Indian Government Threatens RIM, Skype With Ban 281
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks (Score:5, Interesting)
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:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks (Score:5, Funny)
Why is it always cars for the analogies? Why not ducks? Or oranges?
It's not easy for a bank robber to escape on a duck.
Re:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks (Score:5, Funny)
It's not easy for a bank robber to escape on a duck.
Are you sure? AFAIK no bank robber has ever been caught when escaping on a duck.
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Are you sure? AFAIK no bank robber has ever been caught when escaping on a duck.
You make a good point there.
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Are you sure? AFAIK no bank robber has ever been caught when escaping on a duck.
You make a good point there.
Quick, someone get me the fastest duck in town! I've got a full proof plan to get rich.
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"I've got a full proof plan to get rich."
Yep, full proof, alright. 200 proof, for sure.
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I think that you are either misunderstanding the point or trying to mislead us.
Everybody knows that oranges are the superior escape vehicle.
Ducks, on the other hand, are just a tool for terrorists.
the solution: ducks (Score:2)
therefore we should make ducks mandatory !
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Why is it always cars for the analogies? Why not ducks? Or oranges?
Why that's like asking a NASCAR engineer why do they need engines with extremely radical cam profiles! [howstuffworks.com]
P.S.: The joke is probably funnier if you are like me and know nothing about cars.
Re:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks (Score:5, Funny)
Fair enough. How about this:
Bank robbers usually duck when police shoot at them, so we should kill all ducks and serve Canard a l'Orange in prison.
Re:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks (Score:5, Funny)
Why is it always cars for the analogies?
It's easy to make a car analogy that sounds right, so you get modded up. Then the guy that actually understands how digital technology works can correct you and then HE gets modded up. If a good metaphor was used, only one guy would get modded up. It's a win-win!
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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?
Or clown suits which most robbers wear and thus make clowning a very suspicious metier for that matter.
Re:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks (Score:4, Insightful)
Because using ducks or oranges in a bank heist would be too hard to understand.
Yeah, but wouldn't that be awesome?
ROBBER: OK, everybody on the floor- I have a duck here, and I'm not afraid to use it!
TELLER: Umm... [trembling] Uh... um OK... [looks around nervously]
ROBBER: [Hurls orange netted plastic bag at teller] Now fill this! Now! And no dye packs! [Waves duck threateningly]
DUCK: [struggling] Quack! Quack quack!
TELLER: Yes sir, whatever you say... [frantically starts packing the bag with oranges]
DUCK: Quack!
Suddenly a loud alarm pierces the air. The robber jumps onto the counter and grabs the bag; loose oranges fly everywhere. He makes a mad dash for the exit. but finds that the doors are locked.
ROBBER: Fuck!
Kicks door repeatedly, then swings the bag of oranges at the glass; which disintegrates in an explosion of glass shards. A dye pack hidden among the oranges goes off.
ROBBER: You fuckers, I said no dye packs!
TELLER: Uh, honest, I didn't know... well look sir, it's orange dye anyway...
Robber throws duck at the teller, then struggles through the broken glass.
DUCK: [enraged] Quack quack! Quack quack! Quack quack quack!
TELLER: [screaming] Aaagh- it's a duck on me! Help! Duck! Please!
New scene. Several minutes later- first police officer enters the bank.
COP: Watch it- duck! [Pulls pistol, fires round at duck]
DUCK: Quack!
Several seconds of silence...
TELLER #2: Wow- thanks... what a relief! How did this guy get his hands on a duck anyway?
COP: We try to stop them when they go through the airports, but now they're starting to hide the ducks up their asses as they go through security.
TELLER #2 What do you do when you find someone trying to sneak a duck into the country?
COP: Well, the first thing you need to do is get some Dawn dishwashing detergent...
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Bank robbers don't kill 175 and wound 308 people.
Furthermore, cars are regulated, stealing a car to commit a felony is an extra felony, driving a car to take someone else to a bank robbery is a felony.
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This is the reason behind the license plate. If a car is used in a crime it simplifies locating the registered owner of the vehicle.
