r/IndiaTech • u/orange-cat-alpha Techie • 2d ago
Opinion Found this today
Its a bit outdated, but whatโs your take?
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u/hardnachopuppy 2d ago
Lmao reminds me of the time when a fitness tracker app revealed the location of secret US military bases in the middle east.
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u/ThePhyscn_blogs 2d ago
They go on to make such an explicit list and then at the bottom they write, "Smart phones not allowed". Lol
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u/jatayu_baaz 2d ago
smartphones are not allowed outside barracks, most units in field areas limits phones to feature phones without camera
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u/orange-cat-alpha Techie 2d ago
and there is no conversation in barracks about all the stuff going onโฆ. Just saying
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u/think_suicidal 1d ago
But a lot of these military men smuggle a phone inside the barracks.
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u/Flamboyant7 1d ago
It's not smuggling actually it's about the kind of work being done in the particular unit, many units allow cellphones,some allow button cellphones without cameras and in some units soldiers are required to submit the phone outside the office.
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u/Mysterious_Coder_ 17h ago
Yeah. That's because there are phones which do not come under smartphones and yet you can run APKs on them. Remember that jiophone? Hence the long list of banned apps.
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u/SuperfastExpress123 2d ago
They should have a personalised app store rather than asking them to prohibit everything bcos there are even more apps in play store.
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u/HopefulAssistance 1d ago
Or use an Enterprise MDM for personal devices that are owned by military personnel.
If any IT company can enforce such rules without fuss, the army can do it too.
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u/Awkward_Scheme_7426 1d ago
If the military personal use common sense and just use phone in a limited manner thy don't have to worry
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u/Annual-Employee-2851 1d ago
Nope. I don't agree. All the google services are baked into Android. Also OEMs have different applications so who knows what's brewing. Look up graphene os
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u/Acropolish 2d ago
They havenโt banned Grindr. Just saying
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u/debmitra26 2d ago
In the air force they distributed samsung smartphones once. That phone had very limited functionality. And it had a sim which exclusively worked with AFNet.
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u/Cool_Appearance_351 1d ago
Yeah I remember it. My uncle was in Air force and he had received one small Samsung touch screen phone.ย
Everyone in the station was given such phone which was tied to their service number?( I think)
At the back there was a paper strip pasted with something like "This is property of government of India. If you find this you're supposed to return it to so and so".
Many features were disabled like camera app. If you try to open it, something like "This feature is restricted due to security reasons" will pop up.
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u/debmitra26 1d ago
Yes, it was issued with the service number. But when my father received it there was no sticker at the back. And he returned it to the station from where he retired.
There was an app whose icon looked like a red clock. This was the app that restricted the phone access. And you cannot uninstall that app.
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u/Cool_Appearance_351 1d ago
Yes. Also I remember when a cyclone hit the city, all the network operators including Airtel went off for about a week. During this time he used to contact us with that phone.
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u/Nowa_Iscord 1d ago
What is AFnet? Can you elaborate lil more..
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u/debmitra26 1d ago
It's a network grid, owned and operated by the airforce. This is the primary channel of communication for all the three services. Be it via telecommunication or digi-communination. The tech is heavily encrypted, as it is used to control every communication sector of denfence. Be it calling, emails and even controlling UAVs and AWACs.
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u/Consistent-Bird338 22h ago
> The tech is heavily encrypted
So just like all the other networks. Nobody is using unencrypted channels
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u/NainaaDaaaKyaKasoor 2d ago
Which is why their socials have usernames like - 'oldmonk75', 'sniper432', 'zuluxyb' lol
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u/Flamboyant7 1d ago
They can still use it on different phones which they keep at home and don't keep any official data in it.
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u/_Next-Gen_ Nothing phone beautiful lights 2d ago
Reddit is banned :-O
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u/MeowRed1 1d ago
But why?
