Without giving any reason, Indian authorities blocked access to “www.videolan.org” in August. This is the official VLC media player website. Since then, VideoLAN, the media player’s publisher, has sent a formal warning to India’s Department of Telecommunications and Ministry of Electronics and IT (DoT and MeiTY). More newsyorbit.com
MeiTY received a request for information under the Right to Information (RTI) law from VideoLAN following the ban; the Internet Freedom Foundation helped with the request (IFF). MeiTY said that they are unaware of any details surrounding the prohibition.
VLC
IFF claims that VideoLAN was not given prior notice or a chance to respond to the allegations. After that, VideoLAN sent a legal notice to the two government agencies.
Some cybersecurity experts have claimed that a Chinese hacker group called Cicada used VLC to distribute malware, and the government reportedly forbade downloading VLC from the program’s official website because of this.
However, the government has not provided any information or justification for why the website was blocked in the country. The Chinese government reportedly approved of the attack. The hacking collective has gained a reputation for its years-long campaign of attacks on non-governmental organizations (NGOs). More newsyorbit.com