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The problem with that approach (Score:4, Insightful)
But, as everybody knows, the Bush administration had more than enough information to do the job long before the terrorists ever hit us. What was needed isn't more information, what was needed was better use of the existing information. (Notice that I'm not using the word intelligence. Clearly, Bush needed more intelligence, but that would not be forthcoming.) But we can expect our leaders to make lazy, self-serving choices rather than to take on the hard jobs they seemed to want so badly.
India is an authoritarian state, perfectly comfortable with internal corruption and cronyism. This choice, to compel telecommunications businesses to open up their data for 'security and intelligence' agencies, will surely be abused for political reasons and its impact on security will be marginal.
Re:The problem with that approach (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
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When Company XYZ looks to outsource, one more check mark on the sheet, Employee can't use BB [X]
I like the your romantic picturing. Now back to reality. Companies will not be too preoccupied on matters concerning privacy of members of the off shoring company on which they dumped shit loads of badly specified work because they failed to organize back home.
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Insightful? RIM is Canadian and SKYPE is owned by companies and investment groups from at least 2 countries, one group being the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
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No what keeps the third world the third world is the lack of food, water, and the constant violence or threat of violence. The reason the USA, Europe and large parts of Asia have been able to focus on being the first world is they've been able to grow their own food in excess and drink plenty of clean water. When, as a society, you don't have to worry about where your next meal or drink is coming from it makes it amazingly easy to focus on progress.
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It's not selfish to want US companies to hire US citizens and keep them employed. When I hear of friends being laid off because their job went to India, I have every right to be pissed off.
Outsourcing has hurt this country a lot more than it has helped.
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So, if your friends are being laid off because their job went to community college kids for a third of the pay, you're not pissed?
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It could also be that the don't actually need personell that is that skilled - your friends might want to seek a higher-paying position elsewhere. Real
You're wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
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India is an authoritarian state
Wow you are retarded.
Re:This is all from the Mumbai terror attacks (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
To be fair, the automobiles have 15 days to comply with publishing who is in the car and coordinates of all travel.
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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.
Please don't give them ideas. Not so much banning cars, but requiring all cars to have kill switches that police can access like they do with their bait cars [wikipedia.org].
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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...
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Prior to the invention of the car they tended to use horses
Intelligence? I think not... (Score:2)
Re:Intelligence? I think not... (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think it is really about fighting terrorism?
The British government justified spying powers "to fight terrorism", but they were actually used to fight minor offences (dog fouling, fly-tipping, government employee false sickness claims).
Just like the British government, the Indian government cannot really say they need to compromise human rights to make it cheaper to police minor offences, or too keep an eye on people doing perfectly legal things the government and police disapprove of (which also happened in Britain).
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It all means nothing (Score:5, Interesting)
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..
Re:It all means nothing (Score:5, Informative)
Oblig: Australia does not have a web filter.
It only had an (unpopular) proposal to do so courtesy of a couple of retarded senators. Which has now basically been scrapped. The legislation never even made it to being drafted, let alone introduced into Parliament and debated.
Problem with Slashdot is that people read a few hyped up, overly dramatic headlines and think they know what's going on ;)
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Those kids who die are poor kids with no money for buying political favors, the government couldn't care less about them.
But if students in India can't access Google, (Score:5, Funny)
How will they post their homework problems on comp.lang.c++ for us to solve?
Re:But if students in India can't access Google, (Score:5, Funny)
"please for help with homework, i give problems below. for all grade, please showing steps. due tomorrow."
1) P=NP?
2) List and explain three one-way functions.
3) List five rhymes for the word "orange".
Re:But if students in India can't access Google, (Score:5, Funny)
"1) P=NP?"
P="BOB"
NP="BOB"
if P=NP then write("TRUE!")
"2) List and explain three one-way functions."
Birth (just try to go back the other way)
Sex (Well, this is kind of an while/endwhile or some other type of loop)
Death (see Birth)
"3) List five rhymes for the word "orange"."
Door Hinge
Beer Binge
Infringe
Dope Syringe
Spine twinge
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"1) P = NP?"
Solution number 1: N==1, any P
Solution number 2: P==0. any N
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-inge does not rhyme with -ange.
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It does if you cock your hat to one side and saunter a little.
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"Birth (just try to go back the other way)"
Men have been doing that since the dawn of time. :P
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3)
a) "Door Hinge"
b) "Your fringe"
c) "you're singed"
d) "whores binge"
e) "sore grinch" (?)
