Email situation in Auroville
By Auroville Council (AVC)* , 08 Jun 2022 / 01:22 pm
[*The Auroville Council is the working group mandated by the Residents Assdembly to maintain and harmonize the various mandates of the working groups of Auroville and to see that the working groups function according to their mandates. To know more about the Auroville Council mandate :Auroville Council mandate 2004]
Dear Auroville Community,
Following the takeover of our email service by the Office of the Secretary we find ourselves in a precarious position.
The Office of the Secretary is apparently at present in a position to:
– Intercept all email sent to any @auroville.org.in address without detection (without requiring a password change that you would notice),
– Send emails in the name of any @auroville.org.in address without detection (without password requirement),
– Retrieve any information stored on any @auroville.org.in account, including email, google drive (docs, sheets, forms), android phone account, contacts – even if deleted over the past 4 weeks,
– Suspend, reset or transfer any @auroville.org.in account at any time, including email, google drive (docs, sheets, forms), android phone and contacts.
Over the period of the last many years that the service was run under the oversight of the Residents Assembly, multiple-party implementing cross-checks, logs and safeguards were followed so that none of these aforementioned infringements could happen; but now we do not know the Office of the Secretary’s position or procedures. However since the takeover, we know that the Office of the Secretary has disabled a number of personal and working group accounts, has blocked certain email addresses from receiving and sending to auroville.org.in emails, and has begun using some of them inappropriately.
This situation is unacceptable in terms of privacy, security and work continuity.
We have therefore decided to initiate the shift to a new and independent service. We have already backed up all the core Auroville services to it, such as the Working Committee and Auroville Council. These all share the common domain name “auroville.services”, to clearly identify them as official community services of the Residents’ Assembly. For example:
Unfortunately the Office of the Secretary (or whoever they have appointed to oversee the auroville.org.in domain) has already noticed and blocked our new domain (auroville.services) from communicating with auroville.org.in. This means that our new email addresses cannot send emails to or receive emails from auroville.org.in. Therefore the only option we are left with, is to suggest that community members, who feel concerned by the present situation and want to use a trusted communication platform, create new email accounts that are not under the @auroville.org.in domain (ie. @gmail.com, @outlook.com, @protonmail.com) and to inform the Residents Service ([email protected]) of their new email ID. If you need help with creating a new email account, you will receive help using this link: https://forms.gle/kDfBWoSEKkwf5kgF6
In time, we hope to be able to provide a free and secure email service to all Aurovillians under one domain as before, but this may take some more time.
In regard to the Auroville Council, the old email id [email protected] will continue to be in use, but we advise you to write to us on [email protected] from a non-auroville.org.in email account.
In regard to the Working Committee, the old email id ([email protected]) has been taken over and you can no longer reach us using it. In order to reach us, please write to [email protected], but you will need to write to us from a non-auroville.org.in email account otherwise your message will be blocked.
To know more about Auroville organisation:https://standforaurovilleunity.com/auroville-organisation/