I had no idea that using certain apps can land you in a lot of trouble abroad.
A client was visiting an Asian country to see a supplier.
Whilst there are likely other issues that alerted the authorities- there was effectively a falling out over quality and pricing and authorities were involved. No doubt under the counter payments got them involved.
They got hold of the client’s phone and held him for having 256bit encryption on his banking app. The maximum allowed is 40 bits without written permission / a licence from the authorities.
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Not the sort of thing the average tourist needs to worry about really
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Which backwards country was this?
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My guess would be India where they have introduced a law restricting Joe Public to 40bit encryption (which is trivial to crack). How they hope to reconcile that with their mandate that banks (and infrastructure operators) use strong encryption to protect their communications is anyone's guess.
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>> My guess would be India where they have introduced a law restricting Joe Public to
>> 40bit encryption (which is trivial to crack). How they hope to reconcile that with their
>> mandate that banks (and infrastructure operators) use strong encryption to protect their communications is anyone's
>> guess.
>>
That's my understanding.
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>> Not the sort of thing the average tourist needs to worry about really
You're probably right there but it's interesting how easy it is to fall foul of the law when travelling.
Various UK prescription or over the counter medicines, particularly but by no means exclusively those containing codeine, can get you into trouble.
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>> Not the sort of thing the average tourist needs to worry about really
>>
I think you're right, until that country wants to stir up a fuss or make an example of someone, or make a point to the UK etc.
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It's another case of politicians and technology. Oil and water. Just look at that steaming pile of our own Online Safety Bill.
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>> It's another case of politicians and technology. Oil and water. Just look at that steaming
>> pile of our own Online Safety Bill.
The average politician's ignorance of science is almost wilful. I include statistics.
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>> I include statistics.
>>
Oh they know statistics far too well.
An acquaintance of mine worked for the NSO in the late '80s / early '90s as an IT bod and had to run queries on the data sets and present graphs to them.
The classic was just selecting the bit of the graph that showed what they wanted - so a deteriorating trend with a small improvement in the middle - the bit with the improvement was the bit that they showed.
This guff ought to be illegal.
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That brings back memories. IIRC it was something to do with 'tails' and if an improvement could be seen on these 'tails' it was quoted as a percentage, implying it was an overall improvement.
I'll have to go and sleep on it.
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Using Banking Apps etc Abroad… - CGNorwich
