back to article India's daft draft anti-encryption law torn up after world+dog points out its stupidity

India will rethink its hardline proposals to clampdown on encryption. Minister of Communications and Information Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters on Tuesday that a draft law to regulate cryptography would be withdrawn and rewritten. The climbdown comes amid public outcry and widespread criticism of the would-be-disastrous …

  1. elDog

    Hate to say it, but many of the US companies use these India-based companies

    For doing very sensitive work. Such as accounting, HIPAA transactions, legal transcriptions, security analyses.

    While it may be true that all supposedly secure companies have "your security and best interest in mind" it is just astounding that another country's government is as stupid as our own (US/DHS/DoJ/EtC.)

    1. James Micallef Silver badge

      Re: Hate to say it, but many of the US companies use these India-based companies

      "it is just astounding that another country's government is as stupid as our own (US/DHS/DoJ/EtC.)"

      The Indian government has noted the complaints, listened to reason, and backtracked. So I would say that they are considerably cleverer

    2. mi1400

      Re: Hate to say it, but many of the US companies use these India-based companies

      low life Indians will remain lowlife to get something in attention... 1990s they had a guy who could make petrol through a tea making process using weeds, then they had a guy claiming $100 laptop (olpc bitchslapped that), then a joke moon "lander" crash. Then to pretty please Chine they lick their balls by removing itself arunachal-pradesh and jammu-kashmir in media maps while chinese visit..This is same as infidels/shia Iran says "we captured U.S Drone" while its the Russian agents operating in those areas capturing U.S tech like they did in Serbia with F117.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      India is a unique country in the world in a number of important ways...

      ...but their government is run-of-the-mill dog shit as they come.

      Why? British Occupation screwed that place up royally and on purpose.

      I guess the Indian people can be thankful they were too many to eradicate, like that foul empire did elsewhere.

  2. Mark 85

    Reason is transparent...

    The move may also have some political motivation, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to embark on a trip to Silicon Valley later this week to meet industry executives.

    As elDog here and many us in the previous article have pointed out... Business, and not just the IT world, won't go for this.

    I would almost expect them to come back with "citizens" only and not businesses or government will get "no encryption". But then that means that no contractor could ever use a non-business phone, computer, etc. And good luck with locking that down... someone would just go buy and say it's for "business" and thus negate the law.

  3. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Meh

    Still, it's sort of comforting to know that stupidity isn't racially prejudiced.

  4. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Danger

    Encryption policies can seriously damage your wealth. Other governments please copy.

  5. Ole Juul

    Which universe?

    ". . . provision requiring all citizens to store encrypted messages and data in a plaintext form readable by the government for a period of 90 days.

    I wonder if the law writers have the skills to do this. I can tell you right now that the citizens don't.

  6. John Tserkezis

    "The move may also have some political motivation, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to embark on a trip to Silicon Valley later this week to meet industry executives."

    Where he presumably doesn't want the locals to point and laugh at him.

  7. dan1980

    The fundamental problem with all of this rubbish - as being proposed and pushed by so many of our governments - is not that they don't understand why this is a bad idea. The problem is that they don't seem to care.

    They all seem determined to push this type of legislation through and will keep trying until they get it. That it might be difficult to enforce and easy for technically-savvy people to circumvent is irrelevant because the goal is not at all to prevent 'terrorism' or stop 'serious crime'; it's about spying on the common citizen.

    1. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects
      Childcatcher

      > The problem is that they don't seem to care.

      Going by national econoies I think they do care it is just that by the time they have finished partying with senior police officers at the local children's homes and orphanages there just isn't time.

    2. dotdavid

      "They all seem determined to push this type of legislation through and will keep trying until they get it"

      When all they have is a legislative hammer they see a lot of law nails lying around.

      The problem of "bad guys have encryption" isn't solvable through legislation but the fact that something might not be solvable through legislation is quite an alien concept to a lot of legislators.

  8. Mark Simon

    The cost of going off shore

    Too many businesses and government departments entrust their data to other countries who may or may be acting in our own best interests.

    With any luck, this sort of nonsense will encourage these business and departments to re-evaluate the cost of doing so. With any luck …

    1. fajensen

      Re: The cost of going off shore

      With any luck, this sort of nonsense will encourage these business and departments to re-evaluate the cost of doing so. With any luck …

      No such luck. As long as there is money to skim off for the CEx-segment, management will do whatever it takes to get at the trough! Who cares about the business or it's shareholders?

      For example:

      Businesses set up shop in China. To do this legally, the Chinese subsidiary has to be Chinese owned - the Chinese "partner" must by law hold at least 51% of the stock, the IPR owned by the "mothership", but used in China, must be signed over to the subsidiary - and there is exchange controls in place meaning "good luck getting you money out, should the situation require it!". All these assets are handed over "to be in China". And who cares? It's not the decision makers assets!

  9. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects

    The alternative is for the NSA to send lists of all middle class activistas to the black car community so that US friendly genocide can take place.

    (Well it worked in Central America when United Fruit's CIA directors were asked to pay income tax by San Salvadore. (Or was it Nicaragua?))

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I hope goes ahead

    When the current Indian outsourcing companies make a remote encrypted VPN connection or connect via an SSL connection to your Citrix farm, by law you will have to turn over those private keys of yours to an Indian government so they can snoop on them.

    I can hear a mass exodus from India as soon as this happens.

    Which is good news.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. dotdavid

      Encrypted: 1AxyeXgOBtstZtWYEsj0gyDnXlSoFtOIyzFbB+GDDHPLGuEAwz4fyK/6BOr0

      Plain text: This is a really great law and I am a fine upstanding citizen.

      Honest Mr Government, that's what the encrypted text says...

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