Avoid Yahoo/Gmail – Central Govt. to Officials
The Central govt. has advised govt. officials to avoid using Yahoo or Gmail for exchanging emails, citing lack of control over these email servers as the reason.
Even though the govt. officials have nic id, they prefer to use web based emails (better speed, performance)
“There are apprehensions that since their servers are not hosted from India, use of such email service to transfer official data or information exposed it to unnecessary risks as the data first go to a server in another geographic location, before reaching the intended recipient. Use of these email services on official computers could also expose them” – source
Well, our govt. fails to keep pace with technology (remember Blackberry blackout?) and instead of upgrading it’s infra, they want to stay happy with mediocre decisions like these.
What’s your opinion?
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Related posts:
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- Govt. decodes Blackberry – all set to snoop
- Indian Army advises men to avoid sharing employment information on Orkut and Facebook
- No Social Networking/External Email access for Indian Diplomats
- Listen to Music Right from your Gmail account – Dhingana launches Gmail and iGoogle Widgets
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 with the Indian Government on this. I think it is a too much to data security risk if Google and Yahoo store and index content uploaded by Government employees. Of couse at the same time, Indian companies/startups should also step forward and provide reliable alternatives.
“I am with Indian Govt. on this”…lol. Are you above mediocrity yourself? Simply a dumb under-evaluated statement wouldn’t do. Ask your Indian govt. to get up and think technology instead of behaving like a zombie.
wonderful opportunity for rediiff mail :O
If security is an issue, this is a bad decision as if the server is hosted in India or outside India, one who wishes to jack into the system does not physically arrive at the server location. He would be doing that by IP or so.
Also, how can you assure that the .nic server has a better security than a Yahoo / Gmail server?
i mean “hack into the system”
It’s not about hacking. It’s about who is indexing your content.
I agree ALL OF THE ABOVE
- Wonderful opportunity for Rediff and other Indian email providers to take over email management of nic and migrate over to their own systems with their own servers
- It is not necessarily true that NIC had better security than Yahoo & Google
- NIC should definitely upgrade it’s standards. Outsourcing to Rediff may be the way to go
- Govt employees should stop using free email services and become security conscious
[...] Avoid Yahoo/Gmail – Central Govt. to Officials [...]
yes i agree , as far as security is concerned it is important to do .