India Bans TikTok, Dozens of Other Chinese Apps (techcrunch.com) 34
The Indian government on Monday evening said it was banning 59 apps developed by Chinese firms over concerns that these apps were "engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, and security of state and public order" in what is the latest standoff between the two most populated nations in the world. From a report: ByteDance's TikTok, which counts India as its biggest market, Community and Video Call apps from Xiaomi, which is the top smartphone vendor in India, UC Browser, UC News, Shareit, CM Browser, Club Factory (India's third-largest e-commerce firm), ES File Explorer are among the 59 apps that India's Ministry of Electronics and IT have ordered to ban. "The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) has also received many representations from citizens regarding security of data and breach of privacy impacting upon public order issues," the Indian government agency said.
Idiots (Score:1)
Just insist of secure OSes and this wouldn't be needed. World is becoming more isolationist, tribal, under the guise of nationalism (which is basically racism's new face). Can only lead to nuclear war, we should have tried to delay the inevitable nuclear war before peaceful and intelligent people like me can get the hell off this stupid doomed rock.
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Good on them... (Score:4)
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I wouldn't criticize them one bit. I wish Canada would do the same. I can only dream of a ban on Facebook and Twitter as well...
The difference is that TikTok is actively evil with built-in back doors and spying. https://www.forbes.com/sites/e... [forbes.com]
Facebook and Twitter are merely passively evil; they allow misinformation to be posted.
Re: Good on them... (Score:2)
Mod up. Probably a contributing factor in the decision
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Re:Good on them... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't they learn? We've seen this game before... (Score:3)
...it was banning 59 apps developed by Chinese firms over concerns that these apps were "engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India...
Didn't the Russians give up banning Telegram recently after their efforts failed? In fact, some had earlier labeled their efforts as doomed and a waste of time. very early into their exercise.
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If the USA won't protect the 4th Amendment..... (Score:2)
The profit motive of surveillance capitalism has proven too great a temptation for lawmakers and companies to exploit here in the United States "Land of the Free to be Surviellanced"
But if you are country that doesn't benefit from the OS spying (US Security Agencies, Apple, Google and Microsoft), Cloud Spying (Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Google, Apple) or local law enforcement spying (Stinger, etc). Then all these other interests profiting off the stolen identities of your peoples are a net-harm.
Re:If the USA won't protect the 4th Amendment..... (Score:4, Interesting)
Spying was cited as the threat to Indian security (Score:2)
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Well, this isn't *just* about technology spying. Geopolitics is certainly a strong driver. But so is "Who gets paid?". If a local company comes up with a competitor to, e.g., TikTok quickly, then the money will say in India...and maybe they've already got one ready to promote.
Something about China (Score:2)
You're needlessly complicating this: it's simply b/w India and China. Tibet and Pakistan doesn't even come in. China is trying to get a smoother channel of transit into Pakistan, and their current border (both of which already infringe on territory claimed by India) is too mountainous to allow that. That's why China has been trying to horn into Indian territory, and India is resisting.
You are right that India is combating it on multiple fronts. First of all, they've sent reinforcements to Ladakh and h
India Rising (Score:2)
I wonder if India could position itself to become the next provider of cheap networking gear. They're not on any State Sponsors Of Terrorism... State Sponsors of Communism... lists (what are we calling it these days?) The Chinese will have to actually hack again instead of just inserting backdoors.... Shouldn't be too hard.
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Most of the software in routers and cellular equipment provided by Alcatel/Lucent/Nokia/Siemens/Nortel (or whatever they are calling themselves these days) is written in India, or at least by dev teams that have a ton of Indians. Don't know about Ericcson... I believe they mostly keep it home.
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Actually, India has never had a strong technology manufacturing tradition, although their government is trying to change that in its 'Make in India' program. As it is, after being hit w/ Covid-19, India started the 'self-reliant India' program, which aggressively caught on after this Galwan Valley skirmish. Now, Indians are on a major 'boycott China' campaign.
On the environmental front, India has been pretty aggressive about cleaning up - whether it's widespread public toilets in every major city, or po
Every country in the free world should do the same (Score:2)
Too bad the rest of the world continues to bend over for Chinese money. If you have a choice, don't use any apps or hardware from Chinese companies, even "US" or "EU" companies that are owned by China.
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Absolutely. All you have to do is look at how they treat the Falun Gong and Uyghurs.
China is North Korea with an economy.
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TikTok is a parasite. But the approach is wrong. (Score:3)
What we should instead do is teach people that their privacy is an asset. That their data is valuable and that there are people out there paying good money for something they give away for free, much like the natives gave away their land essentially for free because they didn't understand that it has value.
But who'd want that, right? I mean, imagine people understanding that privacy is valuable, show me one government or corporation that could possibly have an interest in them knowing that.
Finally. They get it (Score:4, Insightful)
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The problem is that there's a large ecosystem. It's not clear to me (one who doesn't use either platform) that TikTok is worse than Facebook. Both need to be replaced. But if you fragment the market it becomes less valuable. So you might need to not only ban the existing companies, but promote competition.
The ideal solution (for certain meanings of ideal) is to have a GPL software solution, and companies in each political group hosting it, with a small barrier to sharing between the groups. (Well, I di
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Not far enough (Score:1)
Ban Zoom.
And nothing of value is lost (Score:2)
Except maybe ES File Explorer.... nah
India should ban Xiaomi and Realme as well. According to China's logic, this will be great for India's industry.