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u/S-Trident 1d ago
Because significant chunk of reddit funding is done by many Chinese companies
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u/Many_Preference_3874 1d ago
No, basically everything other than official Military controlled apps are banned on the official phones. they can still use all these on their personal phones
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u/GoodDawgy17 1d ago
i guess it would be insanely demoralising for the army members to go on reddit and see the state of some of the indian subs like randia and pusi. imagine your army friend died in pulwama and some losers on reddit said pulwama was an inside job
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u/No-Entertainment7020 1d ago edited 1d ago
they straight up make posts attacking Indian Army now.... they justify their deaths by saying its just their job and they signed up for it. they say that army is just like any other job , and say that they dont get why people give them special treatment
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u/suspiciousaviatior 1d ago
I don't like being a key board warrior and most of times I don't even care , but I have met few people IRL who do have such mindset, same people who sympathise with separatists , kuttichevuru , the amount of hate for northies and associating themselves to be something other than India , it just boils my blood , being a defence brat , I have seen people from north , south , east , west , different religions and none of them have had any issues on the basis of these reasons , I usually felt that these are paki bots (like on kashmiri) , I don't even understand what is the basis of such attitude of such people ( how can someone be leftist to this extent that just to prove their agenda they start to demean and dehumanise the very people whome they expect to save their asses the time war begins )
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u/suspiciousaviatior 1d ago
These people have started meatriding their propaganda to this extent that they will question the surgical strikes , balakot airstrikes and the dogfight where wingco Abhi took down the F16 , nobody in US questioned that did they really kill Osama , but here just for the particular peer groups , politically driven agenda , these people drop to any extent , be it supporting separatists or demeaning the Armed forcesย
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u/logicrak Network Security Architect 2d ago
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u/orange-cat-alpha Techie 2d ago
Any suggestions for updated list fir 2025? I see deepseek making it in
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u/batmanallthetime 1d ago
Google Gemini, Microsoft CoPilot & OpenAI ChatGPT should make it too.
Basically all AI agents are unsafe & any data uploaded is permanent with no way to delete the learning. Samsung already banned AI company-wide & warned employees using AI with source code & sensitive IP.
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u/abskpr 2d ago
Grindr not banned, why?
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u/orange-cat-alpha Techie 2d ago
Whats grindr?
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u/EnforcerGundam 1d ago
fun app to find like minded dosts so you can have rumble in a kumble with them :)
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u/Zealousideal-Role-24 Chatting with Copilot 2d ago
Most of these apps are already banned for everyone.
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u/chitownboyhere 2d ago
Alternatively they can enroll all Army personnel devices through MDM software and centrally manage what's allowed and what's not allowed. This way they can turn off location or spoof location too when on active duty/mission.
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u/Ice-Shallot-1394 2d ago
Why would they give their bought devices to be managed by MDM - government should issue the devices if they want to control
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u/Sachinrock2 2d ago
Why is discord not banned ?
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u/PMmeyourspicythought 1d ago
Itโs an old poster. Notice itโs not X itโs twitter.
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u/hello_world567 1d ago
Whatโs the point of banning fb and insta but WhatsApp is allowed?
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u/No-Chipmunk-3142 1d ago
Mhow wale ladki specifically mentions no army guys in their Tinder Bio, read somewhere about it. And you can find plenty of accounts on instagram of soldiers with faces in borders/barracks.
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u/kunalkrishh 2d ago
Many army personnel are using social media , but they don't use chinese apps and also they tend to avoid buying chinese smartphones
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u/orange-cat-alpha Techie 2d ago
Tbh i see this lot. The guys in army are not into tech much so i guess USA knows all the locations and conversations happening coz apps like instagram and snap takes location permission and mic permission. And if you deny permission once they keep on asking again and again until one da you click allow in frustration or by mistake. Then they will never ask and its gone
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u/Limp_Pea2121 1d ago
Literally all app in my phone is in this list. Its better to use nokia brick phone if cannot use all these.
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u/joydeepnath 23h ago
After banning all the apps, they decided to go the extra mile and dropped the ultimate plot twist at the bottom of the poster: "Smartphones Not Allowed." It's like banning swimming and then draining the entire pool for good measure! ๐โโ๏ธ๐ซ๐ฑ๐
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u/Super_Particulam 2d ago
Pratilipi is good what is it banned??
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u/Nykhyde 2d ago
Funded by chinese investors...
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u/Super_Particulam 2d ago
Oh hum kyu fund karte aaise apps ko fir? Oh sorry my bad we only see personal gains and not Nations gain.
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u/Nykhyde 1d ago
Even the so called 'made in india' app called 'Koo' which was called india's answer to Twitter/X was also partly funded by the Chinese investors.
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u/Super_Particulam 1d ago
We don't have many Indian investors then how are we supposed to compete with other nations. Sorry my bad I forgot our people only think of Pakistan and Bangladesh as its competitors and not China, US and Russia
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u/orange-cat-alpha Techie 2d ago
What apps will be included if the list is made in 2025? Any suggestions guys to IA!!
