No Social Networking/External Email access for Indian Diplomats
Indian government earlier asked it’s employees to not use Yahoo/Gmail accounts citing lack of control over these email 
servers as the reason.
And now, the government has upped the ban by blocking social networks, external email services, picture sharing sites for diplomats and has overhauled its computer network to fend off any kind of security attacks.
“There are almost 600 computers at its headquarters at South Block, about half of which are connected to the Internet. Classified work is typically done on stand-alone computers, usually with the external drives removed.
We have set up a unified threat management system for the ministry. This simultaneously uses eight levels of protection like firewalls and spam mail filtering. ” – source
Well, this is not so surprising – many corporate too have done the same. Given that many diplomats aren’t too tech savvy to understand the security aspects of data, I guess this is a good decision.
The Opportunity
NIC’s email system needs an overhaul and there lies an opportunity for Rediff/Sify/Indian companies to sell their ‘made/hosted in India’ service (this is an opportunity which Yahoo/Google/MSN of the world cannot cash upon).
The bigger question is whether Indian companies really boast of a robust system to meet government requirements?
What’s your opinion?
Also see: Email and IM top the Productivity Loss, Porn Usage goes up
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Related posts:
- What Globalization? Indian Govt. wants Google/Yahoo/Microsoft to Host Indian Email accounts ending with .in, servers in India
- Social Networking Kills Productivity for Indian Corporate Employees by 12.5% [ASSOCHAM Report]..Agree?
- Opportunities for Email Marketing Business in India
- Goolel – Mobile Social Networking, Chat Rooms and Push Email Service
- Yahoo launches Mash – the new new social networking platform. Get your invitation
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
I am hoping the Indian Govt IT dept (if there is any such thing) is NOT idiotic enough to “just” require that the server be hosted in India.
I think what the Indian govt really wants is a tighter control on mail along with ability to filter incoming and outgoing mail any/every way they can. What that would require is that the India Govt run its own mail servers, which is really not a tough thing to do.
A rediff/sify/etc solution is not going to help because the servers would still be owned and operated by a third party. And that third party would have a significant control over the mails that go through the system. And that third party would be a private organization. All three of those are a BIG NO-NO.
Bottom line: I don’t think the govt is (should be) looking at OUTSOURCING their mail servers. What the govt is probably looking at doing is setting is a Govt only Intranet and mail system that provides tighter control from within and that cannot be accessed from outside by third party of hackers.
Where is the electricity to run the servers in India man? n even if there is, why should it not be provided to the poor, instead of providiing if for infrastructure for not-so-net savvy diplomats and their children?