
India orders coronavirus tracing app for all workers - caution
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-app/india-makes-government-tracing-app-mandatory-for-all-workers-idUSKBN22E07K
======
wtmt
_This is just “security theater”, to put it in blunt terms._ The number of
smartphone users in India is around 500 million out of a nearly 1.4 billion
population. Most of the smartphones are also cheap low end models that likely
won’t support this app (and without a lot of battery drain and other issues).

The app is also very intrusive in the amount of information it collects. It
requires continuous GPS access. It uploads data to a server. There is no data
protection or privacy law in India, even after privacy was declared as a
fundamental right a few years ago.

I read in a research pointed out in an Ars Technica article that contact
tracing using technology starts providing more utility when 60% of the
population uses it. That’s simply not possible in India.

Interestingly, the information technology minister announced that there would
soon be a solution for feature phones as well.

For the requirement on phone manufacturers to pre-install this app on new
phones, I hope at least Apple fights it out. We’ll soon know how strong Apple
is on rights in certain countries.

~~~
stefan_
Schneier said it best:
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-1...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-19_.html)

"This is just something governments want to do for the hell of it. To me, it's
just techies doing techie things because they don't know what else to do."

~~~
bronzeage
Well he's definitely mistaken: for example, in Israel, technological contact
tracing (not an app tho) by the Shabak led to more than 500 confirmed cases
which might not have been detected otherwise:

[https://news.walla.co.il/item/3348992](https://news.walla.co.il/item/3348992)

And this was as early as 26 of march, so I bet it continued being significant.

~~~
tinus_hn
No one’s going to deny these apps will find some cases. But to be effective
they need to find a majority of all cases.

~~~
vinay427
Sure, but doing something "for the hell of it" implies it has virtually no
practical value, at least to my ears. It's rather unproductive for someone
(not you, in this case) to use a sweeping inflammatory statement when they
later fall back to what they actually meant: a more reasonable and much weaker
statement.

------
0xmohit
The government of India is making it mandatory for all new smartphones to be
sold in India post lifting of the lockdown to not just have the app as a pre-
installed service, but also ensure that individuals register on it and set it
up, before beginning to use their new smartphones.

Source: Aarogya Setu Registration Will be Mandatory to Setup New Phone: Govt
Sources

[https://www.news18.com/news/tech/aarogya-setu-
registration-w...](https://www.news18.com/news/tech/aarogya-setu-registration-
will-be-mandatory-to-setup-new-phone-govt-sources-2599197.html)

~~~
plinkplonk
How does this work with Apple phones? Will apple make set up of their phones
dependent on installing government spyware first? How do they handle this in
China?

And does this mean that android permissions no longer work? What if people
just make location and gps unavailable to the app after installation?

~~~
Aperocky
> How do they handle this in China

Surprisingly (depending the depth of your understanding of China), Apple
phones come out with no extra apps installed.

The phone number on the other hand is tied under your name. You would need an
ID to get a phone number and/or sim card, so there's that.

------
dkdk8283
If you weren’t old enough to live through 9/11 and witness the transformation
of the country you are probably being naive about contact tracing today.

At first everyone was on board and patriot act was justified: we were under
attack. There was no clear end of this attack, so the patriot act got renewed.

We caught bin laden and killed him. Great! End of the patriot act? Nope, there
was still a “threat”. 19 years later it’s normalized.

I predict the same thing will happen here. There is no scenario in which this
will not be abused.

~~~
closeparen
What do you propose we do about it?

The response to 9/11 seems so disproportionate because it presupposed the
existence of thousands more plots, _which never materialized_. Preserving
civil liberties would have been free.

The spread of the virus is not a conspiracy theory or a what-if/abundance-of-
caution proposition. It is an observable fact. There is no way the public
tolerates the devastation that _will definitely materialize_ if we go back to
making arbitrary, untraceable contacts. If contact tracing is intolerable,
then so is contact.

At some point, people are going to be ready to repeal the 4th amendment if it
means seeing their friends again.

