Indian Government To Ban Use of US Email Services For Official Communications 219
hypnosec writes "The Government of India is planning to ban the use of U.S.-based email services like Gmail for official communications. It will soon send out a formal notification to it half-million officials across the country, asking them to use official email addresses and services provided by India's National Informatics Center. The move is intended to increase the security of confidential government data and protect it from overseas surveillance."
Not seeing a problem with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not seeing a problem with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point? It's not like you can control which packets will and won't be routed through the US.
What they ought to be requiring is encryption, but we all know that's not going to happen.
Smoke screen (Score:4, Insightful)
Its not to 'protect the data' it's to get people to use services that they have direct access too.
Every government does this.
Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Makes sense to me.... FTFY (Score:4, Insightful)
This seems total sensible, after all if you let a foreign entity. on the cloud, run your email you don't really own the data and any data that you don't own is at risk. The real surprise is that it took the business world this long to realize.
Traitorous NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Here we see the beginnings of real, hard evidence of just how disastrous the NSA's recent actions are to the best interests of the country.
It used to be that American IT companies were the gold standard, to the point that there almost wasn't even any pretense of competition. Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook -- American companies ruled the Internet.
And the NSA has turned that all to shit. Now, you'd have to be an idiot to trust any American company not to hand your data over to the NSA. And the NSA has most emphatically been demonstrated that it cannot, under any circumstances, be trusted with that data; just look at not only the overt corporate espionage, but the pervy stalking culture of the degenerates working there. Even if not for official policy directives, you can bet that some low-level flunky at the NSA will be placing insider trades based on what he reads in your executive's emails.
In other words, the NSA has utterly devastated the greatest industry the United States has ever created, and the very backbone of our economy. It's worse than if they had bombed all our ball bearing plants; infrastructure can be rebuilt, but trust? How the fuck are we supposed to rebuild that? ...and the corporate heads and legal departments wonder why they shouldn't have refused to play with the NSA and gone public at the first hint of this malfeasance, writs of classification be damned. Had Google insisted it be taken down swinging rather than play lapdog to the NSA, their brand would have been unimpeachable; rather, it is untouchable.
Cheers,
b&
Re:Not seeing a problem with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
And besides, if you're doing nefarious activities, you can avoid subpenas when you appear in front of Congress ... right Lois Learner?
Re:Not seeing a problem with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Traitorous NSA (Score:4, Insightful)
Here we see the beginnings of real, hard evidence of just how disastrous the NSA's recent actions are to the best interests of the country.
It used to be that American IT companies were the gold standard, to the point that there almost wasn't even any pretense of competition. Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook -- American companies ruled the Internet.
And the NSA has turned that all to shit. Now, you'd have to be an idiot to trust any American company not to hand your data over to the NSA. And the NSA has most emphatically been demonstrated that it cannot, under any circumstances, be trusted with that data; just look at not only the overt corporate espionage, but the pervy stalking culture of the degenerates working there. Even if not for official policy directives, you can bet that some low-level flunky at the NSA will be placing insider trades based on what he reads in your executive's emails.
In other words, the NSA has utterly devastated the greatest industry the United States has ever created, and the very backbone of our economy. It's worse than if they had bombed all our ball bearing plants; infrastructure can be rebuilt, but trust? How the fuck are we supposed to rebuild that? ...and the corporate heads and legal departments wonder why they shouldn't have refused to play with the NSA and gone public at the first hint of this malfeasance, writs of classification be damned. Had Google insisted it be taken down swinging rather than play lapdog to the NSA, their brand would have been unimpeachable; rather, it is untouchable.
Cheers,
b&
Exactly! Its not a done deal yet, but they are gutting a very significant industry. This is a very costly fuck up. It would be one thing if we knew the world was a *better* or safer place as a result, but I can't see how to draw that conclusion. Au contraire, they just spend a boatload of money, muddy the waters, and gut a vital industry. You can't believe anything the NSA says since being really good liars is a valued trade asset, and there is no real oversight.
Re:Traitorous NSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Whilst I certainly wouldn't disagree with you over the importance of encryption...well, put it this way: when was the last time you encrypted a letter you dropped in the mailbox?
The point is that it's about as much hassle for somebody at the post office to steam-open an envelope with nobody being none the wiser for it as it is for an ISP to snoop on people's mail.
People have historically been just fine with sending the most private of letters protected by nothing more than the seal of the envelope because the United States Postal Service has a well-deserved unimpeachable reputation for being the hardest of hard-cases about protecting the sanctity of the mail.
It's not surprising that people carried that same trust over to email; it's an almost instinctual conclusion to assume the one is every bit like the other save for the mechanisms of delivery.
And, had they done it right, Google could have earned the world's trust by self-policing with the same vigilance the USPS does.
But they blew it.
Royally, and spectacularly, they blew it.
But what remains most troubling about it is that it was an official government agency that twisted their arm, even if Google shouldn't have put up with the arm-twisting.
Cheers,
b&
Re:Interesting Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
So if you want to hide something you must be guilty?
If you are a government official in a democratic country, and you are trying to hide your official activities, then yes, it is a reasonable assumption that you are corrupt. With very few exceptions, government business should be conducted in public and transparently.
Re:Not seeing a problem with that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironic, since the NSA considers GMail to be public property and not private communication as well.
Re:Missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are a government, YOU are the only ones you can trust to host your data.
If you are a company, YOU are the only ones you can trust to host your data.
Having another company or country host your data was NEVER a good idea, and some of us have been saying so for some time. But all of a sudden people are realizing just how bad of an idea that was, and they're pulling back from it.
Re:how many recipients are on gmail? (Score:0, Insightful)
This is probably about sending a message to US tech companies and, indirectly, Congress by cancelling contracts.
No, it's not. The title of the submission is just another example of bullshit Slashdot sensationalism.
What India actually said, is to only use the official Indian email system.
But when you put up a title which says "Indian government to Ban Use of Estonian Email" or "Indian Government to Ban Use of Chinese Email" or "Indian government to Ban use of Some random dickhead's Email" it doesn't get shitloads of views from anti-US fucktards looking for an anti-US story to digitally masturbate to.