Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous • Hacker News Board

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#151

Post by realonedev » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:38 PM UTC

devnonymous wrote: post #145

realonedev wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will give you a free advice: Most Aadhar criticism comes from and is supported by People who have lost money due to due to direct benefit scheme. Those people accumulated lots of money over years by producing fake bills, extra names in the ration cards. Aadhar card started to roll out in 2011 itself, How many of these privacy freaks had raise the voice and if they did, were they supported ? No. Only after Aadhar st…

I said this a bit differently in another comment but I'll ask you this - would you still support Aadhaar if the party in power was not the Bjp? Remember that the party in power will inevitably change at some point but this project will remain. Would you be able to trust any party besides the Bjp with being in charge of this project? If you would, well I won't argue with you, if not you really have to think about the…

Again, I have never mentioned bjp in any place where I mentioned the government.

Did I?

You are just assuming.

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#152

Post by realonedev » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:43 PM UTC

blindwatchmaker wrote: post #149

realonedev wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assumptions mean nothing,unless you produce quantifiable data and verifiable data source to proof any of your claims. Your statement combining the words, hyper, troll, government, modi, sanity, are not backed up by any data nor they hold true for anyone else expect the ones having a biased brain such, as yours. I can prove point by point how communists spread fake news. Your assumptions about equating disagreein…

> I would rather communicate with those who don't label people and jump to conclusions. Physician, heal thyself. I love HN and have been reading it for a long time, content to browse. There's very little that jolts me into actually commenting, but your comments since registering did because it's reminiscent of a pattern anyone that's been involved with Indian/South Asian communities or discussions online have seen ov…

Wherever I mentioned the government, did I mention bjp government?

You are just assuming things.

I also mentioned "this government invests lots in advertising", did I mention BJP?

I also mentioned " due to heavy advertising the cosumer of government services has become more aware of his/her right and is asking the Government official more questions".

Where exactly did I mention bjp ?

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#153

Post by petertodd » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:45 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #103

petertodd wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propaganda? Your 30 minute old account sounds like propaganda too. We all know we could reduce crime by putting cameras in people's homes. But we don't do that, because there are risks to those kinds of invasive measures. Aadhar is infrastructure that allows for centralized control of the population. Sometimes that control will be used for good things, like stamping out bribery. But that control can just as easily be…

Police forces can be deadly, too; and the alternative to them usually isn't (it's mostly "just" fraud, armed robbery, rape and slave trafficking.) But we prefer to risk authorizing some people to carry deadly weapons around—even knowing it can and does turn out badly sometimes—in order to reduce the prevalence of the things we get from lawlessness. Aadhar isn't risk-free, but if the majority of the country want it (i…

> But we prefer to risk authorizing some people to carry deadly weapons around—even knowing it can and does turn out badly sometimes—in order to reduce the prevalence of the things we get from lawlessness.

Yes, and we can get away with that because deadly weapons have an important safety feature: they're operated by individuals who can think for themselves, and themselves resist tyranny. Those weapons are also operated by individuals who are vulnerable to individuals who also have those weapons - notably an argument against drones is they make war too easy, without enough consequences against the agressor.

When those deadly weapons become more powerful - and more likely to be used against civilians rather than military - society is less and less accepting of their existance. That's why biological and chemical weapons are banned, and nuclear weapons are heavily discouraged.

Imagine if we had the ultimate deadly weapon - the ability to kill any individual with a push of the button with 100% success rates, with the owner of that weapon not being vulnerable to it. We'd be terrified of that weapon, because for all the good it might be able to do, in the wrong hands it'd be game over for freedom.

The opposition to Aadhaar simply recognizes that for whatever good it can do, it is a dangerous weapon, one with surprising power. Part of its surprising power is that it gets used to argue for implementation in other states - fighting that weapon needs to start not by arguing against it in your own country, but by arguing against its deployment anywhere.

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#154

Post by realonedev » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:50 PM UTC

devnonymous wrote: post #145

realonedev wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will give you a free advice: Most Aadhar criticism comes from and is supported by People who have lost money due to due to direct benefit scheme. Those people accumulated lots of money over years by producing fake bills, extra names in the ration cards. Aadhar card started to roll out in 2011 itself, How many of these privacy freaks had raise the voice and if they did, were they supported ? No. Only after Aadhar st…

I said this a bit differently in another comment but I'll ask you this - would you still support Aadhaar if the party in power was not the Bjp? Remember that the party in power will inevitably change at some point but this project will remain. Would you be able to trust any party besides the Bjp with being in charge of this project? If you would, well I won't argue with you, if not you really have to think about the…

FYI : I will welcome all those scheme which dry out the bribe money from the corrupt government service officials.

I will also welcome all methods which

- eliminate the middleman

- reduce the sense of entitlement from government officials

- abolish the need of standing in queues of people to pay bribe

- financially drain out all those government officials who plan their expenses based on bribe estimate not their actual salary

Aadhar's direct benefit scheme has actually done it.