~~~
xfitm3
People will just go out, which they're already doing. Nobody would ever agree
to repealing the 4th amendment, they would challenge the government's
authority to restrict their movement.

The police can't arrest all of us.

~~~
closeparen
I think you overestimate your neighbors’ appetite to murder hundreds of
millions of people, or to let others get away with doing so.

~~~
bagacrap
heh, what? in what scenario does contact tracing save hundreds of millions of
lives? I think if it were widely agreed upon that it would save hundreds of
millions, folks would universally be on board. It's disingenuous to assert
that people who are against contact tracing are murderers, because evidence is
lacking that it will make the difference between peak caseloads exceeding or
staying under healthcare capacity.

~~~
xfitm3
> It's disingenuous to assert that people who are against contact tracing are
> murderers

Thank you. Unfortunately this is a heated / political issue now, it's going to
take a long time to restart the economy.

~~~
closeparen
The economy is not getting restarted without a way to mitigate the virus's
spread. Maybe for a few weeks, until people see with their own eyes what
exponential growth of dead bodies looks like, but not sustainably.

------
mr_puzzled
I don't think people realize the gravity of what's being done. While google
and apple design nice apis which can do contact tracing while maintaining
privacy, that's not how contact tracing will be implemented as shown by this
app. It requires :

\- a mobile phone number \- location and bluetooth, always on \-
name,profession

The mobile number part concerns me. Government wants to use it as a way to
contact people but the potential for abuse is there.

Installing this app is mandatory for public and private companies. So if you
are an employee, you have no choice in the matter. It's like a surveillance
state in the making.

They are also planning an e pass feature which will be required to board a
flight/metro. Chinese level dystopian shit in the works.

To top it all off, non compliance is a criminal offence. FYI the law
enforcement, legal system is a complete joke in India.

Random cops stopping to ensure you have the app installed? Happening. Non
complaince? Do situps, get beaten with a lathi. I wish I was joking.

Edit : Manufactures will need to preinstall it on new devices. You can see
where this is going.

More reading :

\- [https://internetfreedom.in/workers-privacy-during-
covid-19/](https://internetfreedom.in/workers-privacy-during-covid-19/)

\- [https://internetfreedom.in/45-organizations-
and-105-prominen...](https://internetfreedom.in/45-organizations-
and-105-prominent-individuals-push-back-against-the-coercion-of-aarogya-setu/)

\- [https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/how-to-
us...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/how-to-use-aarogya-
setu-app-and-find-out-if-you-have-
covid-19-symptoms/articleshow/75023152.cms?from=mdr)

~~~
kumarvvr
You know that the app can be removed at any instant, once the lockdown is
over?

Contact tracing in India, which has one of the lowest Police / People ratios
in the world, is extremely difficult. There are a billion+ people and simply
not enough personnel to do any contact tracing.

Sections of the society are hostile towards medical and police personnel.

What alternative do you suggest? One that can be implemented immediately.

> The mobile number part concerns me. Government wants to use it as a way to
> contact people but the potential for abuse is there

What abuse are you talking about?

> Installing this app is mandatory for public and private companies. So if you
> are an employee, you have no choice in the matter. It's like a surveillance
> state in the making.

These are the ones who are travelling. What better method is there to execute
contact tracing?

> They are also planning an e pass feature which will be required to board a
> flight/metro. Chinese level dystopian shit in the works.

The virus is in India due to international travelers. You would want to know
where an international traveler has been during his travel. Once someone is
out of India, the govt. can't do anything.

> Random cops stopping to ensure you have the app installed? Happening. Non
> complaince? Do situps, get beaten with a lathi. I wish I was joking.

If you are roaming out when there is a lockdown, the cops ought to check the
app. The app is meant for contact tracing. About getting beaten or made to do
situps, in my view, a far lesser punishment rather than charging and going the
legal route. Than would be draconian.

Also, this requirement for app installation is because the lockdown is being
considerably relaxed in majority of the country.

I would agree about privacy issues if the govt. asks citizens to use it even
after this pandemic is done. In that case, I myself will go to the streets to
fight.

But, in the current situation, this is absolutely required and the only cost-
effective, efficient way for contact tracing in a country like India.

