India Bans Open Source Messaging Apps. FOSS Community responds with "Go ahead and try!"

[The Angry Squid]

Summary

The Indian government has banned 14 messaging apps claiming that it is on the grounds of "national security".

These apps were banned due to the "risk of terrorism in the region of Jammu and Kashmir – a majority Muslim territory administered by India but also claimed by Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of backing independence activists in the region – and imposed years-long connectivity restrictions that meant only 2G services were available – on the grounds that it made it harder for separatists to organize."

 

The most interesting part of this ban is the recent developments that the Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS ) community have made to re-enable the apps in response to the ban. Efforts have been made "to build mesh networks out of Android devices during internet outages – so that messages can continue to flow even if the internet is down". The developers explained that this works by: "When an Android device thinks that its internet connection doesn’t work, either due to a captive portal or due to certain Google domains being unreachable, apps on the device are still able to connect to IP addresses that remain reachable, and the device can still resolve DNS queries for other domains, even though various parts of the UI indicate that the system considers the Wi-Fi connection to be offline, the system does not seem to block any traffic as a result of this assessment."

 

The apps blocked include: Element, Wickrme, Mediafire, Briar, BChat, Nandbox, Conion, IMO and Zangi. Several of these messaging apps are open source.

 

Quotes

Quote

"India's government has reportedly banned 14 messaging apps on national security grounds, including some open source services."

Quote

"As timing would have it, the Briar project's blog last week detailed the project's efforts to build mesh networks out of Android devices during internet outages – so that messages can continue to flow even if the internet is down."

 

My thoughts

I think this topic can be split into two very interesting discussions. First of all, the fact that Governments feel that they can control what apps their citizens have access to. Not only that, they can restrict entire areas with a population of 14 million people (Roughtly 1/2 of the entire of Canada's population) with 2G internet. The UN declared that "the intentional disruption of internet access by governments" should be condemned, but this seems to be ignored by some nations.

 

The other very interesting area is the developments that the FOSS community have made so quickly to counteract this block. Likely, because blocking these apps can have many adverse effects like interrupting the Emergency Services. This is particularly relevant in a country like India where "India has faced natural disaster every day in the last nine months: Report. Faced with disaster almost every day so far this year. From January 1 to September 30, 2022, out of 273 days, 242 days have faced natural calamities in the country" ~ Times of India.

 

Sources

https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/09/india_messaging_apps_ban/

[tikker]

From the title I thought this was a blanket ban on open source messaging apps, but it seems to be "just" a ban of many individual apps. Maybe that part of the title should be changed?

 

 

[Hassan170]

On 5/10/2023 at 9:20 PM, The Angry Squid said:

My thoughts

I think this topic can be split into two very interesting discussions. First of all, the fact that Governments feel that they can control what apps their citizens have access to. Not only that, they can restrict entire areas with a population of 14 million people (Roughtly 1/2 of the entire of Canada's population) with 2G internet. The UN declared that "the intentional disruption of internet access by governments" should be condemned, but this seems to be ignored by some nations.

Ah yes, the UN doing classic UN things which is absofuckinglutely nothing at all. 

Enforcing the rules that it requires its members who want to be a part of it, to follow which they aren't.

What's funny is that the politicians who made this ruling probably think that a simple ban is going to solve their problems because they think "if its not on the app store then there is absolutely no way they can download it from anywhere else". I bet you a coffee they don't even know what an APK is.

 

On 5/10/2023 at 9:20 PM, The Angry Squid said:

The other very interesting area is the developments that the FOSS community have made so quickly to counteract this block. Likely, because blocking these apps can have many adverse effects like interrupting the Emergency Services. This is particularly relevant in a country like India where "India has faced natural disaster every day in the last nine months: Report. Faced with disaster almost every day so far this year. From January 1 to September 30, 2022, out of 273 days, 242 days have faced natural calamities in the country" ~ Times of India.

If there is one thing I learned about the internet, it's that you NEVER EVER try to fxxk with em cuz you will find out what happens if you do.

I wonder, can ye even still contact Emergency Services with 2G?

[williamcll]

Since when was mediafire a messaging app?

 

Also odd that they didn't ban any of the more mainstream "privacy focused" sites like telegram, mastodon or signal.

[LAwLz]

10 hours ago, williamcll said:

Since when was mediafire a messaging app?

 

Also odd that they didn't ban any of the more mainstream "privacy focused" sites like telegram, mastodon or signal.

I am fairly sure those are already banned and blocked. I couldn't find much about Signal, but I did find this article from half a year ago about Signal possibly leaving India because the government may try and force them to backdoor the app.

[Brooksie359]

On 5/10/2023 at 9:21 AM, tikker said:

From the title I thought this was a blanket ban on open source messaging apps, but it seems to be "just" a ban of many individual apps. Maybe that part of the title should be changed?

 

 

That seems stupid as can't they just change the name and maybe slightly modify the code and then it's a game of whack a mole?

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

That seems stupid as can't they just change the name and maybe slightly modify the code and then it's a game of whack a mole?

I am not sure how this particular ban is being implemented, but the article I linked about the Telegram ban was on the ISP side of things, meaning any small changes to the code would not circumvent the ban. It's like the great firewall of China.

 

They might also just make it illegal to have the apps and anyone caught with it gets thrown in jail.