A ProtonMail account was used to send bomb threats to schools in the region, so the government wants to ban the service outright.
  • Cheradenine@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    120·
    9 months ago

    Proton pulled their VPN servers out of India after they passed a law mandating logging.

    ‘you can connect to our new Smart Routing servers for India. These will give you an Indian IP address and behave just as our physical servers in India did. The only difference is that, in reality, they are based in Singapore.’

    More details here https://protonvpn.com/blog/servers-india/

    • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.netEnglish
      720·
      9 months ago

      But if you need to communicate with people from there like a lot of company do, you’re fucked.

      • FutileRecipe@lemmy.worldEnglish
        302·
        9 months ago

        Just call instead and explain you’ve sent them emails. Oh, you’re not getting the email because of your government? That sounds like a you problem that you need to fix. I might be forced to take my business elsewhere.

          • PerogiBoi@lemmy.caEnglish
            293·
            9 months ago

            No. The world will not bend over backward to suit your backwards government and its backwards rules.

            • THE MASTERMIND@feddit.chEnglish
              244·
              9 months ago

              Talk about being a racist and i am pretty sure you guys don’t give a flying fuck about north koreans or anyone else except you atleast try to act like you have a little humanity left in your hearts even though you don’t .

              • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                15·
                9 months ago

                How is giving into authoritarian governments helping the oppressed populations in those countries?

                Informing them that said authoritarians are blocking our private and secure email services in favor of surveillance, lets them vote against their leadership, or protest, if their votes aren’t counted.

                North Korea is hyperbolic though, since they really aren’t even officially connected to the internet.

                • THE MASTERMIND@feddit.chEnglish
                  123·
                  9 months ago

                  I know but you could still express some sympathy some comments have an attitude like its your problem loser . And not connected to the internet doesn’t mean they aren’t real

              • PerogiBoi@lemmy.caEnglish
                121·
                9 months ago

                It’s is positively beyond deranged to be this nationalistic. You have quite literally taken personal offence to the general idea of opposition to the positions of your current government.

                Are you India? Am I speaking to the subcontinent itself? Please advise at once sir.

                • THE MASTERMIND@feddit.chEnglish
                  16·
                  9 months ago

                  What ? Technically i am not even from “India” and i hate indian government as much as anyone else . I just found the lack of sympathy of those users kinda deppressing and would’ve said the same thing if you changed india to china or russia or any other country. My point is hate the government not the people even though most indians i met are right wing shit eaters there still are some people who stands for justice but doesn’t have the power and thibk differently than others so yeah i kinda hate steriotyping like i get it most indians are like that but some are not . Like i would bet some of the germans in the nazi era was good.

          • FutileRecipe@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            9 months ago

            Nothing against them personally. If the American government or British government or insert-any-nationality government did the same, I’d say the same thing.

  • Possibly linuxEnglish
    56·
    9 months ago

    What’s scary is that China and India are to massive countries in terms of population. The way this is going most of humanity could end up living in countries with low respect for human rights.

    • whoareu@lemmy.caEnglish
      513·
      9 months ago

      I was beaten for standing against authoritarian government. The situation is so bad in India that I am afraid to reveal my religion in university. Lot of people in University tries to oppress me and I can’t even complaint because everyone is ok with this and they enjoy oppressing us minorities.

      I honesly feel like a jew living under nazi germany. 😞

        • whoareu@lemmy.caEnglish
          7·
          9 months ago

          I am trying exactly that. I just want enough skills to get a job in EU country and I will be free from that torture.

      • berber@lemmy.chaos.berlinEnglish
        32·
        9 months ago

        I honesly feel like a jew living under nazi germany

        i am sorry, but i am not sure if you know how ridiculous and hurtful this sounds for people who have witnessed the holocaust and their relatives.

        you do not know how it feels to be a jew under naxi germany.

        i do not doubt your suffering and oppression, but this is a bit insensitive in my perception and i think these are things we shouldn’t compare until there are comparable things happening.

        anyway, yes, that sucks. i am sad that your government is like this in an authoritarian way and that everbody else is ok with everything.

  • akilou@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    35·
    9 months ago

    I work for the US government and Proton is blocked at the network level, so I can’t check my personal email at work. In that sense, the US has already “banned” it. In what other way could a government “ban” an email provider?