~~~
scarmig
> There are a billion+ people

> simply not enough personnel to do any contact tracing.

Those seem a bit contradictory, no? China also has over a billion people and
managed to find the labor to perform contact tracing.

~~~
ateevchopra
China has made QR readers checkpoints across city to track people's each and
every movement.

~~~
scarmig
When the pandemic started, they hired thousands of people to do the old-
fashioned, labor intensive version of contact tracing. Technology and
preexisting state powers certainly played a part, but the manual contact
tracing is very transferrable everywhere.

------
searchableguy
Reminder that the same government has leaked billions of records so far. More
leaks than the people in the entire country.

One example -
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/04...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/01/04/a-security-
breach-in-india-has-left-a-billion-people-at-risk-of-identity-theft/)

And you can find many. You won't get anyone caring about privacy in government
offices. A lot of government workers here are negligent pension parasites. I
expect the same in most parts.

I know of a few sites where they don't do any validation on the server side
and it's easy to fake being authenticated by sending an additional header.
There are quite a few sites with firebase without any granular validation or
access control implemented. Some even allow SQL injection attacks using some
old php framework. I sent them email but no response. And Frankly speaking, I
would be very worried about sending anything security related to government
without using some anonymous non traceable email because you might be put into
jail.

They can't even handle surges in scale. Most government sites are broken. Any
student who has ever had to deal with it knows it. Any business person who
depends on those sites for approval knows it.

They also require biometrics to sign in some of those sites now. Absolutely
baffling with no alternative.

This is absolutely bad. More so as when they want to release personal
protection data bill around September -
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Data_Protection_Bil...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Data_Protection_Bill_2019)

Obligatory internet shutdowns -
[https://internetshutdowns.in/](https://internetshutdowns.in/)

Jio using sni to block sites - [https://cis-india.org/internet-
governance/blog/reliance-jio-...](https://cis-india.org/internet-
governance/blog/reliance-jio-is-using-sni-inspection-to-block-websites)

They block more than porn sites including vpns and normal communication tools
- [https://qz.com/india/1547142/not-just-porn-indian-telecom-
fi...](https://qz.com/india/1547142/not-just-porn-indian-telecom-firms-are-
blocking-other-websites-too/)

This is a surveillance state in the making.

~~~
ashleshbiradar
Yep India tops the list of Internet Shutdowns, they shutdown the internet for
petty reasons like "school exams" so that kids don't cheat or the paper won't
"leak" to shutting down internet whenever there is a mass agitation. Kashmir
is an entire different thing, its been more than 8 months that the entire
state has no full access to the internet.

~~~
searchableguy
I don't think the problem is students cheating but that the test is designed
in a way that cheating provides more benefit than learning/honesty.

The cultural pressure cooker is also there and the rat race comes after.

------
ghuntley
See my research thread at
[https://twitter.com/GeoffreyHuntley/status/12561244277810626...](https://twitter.com/GeoffreyHuntley/status/1256124427781062656)
into the Australian contact tracing application. Pay close attention to the
problems people are having when signing up and registering. Lack to response
from the Government has been highly frustrating. Leadership is parroting
amount of downloads as success but let's be honest it's a vanity metric if
people are having signup issues (and they really are)

~~~
ghuntley
We put together a panel of software engineers who studied the actual source
code because the government had failed to provide a credible expert that the
media could interface with. This caused many issues.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3dN99ljgD4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3dN99ljgD4)

~~~
ghuntley
See previous discussion on HN at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22986147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22986147)

------
r00f
I'm just wondering, what if a person doesnt have smartphone? There are many
elderly people who still have Nokia 1100 or something like that, and do not
care. Will they get beaten every day? Or if this is mandatory, will the
government provide free devices to everyone?

~~~
deno
In Poland they make people install government issued App or declare[1] under
threat of perjury that you don’t own a suitable device.

> will the government provide free devices to everyone?

Free and subdermal. /s

[1] [https://www.gov.pl/attachment/f3014313-bed3-4012-98fa-
ea35bf...](https://www.gov.pl/attachment/f3014313-bed3-4012-98fa-ea35bf71dc2d)

