VPN Firms Are Removing Servers in India To Avoid Customers Data Sharing Rule (techcrunch.com) 41
NordVPN, one of the most popular VPN providers, is the latest to confirm that it will be removing its servers in India ahead of the nation enacting new strict guidelines later this month. From a report: The Lithuania-based firm, which counts General Catalyst and Novator among its backers and is valued at $1.6 billion, said on Tuesday that it doesn't maintain any logs of its customers' data, strings of information that New Delhi will soon require VPN providers to share. "Moreover, we are committed to protecting the privacy of our customers. Therefore, we are no longer able to keep servers in India," a company spokesperson said.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, the body appointed by the government to protect India's information infrastructure, unveiled cybersecurity guidelines in late April that will require "virtual private server (VPS) providers, cloud service providers, VPN service providers, virtual asset service providers, virtual asset exchange providers, custodian wallet providers and government organisations" to store customers' names, email addresses, IP addresses, know-your-customer records and financial transactions for a period of five years. The new rules go into effect June 27. NordVPN's decision follows similar directions taken by ExpressVPN and SurfShark, both of which have removed servers in the country. It's unclear how popular VPN services are in India, but on their sites the aforementioned firms say they are used by millions of users worldwide.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, the body appointed by the government to protect India's information infrastructure, unveiled cybersecurity guidelines in late April that will require "virtual private server (VPS) providers, cloud service providers, VPN service providers, virtual asset service providers, virtual asset exchange providers, custodian wallet providers and government organisations" to store customers' names, email addresses, IP addresses, know-your-customer records and financial transactions for a period of five years. The new rules go into effect June 27. NordVPN's decision follows similar directions taken by ExpressVPN and SurfShark, both of which have removed servers in the country. It's unclear how popular VPN services are in India, but on their sites the aforementioned firms say they are used by millions of users worldwide.
Millions of users, mostly scam artists (Score:4, Insightful)
How? Internet crosses borders (Score:2)
> But this could hurt the scam business
How? Why would anyone other than the politicians in India CARE whether the VPN servers are in India, vs Thailand, Australia, or Nepal?
Re:How? Internet crosses borders (Score:4, Informative)
Why would anyone other than the politicians in India CARE whether the VPN servers are in India, vs Thailand, Australia, or Nepal?
The people who will care are those who want to access content that is geo-locked to India. Without VPN servers in India one will not be able to appear to be located in India. While many are rightfully annoyed at geo(b)locked content, it is absolutely still a thing.
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If someone wants a really long-term (hours to days) connection ses
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I still don't get how and why we can't block scam artists, if not get them arrested. Some of the things they do are truly sickening like knowingly scamming people out of their livelihood. Why don't the feds get with some other countries too and have a task force that does nothing but go after those fools? It's fun to watch the videos of people who go after the scammers in vigilante mode. If amateurs can do it, why can't the feds do that instead of winning points the easy way by going after some less impactf
Re:Millions of users, mostly scam artists (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Millions of users, mostly scam artists (Score:5, Interesting)
The dark truth is they bring income into the country. No politician is going to bring this up, but it's definitely on their mind.
At the lower levels, corruption insures they continue to operate. The people working those call centers are transitory and they know it. They'll show up for work some day/evening and the place will be empty, all the cubes and computers, the entire call center will just be GONE. They got a tip from a collaborator at the local precinct that they were going to get raided, so they cleared out. The callers just look around until they find where they moved shop to, and pick up where they left off. This is how the business works there. Relocating your call center every 3-6 weeks is just the norm in the booming telescammer industry in India.
And as mentioned at the start, change won't come from above because at the end of the day, they're not stealing from their own citizens, they're stealing from dumb americans and europeans etc. it's good for the country, and so it's allowed to continue.
It's not a lot different from the "business relationship" between the telemarketers and the telephone companies abroad that they use. The telcos only play lip-service to those demanding they take action against their best customers. So they drag their feet and take steps that are easily avoided. They spend lavishly on lobbying against effective legislation and for legislation that "looks like it will fix the problem" but either has built-in loopholes or no teeth. Look at how fast they moved trying to keep ahead of the people trying to get free long distance in yeras past. They CAN take swift and decisive action, but only when it's in their best interest. Otherwise all you're going to get is lip service and largely ineffective responses.