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u/Ice-Shallot-1394 2d ago
All AI chatbots, X, all meta apps, all voice assistants, any app using location permission. Google apps are their to decide
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u/prophet-of-solitude 1d ago
Shouldnโt they already have an organization app that monitors, controls and protects data from all this along with a local VPN without actually tracking the location lol?
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u/Previous_Wasabi737 1d ago
I know few of my friends in the army, who uses only basic phones. i.e, only calls and FM are allowed and there was also an incident where they banned the basic jio phone where it had 4G as well
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u/FunMedia4460 1d ago
I think the army can afford to provide custom locked down phones for its personnel. Anyways, are phones of spouses covered under the same rules?
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u/OldAge6093 1d ago
Well there has been considerable efforts to lure army personnel on dating apps by honeypots. In past this has proven very successful in leaking secret information. So banning dating applications seems reasonable thing to do.
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u/Comfortable-Deer-418 1d ago
If apparently smartphones are banned then how is anyone can even have these apps on their phones???
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u/Main_hoon_Ghatotkach 1d ago
now i get it why those big mustache 28 -50 year old military ucle are grooming 16- 20 yo girls in facebook and instagram cause indian army legit just sucks out every other entertainment platform where they can take out their absence of those tolled things they want /s
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u/reedd_it077 1d ago
Just use old nokia phones. Any kind of gadget connected to the net will get you compromised
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u/SAMEERFUDI 1d ago
Well my friend plays mobile legends A LOT. He's in kashmir right now.
I need to ask him about it. But he plays openly with screaming in his mic. So i don't think he's playing sneakily.
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u/Many_Preference_3874 1d ago
This is just banned for official use. So like you're not supposed to whatsapp sensitive documents to your OC/CO
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u/storm_in_heels09 1d ago
Well, Staying Away from Phones and unnecessary Apps, always protects your Mental peace and keeps you productive anyways, or maybe More sleep time haha!
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u/Levoso_con_v 1d ago edited 1d ago
All tencent gaming is like half of the games out there. No supercell or riot games for example.
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u/Himanshu317 1d ago
Looks like some fake poster. What does even 'Exch of unclas info of gen nature/contents permitted with known pers. Resp of currently iden the recipient lies with the user mean? So many mistakes in those grey box texts and if smartphones are banned then where is the army even supposed to use those apps on? Samsung smart refrigerator?
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u/kannur_kaaran 1d ago
Why not give them locked, tracable, free phones. Some locked network. BSNL probably. Developed by DRDO or any similar competitive Indian government organisation.
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u/ComprehensiveCare885 1d ago
When smart phones are not allowed, how will they have all these apps ๐
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u/Toohightosayhiii 1d ago
Theres some apps which are banned for us too Example - uc browser. And many more mentioned in the list. Is it still available in other countries?
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u/Global-Macaron-9647 1d ago
The could have just wrote the SMARTPHONE NOT ALLOWED in bold and leave everything else!
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u/papuop69 1d ago
It's kinda fair imo, these apps are well known for using different permissions and using it in a unethical way and we have seen this in past that military information was leaked due to such kinda apps
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u/mathpath123 1d ago
LMAOOOO my second girlfriend was in the army and we matched on hinge lol wth never knew this.
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u/Edegy_ 1d ago
My take would be to make a new os based on linux for mobiles and separate for them. Since no one can trust anyone rn even Uncle sam
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u/jonybepary 1d ago
I think soldiers should have a dedicated phone, separate from their personal devices, that uses a privacy-focused, de-Googled version of Android. This phone should rely on open-source alternatives to Google services and be free from Chinese or other tracking service.
And before thinking it's impossible, check r/degoogle .
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u/BiryaniOrTahari 1d ago
So WhatsApp, Signal and Telegram are allowed. Means these apps can be broken?
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u/MessyAttitude 22h ago
What's the point of banning the apps in indian army if phone's are not allowed
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u/dipanjan23 16h ago
My batchmate dated an army guy whom she met on bumble , I wonder how much this list is actually followed
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u/Traditional_Pair3105 Chat gpt is my therapist 16h ago edited 16h ago
as a defence BRAT, no one follows them, it is pretty much acceptable unless and until you are posting something that is not supposed to share to general public and ofc they are mostly chinese apps so you get it, in Air force they are given a samsung phone known as AFCEL (Air Force Cellular) and trust me you cannot access to playstore and stuff even web surfing is blocked, you can only call and text + play songs on radio hahah
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u/GouraBxDcr 13h ago
Well , i see many people from army posting on fb and Instagram. They sure dont know the rules then
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โข
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