Indian Government Threatens RIM, Skype With Ban

gauharjk writes "India's Department of Telecommunications has been asked by the government to serve a notice to Skype and Research In Motion to ensure that their email and other data services comply with formats that can be read by security and intelligence agencies, or face a ban in India if they do not comply within 15 days. A similar notice is also being sent to Google, asking it to provide access to content on Gmail in a readable format."

This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks

[Wyatt Earp]

The terrorists used mobile phones and tools like Google Earth to plan, coordinate and execute the operations, India and Israel have been howling about those tools ever since.

Re:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks

[discord5]

Bank robbers usually escape in cars so maybe we should ban automobiles to cut down on the number of bank robberies! Its' the same logic.

Why is it always cars for the analogies? Why not ducks? Or oranges?

Re:The problem with that approach

[mrops]

I for one welcome this for entirely selfish reasons. More barriers the Indian government can put for running a competitive business and outsourcing, the better for us out here in Europe and North America :)

When Company XYZ looks to outsource, one more check mark on the sheet, Employee can't use BB [X]

More local jobs, yippee!

Does this apply to ALL accounts?

[PerformanceDude]

Logically it will be impossible to tell if an account belongs to a citizen or a visitor (unless they add some authenticated sign-up procedure for users). So if I use my email account in India as a visitor, does that make me open to have all my emails read? I have done business in India and lost several deals due to refusing to pay the "special fee" asked by the buyer to make the deal happen. So with my present level of trust in how things are done in India, I can't even begin to imagine how the knowledge gleaned by "intelligence services" from foreign visitors will find its way into the Indian economy. If the providers cave in to this, then that would be an EPIC FAIL and I would have to stop using most of those services and/or find secure alternatives. So, this is not a matter of the service providers missing out on business just in India. If they cave in, India might still have the services available, but many of the lucrative business users in the rest of the world may well walk.

I'll be forwarding this to my employer.

[Mal-2]

We have outsourced some of our repetitive grunt work to a company in India. Once we got the glitches and language barrier out of the way, they have proven they can do the job so long as they are told EXACTLY what to do. Otherwise they will halt the moment they go off-script and not continue until we have made a decision. Sometimes I think they "get confused" just to get a break on some of the shittier work, but there's no way to prove this. It doesn't make them extra money to do this, since they have more than one job in the pipeline at any given time.

The problem is that we have to use e-mail to communicate with them. It's hosted on our own server, and they use a VPN to access it. Will WE have to comply with these conditions as well? If so, they can kiss the contract goodbye because we are bound by privacy laws to keep this information out of the hands of third parties -- including foreign government agencies.

For example, one of the things they will do is check to make sure an insurance policy has the same drivers and vehicles on it that we submitted to the carrier. In order to do this, they must cross-reference the driver list containing the name, date of birth, driver license number, and state of residence. The middle two of these four are considered protected information under both state and federal statutes.

Mal-2

Acceptable...

[Todd Knarr]

The proper response from Google should be a simple "Your terms are acceptable.". Followed by all IP addresses assigned in India getting only a "403 Forbidden" page when accessing any Google service, and all search results leading to sites located in India or operated by Indian entities being removed from the listings. For extra Bastard points, all e-mail originating from Indian addresses gets rejected and all phone calls from India get a no-service tone.

Re:So what happens if google says ok!?

[Jeffrey Baker]

Bingo. End-to-end encryption is why Apple still hasn't put a dent in RIM's enterprise market share. India already pulled this crap once before, and RIM did indeed tell them to pound sand.

Re:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks

[davester666]

Well, they must be banned unless the auto-makers give the gov't master keys to every vehicle sold. I guess in India, they do.

Unfortunately, the gov't doesn't know which cars to drive away in until after the attack...and the vehicle is normally too damaged for the key to even work properly anymore...

It all means nothing

[DABANSHEE]

As long as as a Web based concern doesn't have a bricks 'n mortar presence in the relevant country/state & does no banking/investment in the relevant country/state, it has nothing to fear from the country's legislature/courts/regulatory regime except a jurisdiction based web-filter, a la China, Iran, Australia, & that's a problem for the relevant country/state's own citizens/residents to deal with or work around.

Why web based concerns worry about the laws of countries they're not operating from is beyond me..

INDIA / SOUTHEAST ASIA BASHING

[pankajmay]

However, lets put the main topic aside for a moment and allow me to express the blatant racism being practiced on this forum on every such topic related to India:

• They stole our jobs.. those a$$holes: It is the companies in US that willingly outsource. These people are simply trying to eke out a living in what their circumstances allow. To call them names and wish evil upon them is simply not right. You have a problem with outsourcing - protest to your own companies. Granted some of these people on the other end of the line can be classified as inept - but don't forget that English is not their first language! It is your company's fault for allowing such a level of customer service, not of the guys providing them!
• Those simpletons, they can only follow an EXACT procedure: Americans do not realize how much of their mannerisms that they take for granted, is not something that is common in the rest of the world. It is not their fault. Do these Indian employees need to make effort to understand American connotations more? Certainly. But do Americans need to put in more effort to make their language more universal especially when dealing with international personnel? Again the answer is yes.
• Ha Ha... They have no original thinking, solve their problems in poor English: Every country has various strata of people residing within it. Can I fairly say that an Average American is a red-neck with a beat-up old pickup and homes with weeds around it speaking with a twang refusing to understand math and all? No. I definitely cannot. In a country of 305 Million in America, it is difficult to find one personality profile that fits all Americans. Now scale this problem to 1.4 BILLION people - is it fair to characterize a whole country like that? Absolutely not. India has 26 official languages -- can you imagine the cultural barriers that are already in place??
  Just like any other country, India has some brilliant people, some not so brilliant and a whole lot anywhere in the middle.
• If India has such a huge population and so intelligent why isn't it a power in the world?: Simple answer to this POPULATION. India is also much smaller in land mass than America. With 1.4 BILLION people -- the struggle for resources is intense. People literally have to fight intensely to even eke out a decent standard of living, let alone living lavishly. . This is something Americans have a huge problem understanding since they never have had such a tremendous pressure on their resources. But when basic standards have to be fought intensely for because there are just so many other people in the race for it -- very little energy is spent on luxuries of life. This will probably even help you understand why your Indian colleagues in US sometimes live like paupers but otherwise earn handsomely. But please just stop and think how you would feel if you are an average academic performer, the best jobs have been strictly been snagged by so many people better than you and you are in race with million other people for one lousy job that is equivalent to burger-flipping in America? Will you still be able to achieve all that you do today?? DOES IT NOT FEEL LUCKY TO BE AMERICAN NOW, even if you are down in dumps?
• Why not so many Nobel prizes from India, with such intelligentsia?: This is because -- the extreme lack of resources forces many people with talent to flee to a place where life is a bit easy. Where they can freely think about solving problems like P=NP, having assured that their basic needs and even many luxuries are easily met. That country happens to be America today. In fact, America should want such talent to stay in America. These people tend to be the great thinkers of our times, and their contribution usually far exceeds the cost of opportunities America provides to them. The founder of Sun Microsystems - Indian in origin. Most top Microsoft engineers - Indian in origin. Man