<story><title>Indian government bans 14 messenger apps including Element, Briar and Threema</title><url>https://news.abplive.com/technology/india-ban-messaging-messenger-apps-mobile-pakistan-terrorism-connection-crypviser-enigma-safeswiss-bchat-1599074</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rogers18445</author><text>These things are typically bureaucratic security theater. Terrorists can sideload. The decision makers just care to be seen doing something, whether it&amp;#x27;s useful or not is not their problem.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>p-e-w</author><text>You severely underestimate the people in power, and the people who stand behind them.&lt;p&gt;Such bans are deliberate attacks targeting (parts of) the general population. Terrorists have nothing to do with this.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Hahaha those stupid bureaucrats, they have no idea what they are doing&amp;quot; is a popular meme, but it couldn&amp;#x27;t be further from the truth. They &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; know what they are doing, and it&amp;#x27;s working. If you believe it isn&amp;#x27;t, that&amp;#x27;s only because you misunderstand what the real goal is.</text></comment>
<story><title>Indian government bans 14 messenger apps including Element, Briar and Threema</title><url>https://news.abplive.com/technology/india-ban-messaging-messenger-apps-mobile-pakistan-terrorism-connection-crypviser-enigma-safeswiss-bchat-1599074</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rogers18445</author><text>These things are typically bureaucratic security theater. Terrorists can sideload. The decision makers just care to be seen doing something, whether it&amp;#x27;s useful or not is not their problem.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Barrin92</author><text>&amp;gt;Terrorists can sideload&lt;p&gt;many don&amp;#x27;t because terrorists in reality don&amp;#x27;t tend to be very smart. And if they do, its not that difficult to trick them and compromise that channel aswell (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;fbi-app-arrests-australia-crime&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;2021&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;08&amp;#x2F;fbi-app-arre...&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;The amount of people who get caught on insecure communication, including some famous tech CEOs, is staggering. Most people, criminal or not, are completely security&amp;#x2F;tech illiterate. Changing the default has a huge impact. Webs in these investigations tend to be wide so it&amp;#x27;s not just about literal criminals, if one suspect leaks info to anyone that may be enough for authorities to catch on, it&amp;#x27;s a statistical game basically and the harder you make it to not mess up the higher your chance to catch someone.&lt;p&gt;Gentle reminder that the US intelligence leaker was caught because he distributed the material on a gaming discord on an account with user info that was one Google search away from his father&amp;#x27;s instagram and steam profile. And that guy was US National Guard tech support staff.</text></comment>