

I imagine this is something they wanted to do beforehand, and this event gave them "just" cause to pull the trigger.

The current political party in power wants to turn India into a fascist surveillance state.

a bit? It's not just a bit overkill, this is absolutely brain dead.

Btw Internet Freedom Foundation (or the IFF) filed several RTI requests (RTI = Request to information) regarding this situation. If anyone wants to follow their progress then here's their Mastodon account: https://mastodon.world/@internetfreedom@mas.to

The IFF is a highly trustworthy and well respected organization that fights for Indians digital rights and democratic freedoms. They've done a lot of good work over the years, they even helped VLC to get unblocked when it was banned in India.

Oh didn't know about IFF. Thanks for dropping the link! :)

So I can't use Proton Mail anymore?

If it gets blocked then no but you can continue using it either through a VPN, a proxy server or through Tor. You could also use a different DNS to unblock the website for yourself (Incase it gets blocked)