Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

They definitely are.

Beat cops definitely aren't, but most police forces in India are state level and a couple are federal, and will usually have a Task Force devoted to offensive and defensive security, and if not, will contract out to companies like Appin Security Group (who were able to force Reuters and SentinelOne to remove their report into how the private-public cyber model in India operated [0])

Also, after the 2008 Mumbai Attacks, the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs began working on coordinating and centralizing Metadata Analysis and Monitoring [1][2][3], because they unable to trace the VoIP calls used by LeT [4].

If it was actually National Security related, it would have went through a couple fusion centers that the Indian government formed [5][6]. If it was some local PD asking the platform, they probably wouldn't have the capabilities to DDOS

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-hack...

[1] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Monitoring_System

[2] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATGRID

[3] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRDO_NETRA

[4] - https://www.wired.com/2008/12/mumbai-and-voip/

[5] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cyber_Coordination_...

[6] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Cyber_Crime_Coordinat...

So, Indian police is actually able to do quite the lot of pressure when terrorism is involved... but when Americans like Scammer Payback report giant scam callcenters with credible evidence, they take well over a year to raid it, and leak the first raid to the scammers beforehand? [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdEELggaY5Q

> Indian police is actually able to do quite the lot of pressure when terrorism is involved

Because terrorism related stuff falls under the Indian equivalent of Homeland Security, even if it's local PD triaging.

> Americans like Scammer Payback report giant scam callcenters with credible evidence, they take well over a year to raid it

Raids that are not National Security related need coordination between the Federal Government and State Government in India. The scamming call centers are located in a state called West Bengal. West Bengal is ruled by a regional opposition party called the TMC. West Bengal removed it's consent for Federal Police in India to raid without the consent of West Bengal Police. This ended up in the Supreme Court for a couple years [0].

On top of that, the scamming call centers are closely tied to the ruling party machinery in that state, as you need to get a license from the state government to operate a call center, and these kinds of call centers will often be donating to local political parties to look the other way.

Watch Jamtara on Netflix. It's a good overview on the economics of scam calls in India.

[0] - https://www.deccanherald.com/india/cbi-independent-legal-ent...

Ah, so that is the reason why it's always West Bengal that's mentioned in SP and the other scambaiter videos? I had wondered about that before - I thought that it's mostly because he has infiltrated some local scammer coordination group on Whatsapp.

Many thanks for the context!

Np. India is a federal democracy like the US. The same kind of state-federal clashes that happen in the US happen in India.

Think of Indian democracy as being similar to American democracy in the 1890s-1930s, when local despots like Huey Long and populists like William Jennings Bryan roamed the planet.

> that is the reason why it's always West Bengal

Yep. In other states they either will get raided by the Federal Police (eg. CBI) or the economics of running a call center doesn't make sense.

To run a scamming call center you need a low cost English speaking population AND Political Backing. Most states in India will have 1, but not 2 (or at least, not for call centers).

Don't forget hacking activists computers and phones to plant files to convict them of terrorism. [0]

[0] https://www.wired.com/story/modified-elephant-stan-swamy-hac...

That's local/state level police.

That entire apparatus is rotten due to the incentive structure - if you as a cop don't listen to politicians, you'll get a last minute transfer to some village in the middle of nowhere with no running water

Reply on news.ycombinator.com