~~~
cryptica
Nice, I hope these Nokia phones make a comeback. I miss the long battery life.

~~~
kwhitefoot
I've just checked that my old LG flip phone still works, perhaps I'll have to
start using it.

------
windex
For whatever reason, whenever the Indian government does dystopian or
downright anti-human shit, a whole bunch of apologists descend on threads to
support the government. Does India have have a "50 cent party" like the
Chinese do? Or is it a lack of civic/rights education in technical colleges in
India? Ive noticed this even among Indian/Chinese expats that go complete nuts
defending whoever they have in power back home.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
Eh, it is the same for Poland. Even relatively minor criticism is immediately
assumed to be a deliberate attack on the ruling party and so proponents of the
current government descend. I am not ruling out paid supporters, but besieged
castle defense is a well known tactic for politicians. Case in point, coworker
is Indian, and not overly pro or anti Modi, but you can't say a bad thing
about him without surprinsingly strong defese. Something about doing it for
India's interest. It is an argument.

------
pessimist
The Privacy Policy is extremely dangerous and has been changed silently
already. Although it claims to restrict the purpose and time of data
collection, it coolly has 2 additional clauses which give blanket power.

[https://www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Aarogya-Setu-
Pr...](https://www.medianama.com/wp-content/uploads/Aarogya-Setu-Privacy-
Policies-Comparison.pdf)

"“The personal information collected will not be used for any purpose other
than those mentioned in this Clause 2 save as required in order to comply with
a legal requirement.”

"All personal information collected from you under Clause 1(a) provided at the
time of registration will be retained for as long as your account remains in
existence and for such period thereafter as required for the purposes for
which the information may lawfully be used or is otherwise required under any
other law for the time being in force"

~~~
GordonS
This policy is _ridiculous_ \- the phrasing is so broad as to allow almost any
retention period and almost any use by any part of the government or security
services. Which presumably is the point.

------
jjgreen
The covid choice: 1) you jail your poulation for 2 years, 2) you adopt a
police-state, 3) you accept 1% of your population will die. Seems that India
is going for 2).

~~~
0xmohit
India was always a surveillance state in the making, thanks to Aadhaar.

The Indian government is now utilizing the crisis to fast-pace the process.
Not only are they planning to make the contact tracing app registration on new
phones mandatory, they're also planning to bring the app to feature phones.

Source: Aarogya Setu coming on feature phones; to cover the entire country
[https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/aarogya-s...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/aarogya-
setu-coming-on-feature-phones-to-cover-the-entire-
country/articleshow/75493148.cms)

~~~
sbmthakur
Has Aadhaar been used for surveilling people?

~~~
wtmt
Yes, and even for knocking people off of voter lists in Andhra Pradesh.

~~~
sbmthakur
Any reference for that? Voters list is routinely updated.

------
ferros
The real question is, after this all dies down, will these apps be repurposed
and become the new normal?

~~~
arpa
You betcha!

~~~
eklavya
How much would you be willing to bet on this?

~~~
arpa
All the historical data of governments taking "emergency powers" and not
letting them go afterwards.

~~~
bhargav
I don’t disagree with you. What are some historical instances of this that I
can read up on?

~~~
arpa
The most significant, perhaps, was the aftermath of Reichstag fire [1]. What
happened after that, we all know.

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire)

------
jlokier
Perhaps one of the best things to come out of publically documented efforts by
Google, Apple and other researchers, is that in any country with a half-
functioning legal system, lawsuits against the sort of app ordered by India
can realistically point to a more privacy-oriented mechanism and ask "what is
your defence for not using that instead".

I've been attending a zero-knowledge crypto conference recently and it is
really interesting to see that all sorts of policy measures can be implemented
in ways while continuing to preserve tbe private details of individuals.

Unfortunately the tech and math is not yet mature or ubiquitous enough for it
to be assumed as the default way to do what India wants to do.

Eventually it may be. Meanwhile, I'm please the Google-Apple thing is being
looked at, and pleased it is done openly enough to get expert scrutiny from a
vsariety of perspectives.

