nah that thought crossed my mind too, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was for that reason tbh

While it’s true that voting for a purely retaliatory reason would be good but wouldn’t you want your vote to have some amount of change? I’m not discrediting the integrity of the smaller parties but it really won’t make much of a difference to vote for them even if it is towards a good cause simply because their size is too small to compete with the giants or even in state elections. Andhbhakts are everywhere unfortunately.

Here’s their toot mentioning the situation with Proton Mail: https://mastodon.world/@internetfreedom@mas.to/111935324571240375

yes they are! and no worries, you can still view their toots and see if their RTI requests have been responded to

oh that sucks, I’ve never used either so I wouldn’t know

Btw Internet Freedom Foundation (or the IFF) filed several RTI requests (RTI = Request to information) regarding this situation. If anyone wants to follow their progress then here’s their Mastodon account: https://mastodon.world/@internetfreedom@mas.to

The IFF is a highly trustworthy and well respected organization that fights for Indians digital rights and democratic freedoms. They’ve done a lot of good work over the years, they even helped VLC to get unblocked when it was banned in India.

Yeah I didn’t wanna check either haha but yes porn sites are blocked by most ISPs afaik

Airtel or ACT Fibernet would be my suggestion

Sadly yes, this digital authoritarianism is very concerning and immensely worrying

Nope, not yet at least…

Nah they are positively blocked, if you try to access them you’ll be hit by “The website has been blocked as per direction/order of Hon’ble Court.”

that sucks, I’ve never used Jio so I didn’t know that. The ISP that I use doesn’t really block VPNs so that’s good I guess lol

Indeed and as the reply above you mentioned, whom do we vote? If there is a truly good party here, It’s either too unknown or too small so I suppose we can just hope for the best

Some Chinese hacker group called Cicada was using VLC to distribute malicious code and conduct cyberattacks. After this the website for VLC was blocked from February to November (I can’t remember for how long so this timeline might be wrong).

At least that’s what the reports says lol, the official reason was never revealed by the Indian Government which is just the cherry on top of this shit cake

I agree! But it’s still an issue as there are quite a few proton mail users who just wish to achieve a tad bit more privacy and aren’t tech savvy. I know some folks like that myself and tbh sometimes all the technical stuff or going through hoops can just be very daunting/overwhelming at times

The block order hasn’t been initiated “”“yet”“” but knowing the stance the Indian Government has on encryption as a whole, it’s not much to go with.

Say the service does get blocked then the app will be available through F-Droid but the website will most likely be blocked by most ISPs. if any Indian user still wishes to continue using PM if a block order is initiated then they’ll most likely have to use a VPN or a proxy server or through Tor. It’ll also be possible to access the website if they use a different DNS.

I’m really hoping it doesn’t end up being banned but seeing how the Indian government banned VLC a few years ago (unbanned it later on however) for the stupidest reasons possible… Yeah it doesn’t exactly induce much confidence…

Really amazes me how our government handles situations like these in the worst ways possible. Really hope the idiots at the top of the ladder get some braincells and see how stupid this whole debacle is