    • Possibly linuxEnglish
      181·
      9 months ago

      Honestly doing personal tasks on your works network is not a great idea. If anything use wireguard to route your traffic back to your home. (You can flash OpenWRT and set this up)

      • akilou@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        4·
        9 months ago

        When I work from home, I can just not connect to the VPN and it’s fine. When I’m on site there’s no way around it

        • Possibly linuxEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          You can’t just use a VPN to connect yourself to your home network?

            • PainInTheAES@lemmy.worldEnglish
              6·
              9 months ago

              Even if they didn’t block it is it worth the risk? Sending mystery traffic home over a government network is always gonna be sus.

              • akilou@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                1·
                9 months ago

                Of course! I can check my email on my phone. It’s not a huge deal, just a slight inconvenience.

            • Possibly linuxEnglish
              11·
              9 months ago

              Well I guess it is up to you. If it violates your employers policy then don’t do it obviously but you can adjust your VPN to make it hard to differentiate between normal traffic and VPN traffic. It can work in China so it probably can work for you.

              If your that concerned about your work don’t use your phone or at the very least don’t connect to WiFi

          • themelm@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            I’ve had corporate LANs that I couldn’t route around to my wireguard servers from even using netmakers turn server stuff which punches through most shitty lans.

              • themelm@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                2·
                9 months ago

                Yes changed ports, I never went too hard on it as im not usually near an office and just used my hotspot for personal stuff.

                Also it’s never a good idea to try too hard circumventing corporate “security”

    • Aghast@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      9 months ago

      That’s odd. I’m surprised they blocked it for you. I also work for the US federal government and I haven’t had any issues with using Proton at work. I wonder why the difference.

      • akilou@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        It was fine until a few weeks ago. We moved into a new building and something with the network changed. Concurrently we also have to connect via the VPN a different way than we used to. With all of those changes Proton went from not blocked to blocked.

  • abrinael@lemmy.worldEnglish
    24·
    9 months ago

    A lot of this stuff is highly suspicious considering how long governments have been trying to ban VPNs and encrypted messaging. At some point I’d expect someone in favor of bans to commit activities like this to push services to block and governments to ban.

  • umami_wasabi@lemmy.mlEnglish
    19·
    9 months ago

    The government’s move is in line with a recent policy that has targeted services with end-to-end encryption. A host of encrypted apps were blocked at the start of last year — including the likes of Threema, Element, Wickrme, and Safeswiss — and the government is going after WhatsApp to disable end-to-end encryption, although it isn’t clear how that would even work.

    This is why GPG is still an important and valuable tool. You can use it on litteral anything and not relying on single point of failure. Paired with steganography no one will know the message even existed. Yet, not many are willing to learn nor support this anymore.

    Edit: use of more conservative wording Edit 2: correct spelling

    • Possibly linuxEnglish
      5·
      9 months ago

      The problem with GPG is it is painful to use and draws attention. It would be better to use something like Briar, Session, Simplex Chat or Jami.

      (Jami hasn’t been audited so be careful)

      • umami_wasabi@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        GPG is painful. No doubt. But with the pain it gains agility. Any single apps and protocols enables secure communication, being TLS, Tor, GPG or any one you listed, can draw attention. However, apps are more vulnerable. Their traffic pattern can be analysed and block individually while GPG is protocol agnostic. Look how China GFW had block many E2EE apps/protocols.

        In today’s world, secure communication apps like SimpleX are more in flavor as it is way easier to use. I used them daily as my main communication method. But it’s also good to learn GPG as a backup when those apps fails.

        • 乇ㄥ乇¢ㄒ尺ㄖ@infosec.pubEnglish
          71·
          9 months ago

          You should take note of other services that are blocked since it could give you an idea of what your government is trying hide, by using OONI probe

          • RachelRodent@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            9·
            9 months ago

            You think I don’t know? There is a reason that I connect to the internet only via VPN and my country generally uses DPI to censor sites and so on. Half of the population is paralised and propagandised by instagram, tiktok and the national TV. the rest are made to feel very powerless, hell most students are aiming to study the university aboard and never come back afterwards(me, I am the students), I am well aware of the mass censorship and the oppression of our government against marginalised minorities like immigrants, kurds and LGBTQ people(me). We have a putin sittuation over here the same far right fascist party wins every election and my only hope at the moment is to escape

  • leanleft@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    9 months ago

    alternative opinion: LE has become overly reliant on cheap tricks like spying.

  • setVeryLoud(true);@lemmy.caEnglish
    31·
    9 months ago

    The extreme Indian nationalism in the comments is insane. They will lick any boot that comes to power in their country.