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Heh heh, you're not kidding. I work the support desk for a specialist software company and I regularly get e-mail that essentially says 'I don't know enough to do my job and I don't want to do the leg work to find out myself, teach me'. I usually respond as nicely as I can and provide some information to give them a leg up but basically I point them at a bunch of reference sources for them to read and leave it at that. I'm here to support them, not educate them. I don't think they know the difference.
Hmmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Glad I don't correspond with anyone in India.
Really? (Score:2)
It all depends to a single phone call or support request regarding a critical issue. You may even end up giving private/semi private info.
Yes, the call centers in India. Wonder why companies panic when Satyam had issues?
Hey, Little Brother? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, you're doing it wrong. Just use MITM DNS attacks to use fake SSL certs.
Love, China.
And I want a pony! (Score:2)
So what happens if google says ok!? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't comprehend India's reasoning behind this. It's a serious case of "Hey, you're doing it wrong..." What is the point of protecting (encrypting) or communications if we just hand over a key?
I don't honestly expect G or anyone else to bend to their demands... but then again, most companies 'have a price' if it can be met.
Finally, what do you think the likelihood of ANY company allowing India's DoT to actually place one of THEIR servers in the companies network?
Rediculoussss! (*waves his wand*)
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Mumbai police found that the attackers had used illegal SIM cards not linked to their identities as well as SIM cards from other countries. So they are cracking down on SIM cards so if some terrorist enters the country they can track him and tap his calls.
Then they heard about skype which uses IP so they need a way to tap that as well. Then there is google voice (maybe) and FaceTime. They have to crack down on wifi because it works a bit like cellular comms.
You see the whole tracking of communication thing
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You see the whole tracking of communication thing is slipping between their fingers and they are grabbing whatever they can, not expecting to get even 1%. I doubt it will make a difference in the next attack.
And I agree with you. I always tell people, if I was to become a criminal I'd never get caught! That's what they "all say" right? But people who fall into actually doing that sort of thing don't actually think the way we do (most of the anyways).
If anything, it's probably for PR and to scare people off from using those resources for 'crime.' I mean, most of them would believe it as long as they demanded it and the companies remain active in the country even IF it didn't happen.
I've heard SO MANY STOR
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(Also, I'm not from the US, but how could you get the impression that "the streets are paved with gold" in the US from watching american television? Or does Bollywood portray the US like that?)
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Thank for the internet!
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One famous example (though a movie, not TV... and yes, I know it was a book first): The dirt poor Joads from _The Grapes of Wrath_ had a truck.
Desparate Housewives: On one income, everyone's living in a large house and has two cars. Even the one with more kids than I can count. Oh, and when one becomes _really_ poor when her husband is blinded, the extent of
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RIM will probably tell them to go piss up a rope - they can't afford to lose all their non-Indian government customers.
The other two should do the same.
Speaking of which - all those outsourced-to-India types are going to complain when they can't use their crackberries any more.
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Re:So what happens if google says ok!? (Score:5, Informative)
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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.
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Double or Politics? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Does it matter when the end result is always that they do both?
what do u think (Score:2, Informative)
Does this apply to ALL accounts? (Score:2, Interesting)
Governments are the problem, not the solution (Score:5, Insightful)
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And so it goes. Any non-e
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I'm not so sure I would say that the terrorists have won, or that the terrorists would say that they've won. I guess the assumption is that they're all sitting in their caves going "Oh, they are so afraid that they are giving up all those precious freedoms which we so hate! Hooray, we win!"
When in reality it's an almost hopeless cause they're pursuing, getting coalition forces out of Afghanistan using fricken jerry rigged IEDs that have probably taken out almost as many of their own building the damn thing
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If the terrorists have won depends on their goals. Which goals did they state?
I would say the governments have won against their citizens.
Requirements Engineering 101 (Score:2, Insightful)
RIM, Skype, and Google's communications already "comply with formats that can be read by security and intelligence agencies" if the government wants to wiretap the suspects upstream of their devices.
Can it be read? Print it out or keep it on the screen, your choice.
Is it human-readable? Sure!
Does it mean anything on first glance? That's questionable.
I am merely playing devil's advocate.
I'll be forwarding this to my employer. (Score:5, Interesting)
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
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"we are bound by privacy laws to keep this information out of the hands of third parties"
outsourcing to India does not involve a third party? sheesh
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oh! that Xplains Y.
