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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

#191

Post by aub3bhat »

dang wrote: post #181
aub3bhat wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the article? """ This opinion piece by Mozilla Executive Chairwoman Mitchell Baker and Mozilla community member Ankit Gadgil """

This comment breaks the HN guidelines and some of your other comments ("You are the one full of bullshit") are breaking them even worse. We ban accounts that do this, and have already asked you not to. Please don't post like this again.

Sorry, I can't seem to edit it to remove. But will keep this in mind in future. Best,

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

#192

Post by hackuser »

dang wrote: post #187
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…

> Is the Indian government now also doing astroturfing? You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence. Haven't we discussed this with you before? Please don't comment like this again.

dang: It's a bit shocking to read this, and it's disappointing too.

I hadn't heard of this policy until now. I've seen very many comments make similar claims in many discussions and I didn't see this response. I just checked the Guidelines and it's not discussed there. Please consider how a user would learn about it - I'm pretty active and I haven't seen it. One possible source of miscommunication: Users probably see only a tiny fraction of what you do, and you could make this comment 100 times and maybe only a fraction of users would come across it at all.

But it's especially disappointing to read the accusation, which has no basis as far as I know. I've always been respectful of the mods, other users, the forum, and its rules, even when I think they aren't great ideas (inevitably, nobody will agree with everything). If I had known about this policy, I would have respected it too. I don't know how I was cast into the role of an antagonist. Like anyone, I don't appreciate loose allegations about me.

...

> You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence

I don't quite understand the policy as stated. I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but I certainly didn't do that even by implication. Half my comment was a question asking if there was evidence that it happens in other places, not HN. I also raised the possibility of it happening here, but clearly was unsure and 'insinuated' nothing; I meant simply what I said. If not even that is allowed ...

But to be clear, my concerns don't mean I won't respect your forum's rules. (However, uncertainties will make it more likely that it will happen unintentionally)

EDIT: Moved paragraph with questions of general interest to your post at the top of the discussion.

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

#193

Post by hackuser »

Well, I agree the discussion is pretty awful. But this policy is a bit unclear to me (and otherwise unwritten, AFAICT):

> not making insinuations about astroturfing and shills, unless you have evidence

That's confusing: What evidence could users have? In my comment, one of the ones you objected to, I cited some strong patterns in the discussion. That's going to be the best evidence that users have access to unless it's very clumsily executed. The astroturfers aren't going to out themselves; looking like ordinary users is the fundamental requirement of 'astroturf'.

So if there's no possible sufficient evidence, do you really mean, 'don't bring it up at all?' I understand not accusing individuals without evidence, but nobody even should point out the general possibility, saying for example, "it seems like something odd is going on here; all these talking points look the same and are made provocatively ..."?

There is no doubt astroturf happens here, simply because there is overwhelming evidence that it is rampant on the Internet and HN isn't exempt. If users can't discuss the topic at all (probably not what you meant), that would shield the bad actors and be a recipe for it to happen unrestrained.

EDIT: some clarifying edits

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

#194

Post by dang »

hackuser wrote: post #193

Well, I agree the discussion is pretty awful. But this policy is a bit unclear to me (and otherwise unwritten, AFAICT): > not making insinuations about astroturfing and shills, unless you have evidence That's confusing: What evidence could users have? In my comment, one of the ones you objected to, I cited some strong patterns in the discussion. That's going to be the best evidence that users have access to unless it…

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14432749 and marked it off-topic.

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

#195

Post by dang »

hackuser wrote: post #192
dang wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the Indian government now also doing astroturfing? You can't make insinuations of astroturfing or shillage on HN without evidence. Haven't we discussed this with you before? Please don't comment like this again.

dang: It's a bit shocking to read this, and it's disappointing too. I hadn't heard of this policy until now. I've seen very many comments make similar claims in many discussions and I didn't see this response. I just checked the Guidelines and it's not discussed there. Please consider how a user would learn about it - I'm pretty active and I haven't seen it. One possible source of miscommunication: Users probably see…

If we haven't discussed this before, I must have confused you with someone else and apologize.

I've posted about this countless times: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR....

There are several ways you might have actual evidence that someone was astroturfing, but they're rare, and overwhelmingly less likely than people just making such accusations up because another user's comment pisses them off. The "you must be a shill" trope is pretty much the most popular internet cheap shot out there, and based on everything we know, it's a far greater threat to this site because it's so common and degrades discussion so quickly. Indeed it's a bit like antivirus software in causing the very problem it claims to combat.

So, unless you have more evidence than someone being wrong in your opinion on the internet, you bet it's inadmissible here.

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

#196

Post by mundanevoice »

captn3m0 wrote: post #125
mundanevoice wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do understand that it doesn't only rely on fingerprints, right? There is retinal verification in addition to phone OTP. I had another phone number when I got Aadhar, I changed the city, lost my phone number and now there is no way, I can without physically getting somewhere and submitting the application to update my phone number. API for commercial services isn't a bad thing per se. A lot of time, it would save…

Just from last week: CCC managed to break IRIS recognition system by holding a printout of a HD photo in front of a camera. [0]: https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2017/iriden

Yes, I am aware. But this hack didn't existed when Aadhar was provisioned, and many institutions in the world use Iris recognition. Does this mean everyone in the world will stop using Iris recognition or push a patch to fix the vulnerability?

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

#197

Post by abhishivsaxena »

dang wrote: post #184
abhishivsaxena wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for lying so brazenly. Wish could downvote you. > Even worse, the government of India is selling access to this database to private companies to use and combine with other datasets as they wish. This would allow companies to have access to some of your most intimate details and create detailed profiles of you, in ways you can’t necessarily see or control. Liar, the information they get is your name/dob/gend…

> Thank you for lying so brazenly. Wish could downvote you. This is unacceptable here and if you post like this again, we will ban you. No matter how strongly you feel about a topic, you need to remain civil if you want to comment here.

Ok, I apologise. Shouldn't have used that word.

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

#198

Post by abhishivsaxena »

hackuser wrote: post #179
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.

That could be more because your tone, making unsubstantiated claims etc.

Instead if you want to blame some national party for it, it's you choice.

FYI I don't have downvotes powers.

Btw, I got donwvotes too. But I'm blaming anyone for it.

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

#199

Post by ashwinaj »

I recently made a trip to India; just a week earlier me and a few friends were talking about driver less cars, automation, AI etc.(you know the usual SV talking points) When I landed there all this futuristic talk flew out of my head; it is a very different world out there.

I am reminded of this feeling, because this author sits in his/her nice comfy office in Mountain View mouthing off on something with no understanding of ground realities; to me this is absurd. When I say reality, I mean actually living there. Taj Mahal selfies and elephant rides are not counted :)

Does anyone care about privacy in India as much as they do in the US? I seriously doubt it. Let's be real, most of us (Indians in the US) did not even know what privacy meant and we don't really care about it. If we did, we wouldn't be posting on FB, Twitter, Instagram etc. or signing up for a time share presentation just to get a 3 day hotel stay ;)

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

#200

Post by mundanevoice »

_nedR wrote: post #134
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…

>I get subsidies from the government, one uniform identity that I can use to get important things. Yes the government is holding your benifits hostage in order to force you to register for aadhar. This is not an inherit advantage of aadhar.

Benefits Hostage? Are You kidding me? We earlier used to get those benefits as well. But it was all paper based, prone to be caught in the web of middlemen.

It's an incentive from govt to get people to register for Aadhar to get better/faster service without us common citizens to get exploited by the middleman. I don't see anything wrong in that.

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