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

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

#171

Post by abhishivsaxena »

samblr wrote: post #170
abhishivsaxena wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Looking up in internet) Latest use of aadhar seems to be in mobile internet via Jio telecom - they've used aadhar as identification. How is this not dystopian ? with most of country relying on mobile internet alone and state knowing their entire web activity - how is not dystopian? Aadhaar has nothing to do with you web activity. It's used as KYC - Know your Customer - for getting the JIO connection. It's optional…

>> It's used as KYC - Know your Customer - for getting the JIO connection Ok, I am Jio SIM company. So I have your aadhar KYC or a xerox of your aadhar card as well. How as a citizen, can you trust me (a private company) to not pass your web activity to state. eg: say you are an NGO using JIO sim and is working for getting rid of big corruption in state. How will you ensure my company and state will not track your ev…

> It all sounds familiar when you know privacy concerns of Chinese humanitarians - read great firewall of internet.

That has nothing to do wit Aadhaar or India. All European nations require an ID to get a mobile connection. That risk would exist in any country Aadhaar or no Aadhaar. What's your point?

> How does being biggest in numbers help in democracy ? Democracy is pretty old my friend. 70 years is again a very small age in democracy.

Mister because it show the strength of democratic institutions and freedom in a country. Even when compared to richer european nations like Spain/Portugal. Please look at freedom house rating for asian nations before being so condescending.

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

#172

Post by samblr »

abhishivsaxena wrote: post #171
samblr wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> It's used as KYC - Know your Customer - for getting the JIO connection Ok, I am Jio SIM company. So I have your aadhar KYC or a xerox of your aadhar card as well. How as a citizen, can you trust me (a private company) to not pass your web activity to state. eg: say you are an NGO using JIO sim and is working for getting rid of big corruption in state. How will you ensure my company and state will not track your ev…

> It all sounds familiar when you know privacy concerns of Chinese humanitarians - read great firewall of internet. That has nothing to do wit Aadhaar or India. All European nations require an ID to get a mobile connection. That risk would exist in any country Aadhaar or no Aadhaar. What's your point? > How does being biggest in numbers help in democracy ? Democracy is pretty old my friend. 70 years is again a very s…

I have worked in two Western European countries and none required me to provide any Id lest alone unique id.

As I see you are doing BS.

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

#173

Post by abhishivsaxena »

samblr wrote: post #172
abhishivsaxena wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It all sounds familiar when you know privacy concerns of Chinese humanitarians - read great firewall of internet. That has nothing to do wit Aadhaar or India. All European nations require an ID to get a mobile connection. That risk would exist in any country Aadhaar or no Aadhaar. What's your point? > How does being biggest in numbers help in democracy ? Democracy is pretty old my friend. 70 years is again a very s…

I have worked in two Western European countries and none required me to provide any Id lest alone unique id. As I see you are doing BS.

> https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187768-c5431/Italy:Sim.C...

> Purchasing a SIM in Italy requires presentation of proper identification, such as valid passport or European ID card

This conversation just illustrate the quality of arguments Anti Aadhaar lobby has in this thread.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by JumpCrisscross »

realonedev wrote: post #150
abhishivsaxena wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Enrollment started in 2011 and people also got it via post in 2011. Why do you think the people didn't supported the privacy activists for all these 5 years ? Who are the people making disproportionate amount of noise (not signal) against Aadhar ? Do they actually care about privacy? Hard to believe. Do these people have vested interest in sustaining the corrupt middleman model ? Easy to believe. If you had lost thou…

> Do they actually care about privacy? Hard to believe. Do these people have vested interest in sustaining the corrupt middleman model ? Easy to believe.

Are there people whose corrupt interests are impacted by Aadhar creating noise? Surely. Does that mean there are no legitimate concerns about such a program? Of course not. We're trying to discuss the latter here. I do not find you meaningfully contributing to that discussion, with the exception of your first post (in which you mention the benefits Aadhar brought your parents).

I mentioned elsewhere that centralized anti-corruption programs have a terrible track record for a reason. If you couldn't count on your institutions to prevent corruption, you cannot count on them to prevent abuse of power. Given that track record, a default position of scepticism is warranted.

India has a history of handing tremendous power to strong(wo)men, and suffering tremendously for it. Creating a tool that allows politicians to punish surgically-targeted swaths of political and/or economic opposition should be approached cautiously. Decrying any opposition to the program as the product of corrupt stooges is bad rhetoric at best, and corrosive to informed debate and the democratic process, within India and internationally, at worst.