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You do realize that India has the notion of serving warrants, right? They can't snoop on you without a warrant, same as in the U.S.
No worries... (Score:2)
This is easily solved when, facing the loss of the contract, your subcontractor just lets agents from the Indian intelligence service use the VPN from their end.
Acceptable... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
RIM will probably tell the to fuck off too (Score:4, Informative)
The whole thing that makes Blackberry's so popular in the US is their security features. Not just with the public either, the US Government loves them some Blackberrys. They are a major customer and threatened to intercede in the patent case (patents are an explicit right of the federal government, and the law allows them to take them away for various reasons). There are several reasons they like them so much, but the security is a big one. If you look at the BB lineup you find they nearly all are FIPS 140 complaint. Now most people wouldn't give a shit. You can have superb crypto without that extensive verification process. Well, the feds care, it is their standard after all.
So I can't imagine RIM is at all interested in weakening their security as it is a major selling point to their major customer.
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Except that the GP's suggestion was neither government-like nor evil. Where is the coercion? That is what is evil about government, and there is no coercion in simply refusing to interact with someone.
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No Hotmail? (Score:2)
Could it mean Microsoft is already complying?
This is government searching peoples' houses (Score:2)
The Government shouldn't have the right to come in to my house and rummage through my letters.
Of course, we have to remember that rights are whatever the people with the guns say they are.
If Google is disclosing our Gmail to various governments, they better send each of us a plain and clear letter (a gmail email) telling us exactly what their policy in this regard is.
oh, please can I take that call google? (Score:5, Funny)
Hello? Yes, this is technical support for gmail applications. Am I having talk with government of India?
Yes. I understand that you are having difficulty with reading emails of your populations.
Have you been plugging your monitor into the plug on the back of the computer?
Excellent. I am so very sorry you are still having the problems. We are checking now your network cables......
Etc....
INDIA / SOUTHEAST ASIA BASHING (Score:3, Interesting)
Just like any other country, India has some brilliant people, some not so brilliant and a whole lot anywhere in the middle.
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Unfortunately, Slashdot is more or less a support group for disgruntled techies, and the focus of their ire for the past several years has been on outsourcing. Oddly, if you suggest to one of these "creative thinkers" (who laugh at the lack of creativity of their overseas counterparts) to start their own company so that they may then hire pure-blooded u.s. citizens, they'll balk. The irony is that these self-proclaimed paragons of creativity themselves lack the creative spark to be entrepreneurs. I bel
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Same it seems as a linux distro with gpg integrated into an email client.
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That applies to the enterprise customers. How many terrorist groups have set up a BES server? I don't think that the protections on general public users are nearly the same.
Note that I'm not supportive of the Indian government's demands, but not because they're entirely infeasible, as some have suggested. They need to learn to keep doing some things the hard way.
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Only a *tiny* fraction of the internet is government funded, created or even researched any more. If they want to prohibit India from visiting .gov sites, more power to them.
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No actually, ARPAnet is dod research, the protocols in the internet are all open and have people from a lot of countries working of them. The US also has no power to pull a plug, only 24% of the major DNS servers are american, if the US wants to get out of the world, they will be the only ones to suffer.
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Wow, you obviously don't understand how the internet works. The US has no more ability to unplug India or China than Iran has the ability to unplug the US.
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Actually, unplugging India would be fairly simple for the US. It simply involves submarine work. Disconnecting China could likely be effectively accomplished the same way, at higher risk; I don't think there's significant overland cable from China to the rest of the world.
Iran, lacking much naval power, could not disconnect the US the same way.
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Stupid call centers..... what the hell are those people saying.
call centres are generally reached through VOIP
you might be calling a landline number in the country of the origin but it's routed through a VOIP gateway to India
this saves assloads more money to the companies who have outsourced their call centeres there
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... run away from this rotten country to us/uk/australia.
And you think that it will better in those countries? Think again - in these countries your internet and phone traffic is monitored already. Think NSA ... Search for "nsa internet monitoring" on Google. And another example - EU To Monitor All Internet Searches" [slashdot.org].
Is there any country left on this earth, where there's mutual trust between government and its citizens and therefor no need to monitor internet and phone traffic?
The grass is not always greener on the other side.