~~~
elliekelly
A system that relies on Google to enforce the privacy rights of citizens is a
system that has already failed.

------
tradewarsonlyn
The government might have good intent, but this is how totalitarian regimes
begin: through a steady erosion of rights and choice.

The taste of totalitarian power is known to be severely addictive that
degenerates progressively. It is like a lion that tastes human flesh, turns
into maneater and cannot go back.

Edit: spell fix

------
thelittleone
This is seriously bad news and it will continue to unfold around the world
until you can't take a piss behind a bush without the government knowing (it's
happening back home in Australia too). The Australian PM stated [1] that
further reopening is contingent on more installations of the contact tracing
app. There are undoubtedly some within governments who see this is a wholly
beneficent solution but getting this system in is a foot in the door to the
ultimately authoritarian goal of surveillance nirvana. Within every government
exists groups of people whose job is to dream up systems like this. One more
giant bite out of the elephant that is privacy.

Will it be abused? Even if governments had a perfect track record of
respecting privacy and the stated intentions of technology it would still be
cause for concern. But they don't... governments [1] and companies [2] have
almost programmatically abused and overstepped because it's possible,
profitable (economically and politically) and rarely if ever any consequence.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/morrison-
says-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/01/morrison-says-early-
mark-of-eased-restrictions-depends-on-uptake-of-covidsafe-tracing-app) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_\(surveillance_program\))
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Ana...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal)

------
sifar
A fish which finds the ocean not habitable, either moves to different waters
or evolves to filter out the surrounding.

It does not try to change nature of the ocean.

------
sn41
1\. If the data is collected anonymously, why is the mobile number required?

2\. What if an employee has only a feature phone, not a smartphone?

~~~
mr_puzzled
1\. It's not anonymous in any way, just some bullshit marketing speak.

2\. These mfers are building the app for feature phones as well.
[https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/aarogya-s...](https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/aarogya-
setu-coming-on-feature-phones-to-cover-the-entire-
country/articleshow/75493148.cms)

~~~
ateevchopra
"1\. It's not anonymous in any way, just some bullshit marketing speak. "
Source ?

~~~
mr_puzzled
What source do you want? The app literally asks for your phone number, name,
profession. Which of these details make you think "anonymous" has any meaning
at all.

~~~
ateevchopra
There are 2 different aspects of privacy in Contact Tracing technology. One is
regarding device-to-device contact and another is device to cloud. In case of
device to device, there's no knowledge if it shares your personal info to
other phones.

If a person is found COVID positive, all the traced contacts will be under
high-risk. In that case the details are sent to the cloud/governments to take
apt precautions and to quarantine the individuals.

Even Apple/Google's contact tracing app send your personal data to the cloud
and "works closely" with governments.

Source: [https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2020/04/apple-and-
google-p...](https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2020/04/apple-and-google-
partner-on-covid-19-contact-tracing-technology/)

~~~
marksomnian
The difference being that in the Apple/Google implementation, the app only
sends anonymous tokens, with nothing tying them to anyone the infected met.
Then their contacts download the full list of these tokens from the cloud and
match them against their local history of tokens. (Again, key part being that
this matching happens locally, not in the cloud.) The government never gets
involved except in allowing the infected to upload their (anonymous) history.

------
sanmon3186
Can anyone explain the effectiveness of such apps that are being used by some
countries. If the apps help, isn’t there an argument of “life vs. privacy”,
And if these app don’t, then why isn’t the effectiveness being challenged.

I understand the privacy advocacy but in matters of life and death (that is
how a common man perceives covid-19), unless the effectiveness of Coronavirus
solutions is dumbed down, this argument will continue. Till then people will
see the app download as their contribution to this fight.

------
buboard
Over time this will lead to backlash towards mobile technologies from people.
Not that big tech does not deserve it after decade of pushing hard on
surveillance tech and telling governments how great it is. No country wants a
completely anonymous app because it's useless. And abuses like these show
already the ugly side of it.

If i knew my phone is bugged, i d leave it at home.

------
guug
Given the current government's political leanings and recent actions, couldn't
this lead to further human rights abuses of "unwanted" minorities? Google
should block that app the same way they refused to assist with China's abuses.

------
rochak
This is just so bad for privacy. The people in India don’t care about privacy
much, but this will put an end to the attempts of those who did, including me.
The worst part is, not many are going to criticise it anyway and it’s gonna
happen.

------
one2know
"FYI the law enforcement, legal system is a complete joke in India."

I kind of got the impression they don't like the police when watching
"Extraction" which is an Indian movie with Chris Hemsworth in which they mow
down cops for an hour.

