On Tuesday, the Karnataka High Court directed the Indian government to block Proton Mail, a popular email service known for its enhanced security, following a legal complaint filed by New Delhi-based M Moser Design Associates. The local firm alleged that its employees had received emails containing obscene and vulgar content sent via Proton Mail.
A very misguided ‘solution’ if you ask me.
Thank god for VPNs
The government is really an embarrassment to make such poorly thought out decisions. But knowing them, they really would take in any excuse to do what they want to. From surveillance POV, it’s a third world metropolitan China in the making. And in some cities, it’s already there.
Last year, the police department of the southern state of Tamil Nadu had sought to block Proton Mail after the email service was found to have been used for sending hoax bomb threats to local schools. The Indian government’s IT ministry reportedly notified internet providers to block Proton Mail at the request of law enforcement. However, the Swiss federal authorities intervened to prevent the blocking of Proton Mail taking effect.
To be honest, this seems to be a wait and see situation. I hope the Swiss government can intervene again and stop a full block from happening in India
But in the end if India wants to block/ban it, it will. No outside government can stop that.
The government would always want to exercise more control over its citizens but it is appalling to see that even the judiciary cannot make an informed decision.
India along with US today is a flawed democracy. The whole notion of government in these nation states are debatable to no extent.
With the way things are going on, it would not be surprising if India turns into a totalitarian state in the near future and keep the tag of “Democracy” for namesake.
Yes. Those who live there or are of that land who live outside know better of the state of things.
I have experience with the nation state and hence can speak on them.
Indeed. Being an Indian myself, it feels exhausting to care about privacy and individuality knowing full well that the majority of the people in this country would rather be against those ideals.
But there are still tools that exist to ensure your privacy as much as possible. VPNs and custom ROMs like Graphene OS along with the right tools, apps, services, and products with the right settings in each of them is pretty much all you can do besides basic opsec like using a password manager.
The biggest win in India would be to not use WhatsApp. I’d rather be alone than have “friends” on WhatsApp at this point.
Oh, I know and I make full use of those tools as much as I can but I also want the general populace to be able to exercise their right to privacy (I believe privacy is a basic human right and everyone should be aware of it). I think we are probably going off-topic so I will stop now.
Fortunately, I have been able to avoid WhatsApp since I convinced all my family members and friends to join Signal.
That’s a huge win. Good for you!
Education and awareness. That’s what’s missing everywhere in every country when it comes to the topic of privacy and security.
Do you have any tips or advice on getting friends/family to move to Signal? This is something I’ve struggled with. I’ve only gotten a couple of people to install it and use it, so I’d love to get more people I know to switch to it.
In my case, what worked is hard line approach:
If they want to speak with me - I am on Signal only. so they better get it and contact me on there. If not, then you can’t.
In the end, it would depend on how much the other or even you want to maintain a particular connection as you want.
I plan leave China in this two year
India is a psudo democracy with extremely corrupted politicians so don’t expect to get privacy.
And also judges are not that good
Curious why ProtonMail refused to share data in this case, but they went full fbi mode for George Duke-Cohan 
Let’s not use that term. It’s extremely derogatory.
I didn’t have to struggle getting my family on Signal as I’m the one responsible for troubleshooting their tech issues. So, I just set up their accounts on Signal and placed a shortcut to my profile on their home screen which was super convenient for them. It took some days for them to get used to it though.
Regarding friends, I took the same approach as @anon88979181. Also, since all my friends have a background in technology, it was relatively easy to make them understand the benefits of Signal over WhatsApp.
