Blocked in April, IT Ministry lifts VLC Media Player ban

VideoLAN also said that the VLC Media Player is being used by 80 million Indian users who would be forced to download the application and its updates from unauthorised third-party websites, making them “even more vulnerable to data theft and cybersecurity incidents”.

Written by Soumyarendra Barik

New Delhi | Updated: November 15, 2022 01:34 AM IST

3 min read

The Government of India had banned VLC Media Player's website earlier this year.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has lifted the ban on the website of VLC Media Player, nearly nine months after first issuing directions to block the website of VideoLAN, the non-profit that operates VLC Media Player and from where the application can be downloaded.

In October, MeitY had sent a letter to VideoLAN detailing the reasons behind blocking its website in the country, saying that the site was censored for allegedly communicating with servers of a previously banned app, called Onmyoji Arena, which was transferring sensitive personal data of Indians to a “hostile country”, The Indian Express had first reported. MeitY’s letter had come after VideoLAN, with assistance from the Delhi-based digital rights group Internet Freedom Foundation, had issued a legal notice to the ministry seeking to know the reasons for which the site had been blocked in India. On Monday, the ministry sent an email to VideoLAN saying that the “competent authority has approved unblocking the domain videolan.org,” The Indian Express has learnt.

While the email did not entail any reason as to why it decided to lift the ban on VideoLAN’s website, it came after VideoLAN sent a detailed response to MeitY’s October letter, explaining the issues with MeitY’s reasoning. Last week, the government also convened a virtual hearing where representatives of VideoLAN, this paper has learnt. In its response to MeitY, sent on November 6, VideoLAN denied claims that its website was communicating to servers in the “hostile country”. It said that its website does not transmit any user data to its servers, which are all located in the geographical territory of France, with the sole exception of the name of the operating system and its version.

“On VideoLAN’s servers, we host the VideoLAN website, a bug tracker and a mechanism for VLC Media Player to check for the current version and ask the user to update the application, if the version announced on our server is newer than the version installed by the user,” the organisation is learnt to have told the ministry, according to sources.

“This is done to increase safety and cybersecurity of users, since latest versions of applications have enhanced security features and fixes for bugs.”

Queries sent to the IT Ministry remained unanswered until publication.

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In its October letter, MeitY had relied on various “open source threat intelligence reports” to conclude that VLC Media Player was used by a China-backed hacking group called ‘Cicada’ for carrying out cyber attacks. However, in response, VideoLAN said, “Neither the details of this ‘custom malware loader’ nor the manner in which the alleged hackers associated with the Chinese government use the VLC media player have been provided (by the ministry)”.

Soumyarendra Barik

Soumyarendra Barik is Special Correspondent with The Indian Express and reports on the intersection of technology, policy and society. With over five years of newsroom experience, he has reported on issues of gig workers’ rights, privacy, India’s prevalent digital divide and a range of other policy interventions that impact big tech companies. He once also tailed a food delivery worker for over 12 hours to quantify the amount of money they make, and the pain they go through while doing so. In his free time, he likes to nerd about watches, Formula 1 and football. ... Read More

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