Dear Syngal Sir, Atleast one civil society has come forward and supported our concern for privacy of our users. The article in TOI for every one's reference pasted below. Thanks Pranesh for coming forward. I am also pasting news item appeared in Hindustan Times, Business Line & Hindu. I repeat our demand for Mandatory Local Hosting and insistance of Indian Licensed Internet Telephony. Which is in Nations Interest. Atleast our users are not foreign users in our own enviorment. Discrimination and double standards would not be tolerated. "Its Time To Act and LEAD - INDIA First". Best Regards, Rajesh Chharia +91 98110 38188 10 Jun 2013 Times of India (Delhi) India 5th on US intel’s
spying list NSA Recorded 6.3bn Pieces
Of Info From Indian Computer Networks: Report Javed Anwer TNN The
Guardian reported on Sunday that in March this year the NSA recorded 6.3
billion pieces of intelligence from computer networks in India, placing it
fifth on the list of most extensively monitored countries. Iran topped the list
with 14 billion pieces of intelligence collected from it. Pakistan was third
with 13.5 billion, Jordan was third with 12.7 billion and Egypt was fourth with
7.6 billion. Incidentally,
email services offered by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft etc are not only popular
with Indian web users but are also used by many high-ranking bureaucrats and
senior government officials. These email services are also extensively used by
corporate users. “In
March 2013 the agency collected 97 billion pieces of intelligence from computer
networks worldwide,” noted the Guardian report, adding, “NSA has developed a
powerful tool for recording and analysing where its intelligence comes from…
(the paper) has acquired top-secret documents about the NSA datamining tool,
called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the
voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone
networks.” Earlier,
reports detailed how the NSA was using a programme called PRISM to access data
generated by users of nine US-based technology companies. According to a few
PowerPoint slides allegedly leaked by an NSA official, nine technology
companies — Google, AOL, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, Skype, Facebook, YouTube and
PalTalk — were providing the US government easy access to user data. All
companies named in the reports have denied being part of anything called PRISM.
On
its report on Boundless Informant, the UK newspaper noted that the focus was on
meta data instead of actual content of emails or calls. “The focus of the
internal NSA tool is on counting and categorizing the records of
communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or
instant message,” it noted. Cyber
law experts told TOI that India needs to stand up for its users. Pranesh
Prakash, a policy director with Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and
Society, said that Indian government should come up with a law to protect the
privacy of Indian users. He said the law has to make it clear to firms
operating in India that they need to respect Indian users’ fundamental rights,
even when they are dealing with governments outside India. 10 Jun 2013
Hindustan
Times (Delhi)
HT
Correspondent letters at hindustantimes dot com US fallout: Indian
ISPS seek local servers for global firms In order to ensure privacy of domestic
Internet and email users, Internet service providers (ISPs) want that the
government should allow foreign search engines and social networking sites to
offer services only if they set up their main servers in India. US security agencies have access to
emails, social networking details and other data of Indian subscribers of major
US-based companies such as Google, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook, Skype and Microsoft. “The main advantage of local service would
be that whenever Indian intelligence wants data from the foreign companies,
they would not be able to say that they are not governed by Indian laws,” said
Rajesh Chharia, president of Internet Service Providers Association of India
(ISPAI). The Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), representing mainly GSM telecom service providers, has come out in support of US-based search engines and social networking sites. “All companies are required to function under the laws of their country... It would be futile to complain of the policies of other countries,” said Rajan Mathews, executive director of COAI. “Our government should make laws that are robust enough, clear and well crafted to protect the privacy of our citizens, so that companies operating here have no excuse for violating it.” 9 Jun 2013 Business Line (Delhi) Indian Net firms want Google, Facebook to go ‘local’ | Business Line Thomas K. Thomas Say that servers based in India will prevent US
agencies from accessing data New Delhi, June 8: Indian internet companies have urged the
Government to ask Google, Facebook and other American Web sites to set up local
servers. This demand comes after recent media reports that
the US Government was using these Web sites to snoop into users’ online
activity across the globe. According to the Internet Service Providers
Association of India, the Government should insist on keeping data from Indian
within the country through local hosting of servers. Rajesh Chharia, President
of the Association, told Business Line that “Quite a few Internet
companies, members of ISPAI, have expressed their deep concern of their
customers. “The members want us to take immediate measures
such as insisting upon Indian users’ privacy to be protected from any such
misadventure of any intelligence departments.” The Association has written to various Government
authorities on the issue. It has been lobbying to get a level playing field
with foreign Net companies. While Indian firms have to get a licence and pay
the Government a revenue share for offering services such as Internet
telephony, foreign players like Skype are offering the same service without any
licensing on grounds that their servers are located in the US. According to
reports in the US media, the National Security Agency (NSA) has been able
to snoop into data — including e-mails, videos, pictures, social networking details,
and connection logs — from the main servers of Microsoft, Google, Yahoo,
Apple, Facebook, Skype and other major US tech companies. Under a highly classified US programme, named
PRISM, security agencies were able to snoop into customers’ of these web sites
who live outside the US. The Union Government has also been looking to
track Internet user behaviour through a system called Internet Protocol Detail
Record. The Department of Telecom plans to make it
mandatory for telecom and Internet service providers to store data records of
all subscribers. This system tracks the usage pattern and allows
security agencies to track those who mask their IP address. Telecom companies, however, said that rather than
insisting on local hosting or blanket access to networks, the Government should
come up with detailed guidelines under which law enforcement agencies can track
specific users. Rajan Mathews, Director-General, Cellular
Operators Association of India, said: “Even if you had local servers the
security agencies won’t be able to decrypt the data. The better solution would
be to put in place proper guidelines that would on the one hand protect the
privacy of general consumers, but, on the other, allow law agencies to get
access to specific targets.” thomas.thomas at thehindu dot co dot in (This article was
published in the Business Line print edition dated June 9, 2013)
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