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India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

reuters.com

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Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#471

Post by eru »

Saline9515 wrote: post #393
eru wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US (approximately) everyone has a social security number and a driver's license. In practice, those are equivalent to universal ID, just more annoying to use in everyday life.

Digital ID is also an identification system, social security number isn't. For instance you can't ID people on porn sites using it.

Yes, so you get all the downsides of

> "Legal" protections can disappear in one evening, and then you are left with a centralized system, very practical for population control.

but none of the upsides.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#472

Post by NebulaStorm456 »

lukan wrote: post #446
NebulaStorm456 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was talking about the power structure rather than normal people

I see. You argue, that for example the Taliban in Afghanistan are happy to bend their knees "to a superior white globalist monolith"? Also out of curiosity, does a person with a white skin counts as "normal people" to you?

Go through my comments. See the expanse of my mind.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#473

Post by tempestn »

rramadass wrote: post #352
rishabhaiover wrote: post #22

I'm shocked by people and state using the crutch of cyber crime or scams to push a totalitarian solution to a problem that is better solved by improved education and targeted campaigns against common security pitfalls. I abhor any decision that robs even a grain of my individual freedom.

> I abhor any decision that robs even a grain of my individual freedom. Silly goose. "Freedom" is always balanced against "Responsibility" (both Individual and Group); it can never be absolute. The latter needs State support. That is the reason my "freedom" to rob you is curtailed by the "State's (i.e. Group's) responsibility" enacting laws to prevent it. You also exercise "your (i.e. Individual) responsibility" when…

This comment would've been good without the pointless insult at the top.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#474

Post by dvdkon »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #366
amarant wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HOW would this hypothetical person use it against you? It's a driver's licence infringing on my privacy too? Cause they're mostly the same, at least the way they're implemented in Sweden

How many ways can you slice a cake? The point is that the more identifiable information that the monopoly on violence has the easier it is for something, anything really, to be used against you should your tribal affiliation conflict with the ruling party. This is like politics 101

At least where I live, there's no extra information being gathered. The only difference is that I no longer have to physically go somewhere to deal with that information, because I can sign in to government services online.

Information that was previously in paper form and scattered across various bureaus is now being digitised and centralised, but that's orthogonal to "digital ID"!

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#475

Post by saagarjha »

nunobrito wrote: post #395
mac-attack wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you see how you look like a bad faith actor by making claims and they telling others to research your facts?

It is tiresome to repeat the facts on each thread when this has already been thoroughly documented. I'm not your personal google search engine.

But you are perfectly content to comment on this. Strange priorities, I guess?

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#476

Post by komali2 »

pfannkuchen wrote: post #391
komali2 wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what are the odds that this problem organically appeared and then they happen to be able to take advantage of it? Quite low. Borders weren't open to fabricate an excuse to engage in authoritarianism - the excuse was simply fabricate, whole-cloth, with no basis in reality to justify it. There is no immigration problem in the USA. Large portions of the American economy are dependent on immigration, documented or othe…

> There is no immigration problem in the USA Well this is a controversial statement. Many people have thought there was an immigration problem in the USA since well before Trump entered politics. If I pretend to believe that there is definitely no immigration problem, though, then I agree with you. But like I said, that is a controversial statement. Would you believe that the people who support this just do believe t…

> Would you believe that the people who support this just do believe there is an immigration problem?

Yes, of course I believe that there's people who believe there's an immigration problem.

> People are allowed to care about things other than the economy and crime stats, by the way.

What sort of problems would one believe can arise from immigration that aren't related to the economy or public safety?

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#477

Post by DocTomoe »

rishabhaiover wrote: post #22

I'm shocked by people and state using the crutch of cyber crime or scams to push a totalitarian solution to a problem that is better solved by improved education and targeted campaigns against common security pitfalls. I abhor any decision that robs even a grain of my individual freedom.

I'm not shocked at all. It's the nature of things for people - on average - to not want to learn. How many of your peers have shouted 'no more school' or something similar during their graduation?

How many people do you know who seem to be completely immune to learning? Go to any non-tech office an you will find shared passwords on post-it-notes, after 40 years of mantra-style 'Do not share your passwords' messaging.

If something goes wrong, it's not their fault, it's the machine's fault. "Why was this possible in the first place?" they ask. "Build it so this becomes impossible." That mindset let to OSHA regulations, to ever-safer aircraft, and to encryption on the web. It's not necessary a bad thing, it just throws out our - tech folks' - baby with the bathwater. How often has the increasingly regulated tech environment made you stop an easy implementation of a completely legitimate use case?

And yes, authoritarians thrive in this climate. Fear and promises of safety are the easiest paths to political power - and once in power, the demand for safety never ends. Politicians who genuinely prioritize individual freedom rarely get rewarded for it at the ballot box; the ones who win are simply better at wearing the right colours while expanding control.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#478

Post by monerozcash »

nephihaha wrote: post #162
MonkeyClub wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm shocked India is currently run by a nationalist regime headed by the so called "butcher of Gujarat"[1], there isn't much that would shock me wrt to that lot's totalitarian tendencies. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Narendra_Modi

Mate, this isn't even remotely "nationalist". This stuff is being pushed across the world. Digital ID? The only people really desperate for it are our rulers.

Pretty much all passports in the world have been digital for years, and it seems ... fine?

There's a signed blob on the RFID chip in your passport that could be easily copied to any phone, hardly any on-device implementation work to be done.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#479

Post by throwaway2037 »

nephihaha wrote: post #451
throwaway2037 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having lived in lower trust vs higher trust societies, you can see it in how people assume their leaders think. High trust places like Sweden, people have pretty high faith in their leaders to do the right thing. Personally, I much prefer quality of life in a higher trust society. It is exhausting needing to second guess everyone everywhere all the time!

In Sweden, something like 40% of the population work directly or indirectly for Wallenberg family owned companies according to one stat. That will exclude the businesses who make money off people employed by them. So who is really in charge of Sweden?

Here is the exact quote from Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallenberg_family

    > In the 1970s, the Wallenberg family businesses employed 40% of Sweden's industrial workforce and represented 40% of the total worth of the Stockholm stock market.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#480

Post by lxgr »

Tor3 wrote: post #466
nephihaha wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with digital ID is that it can be switched off in an instant. I was talking to some people in a strike picket line about this. They seemed unaware of it. Suddenly you would be unable to travel, pay your bills and access internet etc for doing the wrong thing.

A digital ID is not doing all of that. The way it's implemented in Sweden, just to take an example already mentioned, is simply to identify you, and only for certain parts of society (mostly governmental services, banks, insurance and the like, and a few more). It's not about authorizing you for travel. If you need an ID for picking up your valuable shipment from the post office then you simply show your driver's lic…

But GP raise a valid point: If IDs are ubiquitous and commonly used for non-government business, the government does implicitly gain substantial "veto power" over non-government transactions (by revoking existing credentials or not issuing new ones).

Availability has to be ensured just as much as security and privacy in such a scenario, and that's not trivial. (I still personally think it's worth trying.)

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