Saturday, January 03, 2009

A Tech's Worst Nightmare

There's a thread in Slashdot about the IT Act (Ammendemnt) Bill, 2006, recently passed by our own govt.
From the looks of it, it is going to be worser than DMCA or anything the yankees have come up with their brain-deadness. There are already provisions to:
  • Intercept "person-to-person" communication
  • Provision of blocking certain websites (although, how dare a handful decide what are we supposed to view online?)
  • DMCA like measures, which can whisk you off no matter you upload 'undesirable' contets to servers hosted 'outside' India's borders.
  • Liability of P2P transfers.
This would also mean that:
  • You may not mail jokes, not even forward one.
  • You may not surf Bollywood news.
  • You can't watch bad stuff -- big no no.
Hahaha... what's this? Utopia? I have always felt that India needs something like EFF to protect the Electronic Privacy of Netizens. Too few of my friends got me. I still think we have time to create one. There are numerous ones to protect 'women', why don't we form one to protect Netizen's rights?
Why do you fail to see that these sort of stupid laws prevent us even from blogging? Isn't that considered as transmission of undesirable (at least to some people) electronic data?  You can't criticize.. ugh!
I had great respect for my govt., that it wouldn't take brain-dead laws like Aussies, or the EU, or like Yankees. I lost that respect. I hate the law makers now.
I opt for an EFF-India wing. I don't like to be spied upon. For any matters, whatsoever.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would second your proposition. I would really love to see something like EFF in India. If only I could do something about it.

Mahesh Aravind said...

@binnyva

I've been thinking about it a lot. Why don't we try poking some NGOs and/or some Lawyers for the same purpose.

Would Eben be able to help us in this? He knows laws, right? Why don't we mail him?
(yeah, crazy/childish ideas)

chickoo said...

Advocate Hariraj is another alternative. May be he can also help

Unknown said...

I thought we people were blessed with freedom of expression and information(i hope all understood ...frndly ones), right to life and liberty. i donno what will happen in the near future but one thing is sure...there are many 'sub-inspectors' in Kerala(i mean) who are unaware of this technical world. may be its time for them to learn by disturbing our sleeps. Well it seems to be more obvious that there is no preservation of our rights and civil liberties.

Indian Democracy sucks.....
Bringing non-profit electronic frontier in India is a gud idea.
hoping our thirst for the digital rights will be satisfied...

Mahesh Aravind said...

@rubz
Very true. Its sad that few people understand / value the weight of freedom.

I'd look up to people like you to join hands and fight injustice and totalitarianism, in whatever way they obstruct us.

¡Viva la libertad