Re: Millions of users, mostly scam artists (Score:2)
The actual truth, though, is that the scammers scam everyone and mostly people they can access i.e. local people but there is just too little state control on local level unlike the "freedom" countries to bring any enforcement.
The dark truth is that any attempt to establish rule of law is reported as "fascism" in your media and it is just easy to pretend for people like you ti belief that you are being targeted.
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Because all the scammers work legitimate call centers too. Scamming is just a profitable side hustle of a lot of them. So you can't shut them down because they're doing mostly legitimate work.
Next, the scammers have extensive networks - people who screw them over are tagged and there are so many hooligans running around basically looking for people who shut them down. People who are against the scammers (and a lot of the population are, because well, they have to deal with the "indian == scammer" stereotype
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I still don't get how and why we can't block scam artists, if not get them arrested. Some of the things they do are truly sickening like knowingly scamming people out of their livelihood. Why don't the feds get with some other countries too and have a task force that does nothing but go after those fools? It's fun to watch the videos of people who go after the scammers in vigilante mode. If amateurs can do it, why can't the feds do that instead of winning points the easy way by going after some less impactful low-hanging fruit BS?
Because they're working out of fucking Russia, or Belarus or China or North Korea etc, countries that don't only not mind these people scamming the west, but they actually encourage it.
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Fox News and YouTube? Seriously?
If you want to be an idiot, fine. Don't act like you think the rest of us are. Keep your alternative facts and your alternative news sources to yourself. This is Slashdot. We're into real facts.
Privacy vs society (Score:1)
It's funny.
Long ago, we invented these things called laws -- ways to act, so we could all know what to expect and what was expected of us. And this worked with most people.
Then we invented these things called law enforcement. Now you were punished for not following the laws. Now laws could work with nearly everyone -- because they had no choice.
Then we noticed that the laws allowed for broad enforcement, far beyond the spirit of the laws. So we invented these things called the legal system. Courts and
Re: Privacy vs society (Score:3)
"Nothing to hide, nothing to fear".
Yeah. Fuck that.
You don't need to spy on law-abiding people to go after criminals. And if you can't tell the difference without spying on them first, too fucking bad.
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That's not at all what I said.
If you're in your home, and an intruder breaks in, and you call police, and they show up at your door...they can't come in without violating the intruder's rights?
The intruder never consented to being filmed by police.
And remember, the intruder isn't an intruder until they are verified as an intruder. Just because you think they are an intruder in your home, doesn't mean that they are.
I didn't say nothing to hide, nothing to fear. What I said was there is a tonne to fear, and
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And remember, the intruder isn't an intruder until they are verified as an intruder. Just because you think they are an intruder in your home, doesn't mean that they are.
You don't seriously believe that, do you? My ex-wife is an intruder [merriam-webster.com] the moment she come unto my private property. Her guilt will be established later by the police, but she's still an intruder.
To answer your other statement from your previous post:
We have by-law officers and inspectors and child wellfare checks and police searches and drug raids and road blocks and traffic stops and mass-roadside breath testing and tip lines.
We do. It's called "get a search warrant". You think someone's doing child porn on VPN? Get a search warrant and search his property and computer. What's next? Are you of the same mindset about hard drive encryption? What about law enforcement having a glo
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Your ex-wife is a perfect example. If your property is in-dispute, then she isn't an intruder. If you're drunk and walk into the wrong house, she isn't an intruder.
You can't just call someone an intruder, and just be right because you think you are. Your ex-wife can be doing the same at the same time.
Alas, you're likely in a very different country than I am. Mine looks at yours, and laughs. Every time yours has a mass-shooting, and then spends a year arguing for better laws, and changing nothing, we sp
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...and yet, you did. I like how you think when two people disagree, you must be the only correct one. Whatever action you take, your ex-wife could be taking too. That's the purpose of laws and law enforcement, to settle disputes between two both-correct parties.