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

#176

Post by devnonymous »

abhishivsaxena wrote: post #54
adityab wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have been fine with Aadhar if - They didn't rely on fingerprints, as they are easy to fake, without a high degree of technical sophistication - There would not be an API for commercial services I just want the government to be able to provide its services smoothly. I don't want random startups leaking or selling everyone's data.

1) Fingerprints are harder to fake than what's being used currently - signatures and xerox 2) Fine. Don't authenticate with Aadhaar when you go to get a commercial service. Why force you choice on me? And the info they get is name/dob/gender. Which they would anyway have - Aadhaar or no Aadhaar - since you are their customer. Please think through it.

> Fingerprints are harder to fake than what's being used currently - signatures and xerox

Yes, but once compromised they cannot be changed. Also, could you state clearly whether fingerprints would be used for authentication or identification?

> Fine. Don't authenticate with Aadhaar when you go to get a commercial service. Why force you choice on me?

Right back at you. I may have a choice when using a commercial service but why is the government forcing me to have an Aadhaar if I never intend to use it?

> And the info they get is name/dob/gender. Which they would anyway have - Aadhaar or no Aadhaar - since you are their customer.

Yes but they cannot build a profile of me using things like income bracket (pan linking), travel information (rail and air travel linking), social and family ties (various other ways). If you think this isn't even plausible in India, either you have skin in the game or are being (/ intentionally trying to be) incredibly naive.

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

#177

Post by devnonymous »

2pointsomone wrote: post #27

The entire article's argument of breach of privacy hinges on the claim that "the government of India is selling access to this database to private companies to use and combine with other datasets as they wish". Is there any substantial evidence of this of broad statement? On the whole, pretty disappointed in this article from Mozilla.

> Is there any substantial evidence of this of broad statement?

Even if this hasn't happened yet, Are there any measures in place to keep this from happening?... Ever... Irrespective of the party in power?

The current government does not even want to acknowledge the possibility let alone describe the checks and measures put in place to avoid it from happening.

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

#178

Post by narrowrail »

splintercell wrote: post #166
realonedev wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are unable to back up your claims by verifiable data source and quantifiable data points. Can you get the caste of a person by reading the Aadhar number ? Answer is No. If you or your relatives had not lost bribe money due to the Direct Benefit scheme, then I cannot understand the blatant hate of Aadhar. Otherwise, I hope that neither you nor your immediate family members were accumulating wealth by being corrupt…

> Can you get the caste of a person by reading the Aadhar number ? Are you saying that government does not have any information associated with the Aadhar number? You're straw manning really badly. The whole argument, nearly every single person in this thread, making against you is that Aadhar is dystopian. But your argument is "But you can't figure out a person's info by just reading the Aadhar number".

As an American (born and raised), this whole discussion is fascinating and is similar to the 'Obamacare' debate here. All of the Indians I've known in the US corroborate your claim about knowing one's religion/ heritage by last name alone. I hope the discussion can remain civil, but there does seem to be an agenda among some participants.

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

#179

Post by hackuser »

hackuser wrote: post #105

Is the Indian government now also doing astroturfing? Does anyone know about any serious research or reporting on it? Chinese and Russian operations are well-known and reported, but I haven't heard of Indian ones. Seeing the same, generally weak talking points, angrily defending the Indian government, advocating nationalistic points of view, and repeated over and over - it all reminds me of threads critical of China…

I'll add that in a few hours I got 6 (or maybe more) down-votes on otherwise uncontroversial comments that didn't agree with the seeming Indian nationalist party line - often the comments didn't directly disagree, they just didn't advocate or drink the Kool-Aid.

Not a complaint, but it looks like the symptoms of what I asked about.

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

#180

Post by dang »

realonedev wrote: post #106
splintercell wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a list of 1000 Indian names and I can guess their religion with nearly 95% accuracy. All the points you say sound like you're 'prepared' or 'rehearsed' to say things like this. When the next Gujarat riots happen, trust me just a list of people and their addresses would be sufficient enough to figure out where all the Muslims live.

Can you read at all? Did you read through the link I had send you? It's not that hard. I will ask a simple question, can you detect the caste or religion of a person by knowing their Aadhar number?

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