~~~
itpragmatik
They mod down Bangladeshi cops; not Indian cops. The "extraction" happens in
Bangladesh; not in India.

------
ashleshbiradar
Not just the workers, all news devices will come pre-installed with the
mentioned app.

------
smdz
For now, they are doing this in good intention. But they will not stop at
that. Privacy is like a joke in India.

This is just the beginning and just an app. Further they do plan to track
citizen movements directly from the mobile towers, the app will not be
required - it requires them to legally acquire live data from mobile
companies. And they have found an excuse to make such privacy intrusion laws.
It is making of a police state. There are a few officers in the govt advising
against this, but the bottom line is that the govt does not trust the
country's citizens.

With Covid-19, the govt officials are publicly sharing the names and addresses
of all positive people. The intention is good (to let others know whom to stay
away from) and fortunately there is not much social stigma against infected
people.

------
fellellor
This is a publicity disaster. The government should have packaged it with a
cute game, like how Nintendo did with street pass, to make it more ethical and
acceptable.

I’d have joined Indian Stasi for some Mario.

------
sbmthakur
What if I disable/give up mobile data? I seriously doubt they can ensure
compliance in this case. Maybe they will ask companies to add it in their
compliance requirements.

~~~
deno
Why do you think you will be able to disable cellular modem in the future? You
won’t have that option. Also Apple’s tracing works offline via Bluetooth.

~~~
sbmthakur
> Also Apple’s tracing works via Bluetooth.

That's what I was expecting from this app too. This particular app won't work
without cellular-data enabled.

> You won’t have that option.

Could you explain this is a bit? Why can't I disable it on my phone?

~~~
deno
Baseband processors already operate independently with its own operating
system and often have greater access than the application processor. Simple
firmware update is all it takes right now to have it not turn itself off. CIA
actively uses this capability on select targets, as per Snowden leaks, even
when the phone is “off.”

~~~
anticensor
Cellular modem that stays enabled despite user "disabling" will indicate
itself by a quickly draining battery. Airplane mode and sleep data have much
different battery consumption profiles. Indian people are not that stupid, and
this will lead to a violent protest unlike China.

~~~
deno
You don’t need much battery for tracking. Airplane mode is observable because
it disables background applications as a side effect. If you only have one
optimized spying application, this effect is no longer there. Only security
researchers will be able to determine if the phone is really off. And let’s
not forget that people need to make calls, no one’s carrying phones in
airplane mode.

It will only take few more compromises in the name of safety & security to
make this scenario all but reality. We’re living on the precipice of dystopia,
and every crisis is a stepping stone.

~~~
anticensor
> no one’s carrying phones in airplane mode

I do when I am certain that no one will call me or I just do not want to
answer any calls.

~~~
deno
The argument was not about you.

------
vijaybritto
The govt says that we don't have to worry about privacy because our data is
safe with them!! :D. Also they ask for lot more permissions than location

~~~
searchableguy
I don't think some of that is due to malice but incompetence/disregard for
privacy in the IT sweatshops that produced it.

~~~
plinkplonk
>the IT sweatshops that produced it.

"The app, conceived by NITI Aayog, has been developed in two weeks by the
National Informatics Centre in collaboration with the developers of
makemytrip.com and 1mg.com." [1]

None of these are sweatshops.

[1] [https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/guest-
column/story/202004...](https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/guest-
column/story/20200427-the-lsquo-long-arm-rsquo-of-an-app-1668042-2020-04-18)