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Interesting, we don't have mass-shootings.
In Canada? Oh yes we do... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
More interesting, we have more guns per capita than you do.
In Canada? Oh no we don't... Civilian guns per 100 individuals: USA: 120.5, Canada: 34.7
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I like the half-page of "mass-shootings" over sixty years. I think you'll agree that the contrast in metrics warrants my exaggeration.
I'm not sure about the guns per individuals. I was told (in a documentary) that they were comparable. Based on your numbers, perhaps that documentary wasn't Canada-wide?
Re: Privacy vs society (Score:2)
You are off your rocker.
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Different country I guess. I can't imagine how you must feel to live in a country where you don't trust your own protectors -- or don't have any protectors.
Re: Privacy vs society (Score:1)
Yeah, and the 'nothing to hide' isn't static. If we've learnt anything over the past ten years it is that the standard for what one should hide changes. A mundane comment made today can be 'hate speech' before you know it.
If there's nothing to hide, then why does the government need to look?
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Then we invented these things called law enforcement. Now you were punished for not following the laws. Now laws could work with nearly everyone -- because they had no choice.
Before jails and prisons and cops, nomadic cultures would execute people for petty crimes either directly or effectively by stranding them out in the desert with no food, water, shelter, or tools.
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Without straying too far into the dubious topic of legal anthropology there is a basic need for all groups to maintain order for the purpose of cooperation. Much can be done through social rules rather than explicit laws, with some members of the community with the authority to arbitrate disputes. You don't have to read very deeply into anthropology to find some commonalities between how ancient cultures approached this problem. And of course as you implied, there are many examples of cultures where social
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> I don't think we can have a civilized society without those things.
Give up on the Safety State - it's a paradox.
Every State strong enough to make you metaphysically safe will always turn to tyranny and start executing people by the millions. Every single time it's been tried.
Wealth is how you solve for the optimum. Clean water, sufficient food, cheap power, and appropriate fulfillment keeps most people from turning to crime.
If you try to solve for perfection you wind up with Holocaust. Wouldn't we l
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Totally agree.
So are you saying we shouldn't have ANY law enforcement? Because my argument was simply that in today's society, VPN removes absolutely ALL law enforcement.
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Okay, I'm with you so far... Now tell me how you want to measure "wealth". The wealth you're describing is in the standard of living, not the accumulation of resources. For the record I agree with that definition, but it leads to a place where many Americans don't want to go - massive redistribution of monetary wealth. Tax the hell out of the rich guys, di
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All of these are the police turning-up, smashing the car windows, finding nothing, then leaving. This is extension of the warrant, where police have permission all the time but don't follow you all the time. Continuous logging, which most countries already have, breaks the 'free of government interference' rule by demanding ISPs do the government's job of spying on you. It's no longer the police leaving, it's a cop following your car, all the time: As predicted by "1984".
Your car can carry explosives, se
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"Most of the time, we don't have sex in the car, we don't shit in the car, we don't sleep in the car."
You say "most of the time" as though you're talking about one person. In fact, "most of the time" all of those are being done by someone.
"Most of the time" a crime is being committed, or would be. "Most of the time" your local police are busy protecting you from something.
If you live in the country that I think you live in, then "most of the time" your local police are desperately trying to stop mass shoo
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If your local law enforcement sucks ...
You've moved the goal-posts: I am responding to your claim that police need easy surveillance to protect everybody, that failing to provide it, is destructive to society. I disagree and point to intrusive governments, such as East Germany and Russia, that weren't any safer because of it.
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That is my claim.
And I point to intrusive governments such as East Germany and Russia as law enforcement that sucks. But you've not linked that suck-age[?] to that intrusive-ness[?] (that sucking to that intrusion). I'm going to guess that they sucked first, and as a result desperately need to lean on the intrusion.
I'm further claiming that a good government needs to have the ability to readily intrude, and the definition of good government is one that doesn't wind up needing to utilize it very often. I'
They told the Indian Govt. as they left . . . (Score:2)