Security Strategy, Plan, Budget

India threatens jail for visiting forbidden sites

The Indian government is reported to have issued a new warning that internet users who visit ‘forbidden' websites may get a three-year jail sentence plus a fine of three lakh (‘00,000) Rupees (£3,400).

Bollywood filmmakers have strongly called for banning of torrent sites, but among the thousands of websites currently blocked in the country are 857 new sites such as Vimeo, Weebly and Github, many of which have nothing to do with torrent downloads, but possibly contain pornographic content.

In an email to SCMagazineUK.com NordVPN, a VPN provider, noted that the threat of new punishments for accessing forbidden sites could turn India into one of the biggest markets for VPN (Virtual Private Network) service providers in the world. A VPN links a user¹s computer to a server in a country of their choice via an encrypted tunnel so, for example, a person can appear to be in the US, while they actually are in India, and vice versa.

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