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#155

Post by urbanj » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:51 PM UTC

abhishivsaxena wrote: post #140

gumby wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am suspicious of numbers like 99% especially given that the aadhaar scheme is only a few years old. Such statistics are always...messy and look at how hard it is to get other such statistics (vaccination numbers for example). India has an unusually good (by international standards) ability to get some of these mass efforts implemented (again, I'm thinking of vaccination push) but never this quickly. In addition, su…

But if we don't believe in any statistics what else is to debate? That's the point I was bringing up, that there seems to me much conjecture and not much facts being brought up by Anti-Aadhaar lobby. I think enrollment started in 2011 - so it's 6 years to get 99% coverage. I don't think it's fair to bring in other statistics into this, because in this case all they have to do a SQL COUNT to get the number of enrolled…

> EDIT: don't care at all about downvotes.

Clearly you do, otherwise you wouldn't be commenting about it.

It's odd that you find it hard to believe that people are sceptical about stats from one of the most corrupt countries on the planet.

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#156

Post by urbanj » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:54 PM UTC

realonedev wrote: post #146

schoen wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Notice a fun fact, Aadhar was introduced before 2013, before the election of 2014. Not many these so called privacy and human rights activists stood up then. I realize you're probably talking about people in India in this context, not people in the U.S., but I helped write part of this anti-Aadhar post back in 2012: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/09/indias-gargantuan-biom... In support of your view that some cr…

Aadhar started rolling out in 2011 itself, people started enrolling out then only and started getting Aadhar card by post. Some privacy activists did stood and enquired but did not get much support or voice. After 6 years who are the people who are creating noise and running from corner to corner ? Do these people actually care about privacy? Hard to think. Have these people lost money due to direct benefit scheme? P…

- you are suspicious that in country where corruption exists at the highest levels that access to this database will be given to many, many entities that should be have access t oit.

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#157

Post by devnonymous » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

realonedev wrote: post #151

devnonymous wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said this a bit differently in another comment but I'll ask you this - would you still support Aadhaar if the party in power was not the Bjp? Remember that the party in power will inevitably change at some point but this project will remain. Would you be able to trust any party besides the Bjp with being in charge of this project? If you would, well I won't argue with you, if not you really have to think about the…

Again, I have never mentioned bjp in any place where I mentioned the government. Did I? You are just assuming.

Ok re-read the comment substituting Bjp with party currently in power and think about the question.

My entire point was Aadhaar is dangerous in its current form irrespective of the government backing it. As for your dismissive comments on why not many people complained earlier (which is a bit dishonest to claim btw, there were quite a few who did, including the current PM and other politicians from the BJP, fwiw), the reason possibly was because it wasn't being forced down everyone's throat like it is now.

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#158

Post by landryraccoon » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

it_learnses wrote: post #92

mundanevoice wrote: post #20

All people criticising Aadhar for being insecure frankly don't have a real solution in place. Being an Indian citizen I know and have experienced benefit owing to Aadhar. I get subsidies from the government, one uniform identity that I can use to get important things. Coming to the security part, which centralised biometric DB doesn't have risks. Social Security Number in the US is pretty similar. No one gets securit…

The illogic in these arguments is astounding. Maybe I can simplify it for you with a few analogies. >All people criticising Aadhar for being insecure frankly don't have a real solution in place. Criticising something doesn't necessitate me to providing a solution. It's like saying all movie critics should be good actors. >Being an Indian citizen I know and have experienced benefit owing to Aadhar. I get subsidies fro…

Forgive me if I'm mistaken but it does sound like you are writing from a position of extreme privilege.

Poor Indians trying to get benefits but having those benefits taken is a life threatening crisis for those impoverished individuals and families. It is entirely forgivable for those families to ignore the "long term consequences" when the short term consequence is losing the meager benefits they have to corruption. Your argument is like arguing that chemotherapy will ruin your body when the patient is dying of cancer.

If their system can stamp out widespread corruption in exchange for some loss of privacy, the cure is not worse than the disease. The technically minded in wealthy countries should consider helping by proposing a better solution, rather than criticizing measures borne from true desperation.

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#159

Post by urbanj » Sat, May 27, 2017, 8:59 PM UTC

realonedev wrote: post #70

ganduG wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice deflection! Are you disagreeing that voter lists were used in 2001 to discriminate against muslims? Do we have any laws preventing that from happening with aadhar data?

Do you even understand how Aadhar works? You made a claim. Can you prove that using an Aadhar number one can get the religion of a person?

Are you asserting that it is impossible to do that? That there is no way anyone, no matter how rich, powerful or connected to the system can, from an Aadhar number, derive enough infomation about a person to derive their religion?

Re: Aadhaar isn’t progress – it’s dystopian and dangerous

#160

Post by urbanj » Sat, May 27, 2017, 9:00 PM UTC

realonedev wrote: post #97

hackuser wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can identify someone, it's easy to link it to data that identifies their religion.

You are wrong. Easy!= Exact. I asked a simple question, do you know how to identify a religion by Aadhar number?

He is right.

Prove that it is impossible, please.