Attempt to ban VPNs in India

[Navjot Singh]

Block VPNs: Parliamentary panel on Home Affairs tells Indian government in report

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs urged the Indian government to block virtual private networks (VPN).

www.medianama.com

Terming it as a ‘technological challenge’ that allegedly allows ‘criminals to remain anonymous online’, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs urged the Indian government to block virtual private networks (VPN).

The committee, chaired by Rajya Sabha MP Anand Sharma, made these recommendations in its “Action Taken By Government on the Recommendations/Observations Contained in the 233rd Report on the Atrocities And Crimes Against Women And Children” which was presented to the Rajya Sabha on August 10. In the report, the committee specifically dealt with issues surrounding cyber crimes in the context of crimes against women.

In response to the Standing Committee’s concerns, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology did not provide a direct answer in regards to the blockage of VPNs and instead talked about the various powers under which the Indian government can block information from public access.

 

[Rickysin]

yea become china and block everything lol

 

[Sushubh]

Of course, it's a congress mp headed committee. How can we expect the government to respect our privacy and rights when the opposition wants it to break them even more!

 

[Navjot Singh]

Why are such committees being headed by opposition members?

 

[Sushubh]

I believe it's the leftovers of our democratic way of Parliament. These committees are designed to research on government policies and provide feedback or something.

It's similar to the public hearings of ceos of big corporations in USA done by senators from both parties. Except ours work in private and are pretty secretive.


Source

Shashi Tharoor I believe heard the IT committee.

 

[Navjot Singh]

We are a government of sealed papers and "can't answer questions in RTI" coz it compromises national security.

 

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[vikram_ch]

How narrow minded these people are, they just see 2 reasons to block it, there are many more reasons to block it and other way round VPN also has advantages in work from home(dealing with sensitive information) and other areas. Moreover privacy is everyone's right. how is VPN alone a single culprit just because your machinary is not capable of tracking it and want to use this as propaganda for votebank

 

[pillaicha]

Ambani said something in 2015 which VPNs sort of make harder to do. "Data is the new oil". The entire locked down ecosystem of JioFiber is a testament to that. We're going the authoritarian capitalism way. Remains to be seen if we'll end up like Russia or actually do well like China, both of which have banned VPNs and enforce censorship.

 

[minuteman]

F**k what will happen if VPN is banned currently most of the file hosters and torrent sites even private trackers like ipt is blocked on BSNL

 

[vikram_ch]

Blocked sites can be opened via goodbyedpi, that is not a issue

 

[Rickysin]

They might be launching aatmanirbhar VPN with all tracking and logging capabilities so its easy for them to watch us 😛

 

[Tejas01]

Aren't they anyways doing it through cgnat?

 

[pillaicha]

CG-NAT isn’t a requirement to track users. In fact ISPs have to track users‘ assigned IPs and the time period of that assignment. It’s linked in a database maintained for a few years. It’s been the case for decades.

 

[Abhi.]

This recommendation is not from IT Committee, it is from Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs headed by Congress' Anand Sharma

 

[Tejas01]

In fact ISPs have to track users‘ assigned IPs and the time period

Just asking for my knowledge. If ISP is tracking assigned ip's then won't they know about our activities on the internet. Can the govt claim access from such isp's if they think someone with a certain ip has gone rogue.