~~~
as1mov
I am sure an app developed in 2 weeks will be _very_ secure. Incidentally,
I've worked with a bunch of ex-MMT developers for quite sometime, I wouldn't
consider most of them very competent.

~~~
searchableguy
[https://paste.gg/p/anonymous/b7c95d3967514e78a652840b5b666d5...](https://paste.gg/p/anonymous/b7c95d3967514e78a652840b5b666d50)

Here are the permissions it seems to use. I am surprised it's not as draconian
as some other government released apps.

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wolfgke
That is why you should throw your smartphone into the trash. If you have no
smartphone, the government cannot mandate you to install an app on it.

------
krtkush
Good thing I lost my job during these crises /s.

------
kanhasahu
Help chayiya

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codedrop
Can i see the source code?

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arpa
This is beyond fucked up! Faraday cages? Fake apps? What's the tech solution
for this problem?

~~~
Figs
The short term solution is to turn your phone off. If plausible deniability is
needed, just let the battery ran out.

Long term, the proper solution is political rather than technical though.

~~~
arpa
Funny how simple solutions often elude us. Agreed re: long term.

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baybal2
Bad time for Iphone users

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naveen99
I wish they would work to eradicate food poisoning also while they are
fighting the virus.

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villgax
What if I do not want to carry or own a fucking phone that app needs or heck
even a data plan.

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foobar_
Every single corporation out there is a totalitarian wet dream

1\. Owns all your I.P "thoughts" while you are on the premises.

2\. Monitors all your communication channels.

3\. Can do drug / psychological testing if you are not performing efficiently.

4\. Usually runs without direct democracy by a corrupt middle management.

5\. Gives you an id number and laptop for easy tracking, blocks websites.

6\. Has an elitist immigration policy via interviews, analogically speaking
with easy access to discrimination by any number of ways

7\. Has a class system delineated via dress code, bonuses and liability ....
with the lower classes being held most accountable for making mistakes.

8\. Upper class is also exempt from any mistakes and are more free to do what
they want, like doing LSD or coke for productivity .... the lower classes like
marijuana and alcohol.

9\. Lead by a cult leader with a grand vision of utopia and megalomania.

If you take a hard look at life,

1\. Childhood - Parental authoritarianism

2\. School / College - School authoritarianism

3\. Adult Life - Corporate Authoritarianism

So 20% of your life is in school and college you don't have any rights. And in
adult life which is 30% of your life, you spend it in a corporate where you
don't have rights. The rest 50% of your life you are weak and useless, unless
you have influence.

If you are going to give up rights for a corporate why not a state ? Do rights
even matter ? The goal of the government or capitalism is work you to death
anyways .... the only time you can exercise any rights is when you are
unemployed or the weekend.

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codegladiator
damned if you do, damned if you don't.\

To everyone who is pointing out the obvious negatives, why don't you go into
govt jobs making these apps/policies and do what you believe is
correct/perfect.

I couldn't like this approach of mandatory app lesser, but 'lets not do it
because it has potential for abuse' cliche needs to phase out.

~~~
searchableguy
You see, india is way bigger than Singapore or many smaller countries that
were able to create more privacy friendly apps than this.

And you can find many open source tools/spec as well. Even after all that, the
government is going with this?

Also, it's not about the app but past behaviour of the government. It doesn't
seem sincere in the slightest. And democracy makes it so you can't change
something if the masses doesn't want it and the masses don't care.

And if you want to change masses, remember that many famous people who changed
the world were killed or lynched by the mob.

People are not altruistic. If they think something can benefit them somewhat,
they will do it but if there are no upsides, only downsides. Why would you do
it?

~~~
codegladiator
So we are effectively stuck with this right. Why even complain ? Isn't
complain a way to achieve change ?

So you are saying at most what we should do is complain. If that changes
nothing, what else we could have done.

~~~
wtmt
Complaining and making noise is expected in any democracy to sway policy
decisions by the executive and legislature. There are going to be lawsuits
against this one very soon.

