The Indian Army has developed a network-agnostic end-to-end secure mobile ecosystem called SAMBHAV (Secure Army Mobile Bharat Vision) to enable secure communication on the move. According to the Economic Times(ET), the ecosystem is based on “5G -ready handsets using multi-tier encryption”. 35,000 handsets are in the process of being configured for the ecosystem in two phases with the first 2,500 set to have been configured by January 15 and the rest expected to be configured by May 31. The system has been developed in collaboration with national centres of excellence from the academia and ..read more

The Indian Army has developed a network-agnostic end-to-end secure mobile ecosystem called SAMBHAV (Secure Army Mobile Bharat Vision) to enable secure communication on the move. According to the Economic Times(ET), the ecosystem is based on “5G -ready handsets using multi-tier encryption”. 35,000 handsets are in the process of being configured for the ecosystem in two phases with the first 2,500 set to have been configured by January 15 and the rest expected to be configured by May 31. The system has been developed in collaboration with national centres of excellence from the academia and indu ..read more

A Chinese institution says that it has figured out a way to identify users who send messages via Apple devices’ popular AirDrop feature. In a blog post published by the Beijing Judicial Bureau, the city’s government mentions that the Beijing Wangshendongjian Forensic Appraisal Institute has created a technique to crack Apple’s encrypted device logs and identify the sender’s phone numbers and email accounts. The blog post highlights that this crackdown on AirDrop messages is to tackle its use for transmitting illegal content in crowded public places like subways, busses, and shopping malls. “Be ..read more

“Encryption works, but you might just delete the data if you are choosing encryption. At some point of time, you have to de-crypt it in order to look into the data. It can be a matter of safety, so presumably it has to be used at some point,” notes a discussant at MediaNama’s roundtable discussion on ‘Exploring User Verification’ on March 23, 2023. The discussion focused on user verification norms in India, the importance of anonymity and effectiveness of verification in protecting individuals from online harm. While exchanging ideas about how user anonymity can be preserved, experts weighed i ..read more

Telegram has shared details of users who allegedly infringed the India Today Group’s trademarks and copyrights with the Delhi High Court, reported LiveLaw. The “identity/Basic Subscribers Information” has been submitted to the court in a sealed cover, noted Justice Amit Bansal’s November 29th order. Filed this year, the India Today Group’s suit seeks a permanent injunction against the Telegram channels allegedly infringing its copyright. The information will be provided to the petitioners under the understanding that it will not be disclosed to third parties except for the proce ..read more

“Let’s be clear, we are not in the business of compromising on privacy, and we are not in the business of handing people who want and need Signal a compromised version of it. We are not going to do that. Are there people in South and East Asia who want to be able to talk privately, safely, and intimately outside of the gaze of corporate state surveillance? Absolutely. Do we want them to have access to Signal? Absolutely, we do. Do we want Signal to be available there? Yes. Can we magically transform the geopolitical dynamics? No, we can’t,” Meredith Whittaker, president of the encrypted messag ..read more

What’s the news: The Department of Telecom (DoT) has sought the views of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to develop a framework for regulating internet calling and messaging apps like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Google Meet, Business Line reported on August 31. Why does this matter: If new regulations are introduced, internet messaging and calling apps will be subject to the same or similar standards that traditional operators like Airtel and Jio are subject to, which is what the latter want, but this could harm innovation and competition in the internet telephony sp ..read more

“We should not have a proliferation of regulators—a personal data regulator and a non-personal data regulator. There are some businesses that enjoy this kind of arbitrage opportunity that is represented by multiple regulators. I will have no problem if there is a convergence of regulatory entities or institutions for the entire data economy,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, during a conversation with Samir Saran, President, Observer Research Foundation. Chandrasekhar was speaking at CyFy 2021 in a session on regulation of the digital eco ..read more

By Anand Venkatanarayanan                         There has been enough commentary about the Indian IT Rules notified in February 2021. Almost all of them focus on the how and what, but not the why. A simple framework to understand these rules is via the lens of My country, My rules. This framework has the following axioms driving the rule making: Social Media is a tool that can bring about regime change and hence must be regulated. Private Communication at scale is also Social Media. Social Media and Regime Change Private clubs and ..read more

US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in coordination with Australian Federal Police (AFP), ran a string operation by secretly operating an encrypted messaging app called Anom used by organized crime, leading to the arrest of around 800 suspects, a press release by Europol stated. The operation was revealed this week in a series of news conferences by law enforcement authorities in the US, Australia, Europe, and New Zealand. This “is one of the largest and most sophisticated law enforcement operations to date in the fight against encrypted criminal activities,” Europol stated. Origins ..read more