Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

India’s Downward Spiral

eff.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 156 posts

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#131

Post by Chronic29 »

bipin-nag wrote: post #75
skrebbel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I remind you that you are posting on a site called "Hacker News"?

Hacker News has nothing to do with hacking, you certainly know it. Can you prove the same for that community. Can you? Everyone reading the post is hung up on word hackers. People keep playing the word loose. Even if it is for fun can you deny they can do no harm. Kindly imagine the hypocrisy and the irony of them suggesting how we should manage freedom of expression by mocking our internet safeguard. Come on. I beli…

You are not allowed to discuss what is on your mind. On HN, you can only share opinions consistent with the HN norm.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#132

Post by astrange »

srcmap wrote: post #92
virtuabhi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 The aim of the scheme is to replace the outdated mechanisms - signature, name and address papers which can easily be forged.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…

https is not that secure, most of the root ca are owned by big corp/gov. It is trivial for any big gov to decode your https traffic.

It is not trivial, and you'd get found out and lose the CA.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#133

Post by Nano2rad »

zo1 wrote: post #129
Nano2rad wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UID is clearly surveillance tool. Its aim is to make the citizen's feel powerless. The scheme can be implemented with single fingerprint to prevent duplication, still iris scan is done. The privacy law is still not passed which could limit the access of UID data. It was forced on banks and petroleum marketers undemocratically.

"It was forced on banks and petroleum marketers undemocratically." Oh, so their elected officials weren't really elected democratically? Because, you know, that's something you have to prove first before you can make assertions such as the one above.

Nilekani's appointment itself was undemocratic

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#134

Post by Nano2rad »

tn13 wrote: post #52
thepoet wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually Indian constitution does give Freedom of Speech http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#In... but agree there are some restrictions which I assume are valid and are there for other countries too. There are problems enforcing or protecting these rights when you are up against corrupt politicians and organizations.

There is a big technical difference between Indian Constitution's interpretation of right and say that of American constitution. When it comes to US constitution, the 1st amendment is the stricter condition that each and every other law should meet. Any law passed that is not consistent with 1st amendment thus becomes invalid. Opposite is the case with Indian constitution. All the rights given by Indian constitution…

You explained correctly. It is like constitution is subordinate to laws.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#135

Post by Nano2rad »

dharmach wrote: post #104

- Government's support to freedom of expression depends considerably on availability of resources. If enough resources are unavailable, government has to give priority to law and order instead of freedom of speech. - Surveillance is bad but depending on country's internal and external security situation, it may be a necessary evil. - Removing content offensive to politicians is unacceptable.

US constitution was created before it became rich. Same lack of resources argument is used for not providing healthcare also.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#136

Post by bipin-nag »

eitally wrote: post #121
bipin-nag wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will the downvoter exercise his freedom of expression to tell me what is wrong with my comment above.

My guess is that he meant "dictatorship" rather than "monarchy". You took umbrage with his mistake rather than forgiving that and recognizing his intent, which is that the PM role in India has way too much power.

That is simply not true. We do have a President but he/she is just a titular head, or a namesake. He cannot exercise his powers at will. Prime Minister is the executive head for all purposes but in no way is there monarchy/dictatorship. Anyone who says so just wants to bash Indian legislative system and democracy.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#137

Post by infinity0 »

cubancigar11 wrote: post #120
infinity0 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any clue about India? You just pasted a long paragraph from one source and gave no explanation of how it backs up your point. What even is your point? You seem to think that dowry harassment lawsuits are all there is to dowry.

I don't get it. If you think supreme court judgement is 'one source' then you cannot be argued with. And complaining about 'long paragraph'... hmm... I think you are just angry and without argument. Regarding second paragraph, the citation is not handy right now, but this is what Indian feminists actually write. You know, the ones actually involved in drafting government policies. There was a similar article by NCW I…

No, you cannot make an empty argument and then say I have no argument. Quoting the supreme court randomly, does not argue anything. You fail to explain why the supreme court's quote is relevant to anything you said, or anything I said for that matter. You will need to back up your assertions about "Indian feminists" with actual real data; otherwise it is just an inappropriate generalisation.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#138

Post by virtuabhi »

3838 wrote: post #36
virtuabhi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rw…

I do not agree with the point that if Nazis used X to kill Jews then we should not use X. For example, Nazis used trains to transport arrested Jews. No government should build railroads then?

"these systems are deadly in the wrong hands" - In the context of this thread, I hope you are not comparing Indian government with the Nazis. Such a comparison would be misusing the Nazi term and insulting the severity of crimes committed against Jews.

"if the info is not there, it can't be abused" - We can't move to the stone age now. Your car registration details at the DMV can be used against you. Your SSN details can be used against you. Information is stored about every citizen, in every country.

I hope that people realize that schemes such as UID present many benefits - reducing corruption, bring transparency, and ultimately, giving power to the people.

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#139

Post by vithlani »

RealGeek wrote: 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...

but but but but....look!!! MARS!!! Dude MARS!!!! We are so technologically advanced that we made it to Mars!!! YAYAAYAYA

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8364841

Re: India’s Downward Spiral

#140

Post by logicchains »

_nedR wrote: post #125
logicchains wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expressing Nazi ideas is prohibited in Germany because of what following Nazi ideas can lead to, not just to avoid conflict. If you forbid peoples' expression in the name of avoiding conflict then you simply allow the ideas of the most bloodthirsty, conflict-minded group to dominate, as this group is the group most likely to get offended, and hence suppressing any ideas that offend this group necessarily leaves this…

>>Expressing Nazi ideas is prohibited in Germany because of what following Nazi ideas can lead to, not just to avoid conflict. Yes. Expressing Nazi ideas can lead to violence, extremism, racial and religious discrimination, anti-democratic activity among other things. That's pretty much what the OP said, and is also the original motivation behind India's censorship laws. I am of the opinion that the case for censorsh…

>Expressing Nazi ideas can lead to violence, extremism, racial and religious discrimination, anti-democratic activity among other things.

I didn't say Nazi ideas were banned because of this, I said they were banned because of what _following_ them can lead to. For contrast, compare an idea like "group X treats women like second-class citizen". Following this idea does no harm, it doesn't even do anything, as it's not a prescription that can be followed, it's just a statement. Expressing it could however still lead to a violence if group X is aggressive and conflict-minded. If expressing this idea is banned, then public discussion of the poor treatment of women by group x would be banned, and there wouldn't be any pressure for group x to improve its treatment of them.

Post reply on HN