Hi Ish, Suyash,
At 08:44 17-02-2016, Ish Sookun wrote:
>I briefly read the letter by Apple today. A company like Apple went
>public denouncing the "exigence" of the Federal Bureau of
>Investigation. In Mauritius if there is demand by the State, I
>believe the private sector would fear any retaliation should they
>not abide. I cannot substantiate the same with examples but that's
>more of an observation I've had in recent times.
I could not think of any large company in Mauritius which sells tech
products to the consumer. There are small companies selling tech
products. I once talked to a person managing such a company; the
person seemed afraid that his/her company might lose its contracts if
he/she said commented about a technical matter.
>There is fear of the Government which reigns almost everywhere you
>go in Mauritius. At the same time there is little or no transparency
>in the work undertaken by Government agencies. Under those
>conditions it becomes even more difficult to discuss the privacy and
>security matters.
There is a tendency to associate a disagreement about government
policy with politics. None of the persons who represented this group
are involved in politics. It's nearly impossible to discuss about
privacy and security issues on the island as there is very little
interest to discuss about that openly.
>My opinion is if you compromise the security for any particular
>reason, then there is no security at all. It is too naive to say in
>Government we trust.
Would it sound naive if I ask someone to trust a government agency
with personal information? The local answer is no while the
non-local answer would be yes.
During a discussion a representative of the Ministry of Technology,
Communication and Information commented that the country has all the
necessary (tech-related) laws. There is very little information
about how those laws are applied to tech-related problems. People
seem to distrust local web sites; they don't seem to have a trust
issue with foreign web sites. In my opinion this would affect a
local startup as it would be at a disadvantage in comparison with a
foreign company selling a similar service.
At 10:08 17-02-2016, Suyash Sumaroo wrote:
>I also believe that Apple genuinely does not want to add backdoors
>to the IPhone. There have been some studies showing that encryption
>does not necessarily mean that terrorists or criminals are going to
>use it to communicate or 'stay in the dark' [1].
There have been discussions about backdoors in several countries
[1][2][3]. A backdoor is similar to introducing a security flaw in a
product or service. If you are using a smartphone in a significant
way the device might hold information about your private life and
information to access financial services, e.g. your bank
account. Who would provide compensation if that information is compromised?
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
1.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/106369
2.
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/amendements/3318/CION_LOIS/CL92.asp
3.
http://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/brieven_regering/detail?id=2016Z00009&did=2016D00015
Received on Wed Feb 17 2016 - 22:52:19 PST