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India’s Downward Spiral

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31–40 of 156 posts

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#31

As someone living in India, I have considered how to set up a discussion board (like HN) that would be easy to use for users but also easy to be moderated of junk (like HN is) but still be effectively anonymous. It would allow discussion on such topics without fear of reprisal. With my lack of coding skills would this even be possible?

http://hackerstreet.in

wow... was already on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4838206

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I admit the government is trying to censor (or was, I've yet to see any evidence of this from the current government) certain politically critical articles etc. and I am unaware of the true extent of the CMS, the part about the UID program seems rather sensationalist and fear-mongering, since the primary aim of the UID program is the ability to identify the citizens of India similar to the US social security nu…

Surely there are better ways to identify someone than get their fingerprint, especally if they bothererd to called everyone to the police headquarters to get their fingerprint.

> "especally if they bothererd to called everyone to the police headquarters to get their fingerprint."

What !? This statement has NO factual basis, and is completely incorrect. (PS: I have a Aadhaar card (aka UID) myself).

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#33
post #2

In India, people are being arrested for voicing disagreement with politicians and influential people on social media. You could even be arrested for liking a Facebook post criticizing a politician. http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/11/19/indian-woman-arrested-ov...

Yes, this is true. We are definitely not near the US standard on the defense of free speech. But the case you mentioned is one of the small number of such cases (I remember one from the state of West Bengal). And in this case, the over eagerness of local authorities was criticized by both the government and public. As of now, I would place India somewhere between UK (with its defamation laws) and US (gold standard of…

It does not help that it is just a small number of cases, as even a small number of cases will have have a chilling effect on free speech.

The "somewhere between UK and US" comment is theoretical and is about what the written law says. The way it is practised is clearly worse than both. You don't have to watch your back when you criticize a politician in the UK, and certainly not when you "like" someone doing that. Even if it was later criticized later on, it did happen, and I would guess it got no consequences for the people that prosecuted the two women.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#34

Worse yet, Indian government is apparently trying hard to emulate NSA's Surveillance Programs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A91idibgT0&feature=youtu.be Here's the video's info: """India is currently implementing some of the scariest surveillance schemes in the world. This lecture will shed light on India's surveillance industry, its UID scheme which aims at the collection of all biometric data and on various cont…

Do you even know the context of the speech !! It is from Chaos Communication Congress, a hacker meeting. From wiki: The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual meeting of the international hacker scene, organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues. If a hacker community does lecture on political issue, it is not exactly discussing…

Why should it be downvoted?

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#35

Worse yet, Indian government is apparently trying hard to emulate NSA's Surveillance Programs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A91idibgT0&feature=youtu.be Here's the video's info: """India is currently implementing some of the scariest surveillance schemes in the world. This lecture will shed light on India's surveillance industry, its UID scheme which aims at the collection of all biometric data and on various cont…

Do you even know the context of the speech !! It is from Chaos Communication Congress, a hacker meeting. From wiki: The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual meeting of the international hacker scene, organized by the Chaos Computer Club. The congress features a variety of lectures and workshops on technical and political issues. If a hacker community does lecture on political issue, it is not exactly discussing…

Are you sure you properly understand what "hacker" means in this context? I think it's fair to say that some people in the grey to black spectrum also attend the CCC, but overall, yes, people there are genuinely committed to free expression (by everybody, most importantly of course by innocent people). They are using the word "hacker" in the original sense of the word (tinkering with technology etc.)

What you're saying is like the false claim that Tor is only used by criminals - when in reality, it is used by all sorts of people, including law enforcement themselves!

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#36

Worse yet, Indian government is apparently trying hard to emulate NSA's Surveillance Programs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A91idibgT0&feature=youtu.be Here's the video's info: """India is currently implementing some of the scariest surveillance schemes in the world. This lecture will shed light on India's surveillance industry, its UID scheme which aims at the collection of all biometric data and on various cont…

This is the first time I have seen UID scheme being mentioned as a surveillance tool. The aim of the scheme is to replace the outdated mechanisms - signature, name and address papers which can easily be forged. Why poor people are encouraged to register under the UID scheme? So that the benefits provided by India's socialist governments (central and state) can reach them without any corruption or delay. The fear of i…

other governments have proposed similar things - in europe there is a widespread distrust of these systems because they were used very effectively by the Nazi's - record keeping in the Netherlands was very good - 75% of jews were killed, in france the people collecting data conspired to protect jews by not punching the jew slot on the punched card and only 25% were killed

a belgian company sold an ID system to the rwandan government, it was used by one tribe to find people from another tribe so they could kill them

these systems are deadly in the wrong hands - if the info is not there, it can't be abused.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#37
One of the biggest difference between US and India is the constitution. Indian constitution does not give freedom of speech to its people. So government can pass all sort of laws.

The 1st amendment to US constitution gives people freedom of speech and ensures that government can not pass any laws against it. On the other hand all the "rights" that Indian constitution gives are subject to other government approvals which means you can have Right X to the extent that other existing laws allow.

Despite that several of laws except the IT laws are pretty good and time tested. IT law however is horrible and puts a prohibitive cost on various IT businesses.

Indian classified company Quikr (like CraigList) has hired 200 people just to screen each and every post to make sure it is not "offensive".

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#38

As someone living in India, I have considered how to set up a discussion board (like HN) that would be easy to use for users but also easy to be moderated of junk (like HN is) but still be effectively anonymous. It would allow discussion on such topics without fear of reprisal. With my lack of coding skills would this even be possible?

The primary challenge in creating a successful community like Hacker News is generally not the software (there is lots of free software for running forums), but in actually gathering and cultivating the community of people.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#39

As someone living in India, I have considered how to set up a discussion board (like HN) that would be easy to use for users but also easy to be moderated of junk (like HN is) but still be effectively anonymous. It would allow discussion on such topics without fear of reprisal. With my lack of coding skills would this even be possible?

> With my lack of coding skills would this even be possible? NO! (it is only possible WITH the required skills!)

My original was a poorly structured question - I should have asked if there was a specifically "anonomisable" discussion platform - something along the lines of phpBB. Something that could be setup to discuss free speech issues in restricted countries while keeping the contributors safe....? Would something like phpBB be safe for this kind of thing?

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#40

As someone living in India, I have considered how to set up a discussion board (like HN) that would be easy to use for users but also easy to be moderated of junk (like HN is) but still be effectively anonymous. It would allow discussion on such topics without fear of reprisal. With my lack of coding skills would this even be possible?

Should I be concerned that my https with https://news.ycombinator.com started wigging out after I posted the original question? Chrome wouldn't load it due to safety concerns
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