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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

#231

Post by jhgjklj »

abhishivsaxena wrote: post #167
samblr wrote: post #165

Who has power to abuse in unique identification system (aadhaar) - individual or state? State. Where does the state in questions stand in corruption ratings, human development index ? very low. (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…

> (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…

> 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, and as an alternative you can submit a xerox of any ID documents for your KYC.

You forgot to mention that if you take xerox you will be charged 200 rs and a delay of at-least a week and if you provide Aadhaar you will get almost immediately.

"Also JIO will not use Aadhaar for spying on users browsing activity" is based on trust and not by design. Not everyone trusts Reliance or any corporation because it is run by many people and one human is sufficient to abuse.

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

#232

Post by hackuser »

dang wrote: post #195
hackuser wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

To be clear, I agree that it's very often a cheap shot and I'm glad such things are not generally part of HN.

> I've posted about this countless times

Everyone needs to know policy, but I think few see your comments. You see all your posts and feel you are repeating yourself; users see a tiny fraction of them and may never read about any particular policy. I'm pretty active, but most days I see zero comments from mods - I see a few discussions and a minority of comments in each. Consider even your 'sticky' post at the top of this discussion - what tiny fraction of HN users will see it? Few will see this discussion, and even most/many commenters on this discussion will have moved on or will be reading their comment histories to see responses.

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

To be clear, that's not at all what I did, as I described above. I'm still not sure if what I did say - pointing to a strong pattern of the same arguments repeated in angry posts, both hallmarks of astroturfing and propaganda - is admissible, since it seems to both meet your standards and yet was rejected. Moving on ...

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

#233

Post by hackuser »

abhishivsaxena wrote: post #198
hackuser wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought my tone was civil and matter-of-fact. Please let me know if it seemed otherwise.

> unsubstantiated claims

I substantiated my hypothesis and acknowledged its uncertainty. Of course there is no clear proof of astroturfing, unless it's very clumsily done. The whole point of it is to look like legitimate users.

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

#234

Post by abhishivsaxena »

intended wrote: post #221
abhishivsaxena wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can ask aadhaar to dispatch notifications to you every time an authentiction happens. Non govt agencies need your consent to get your data, if you don't want that just don't authenticate. The article suggests that government is selling your data to private companies, which is such a big misrepresentation I wonder how Mozilla let its name be used for it. Do they not care for their reputation anymore? Private compa…

Right, and them getting that it self is a huge change in the Aadhar act Aadhar was originally sold as just an ack this number matches those finger prints. Now in the 2016 act, it provides all those details. All of which are enough to determine your religion, caste and more. The issue is not about the tech, it is about trust and about rights. None of which are directly responsible for increasing GDP, just the same way…

KYC was a part of Aadhaar from day one.

I assume you are implying someone can determine your religion, caste and more by using your name.

If you signup for a bank account or a mobile company, they would have your name/dob in any case - Aadhaar or No-Aadhaar. Like in any other country on this planet.

This isn't textbook definition of causing FUD? And it's shocking that Mozilla is at forefront of it.

Also, using buzzwords like "trust", "rights" doesn't augment your arguments, if it's missing a coherent rational structure.

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

#235

Post by Paradigma11 »

xeronkek wrote: post #211
aub3bhat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> They didn't rely on fingerprints, as they are easy to fake, without a high degree of technical sophistication Aadhar provides multiple levels of security, Number > Fingerprint > Iris >= OTP / Two-Factor. Finally fingerprints are not as easy to fake, even if they are faked depending on deployment a system can randomly ask for higher level of authentication such as iris or OTP. By having these multiple authenticatio…

What if a guy was in a crime scene with my fingerprints all over it? Because he got that data from AADHAR data base and used it to carry out that crime,meanwhile I was on the vicinity having a good time in a restaurant with no CCTV camera? Who will prove my innocence?

Dont you think that in your above scenario the possible aquisition of your fingerprints are by far the most trivial aspect.

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

#236

Post by dang »

hackuser wrote: post #232
dang wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 the…

To be clear, I agree that it's very often a cheap shot and I'm glad such things are not generally part of HN. > I've posted about this countless times Everyone needs to know policy, but I think few see your comments. You see all your posts and feel you are repeating yourself; users see a tiny fraction of them and may never read about any particular policy. I'm pretty active, but most days I see zero comments from mod…

No, it's not admissible to see arguments you disagree with and make posts "wondering" if state actors are astroturfing HN. That's just another variation of the same insinuation, so please don't do it here.

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

#237

Post by dang »

devnonymous wrote: post #216
dang wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: I don't care about karma on HN but if you're downvoting please explain yourself. Please don't break the HN guidelines by going on about downvotes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14431021 and marked it off-topic.

Not that it matters a whole lot but you made two mistakes: a. You said going on about downvotes, whereas I mentioned it only once, and you probably didn't bother to check whether the only other reference of the same kind was not made by me. b. My actual comment and the replies I received (iow, the thread) were not off-topic if you had bothered to read them.

"Going on about downvotes" means complaining about them or otherwise making them a topic of discussion here, which is always tedious and always off-topic.

Comments that break the site guidelines in this way cross into offtopicness regardless of how relevantly they began.

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

#238

Post by dang »

hackuser wrote: post #233
abhishivsaxena wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought my tone was civil and matter-of-fact. Please let me know if it seemed otherwise. > unsubstantiated claims I substantiated my hypothesis and acknowledged its uncertainty. Of course there is no clear proof of astroturfing, unless it's very clumsily done. The whole point of it is to look like legitimate users.

Would you please stop going on about this? You've done it a great deal and we've now explained to you that (unless you have actual evidence) it's off-topic.

If you have concerns about abuse on HN you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it, but you're not welcome to dilute HN discussions with what amounts to nothing more than tedious fantasy.

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

#239

Post by hackuser »

dang wrote: post #236
hackuser wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I agree that it's very often a cheap shot and I'm glad such things are not generally part of HN. > I've posted about this countless times Everyone needs to know policy, but I think few see your comments. You see all your posts and feel you are repeating yourself; users see a tiny fraction of them and may never read about any particular policy. I'm pretty active, but most days I see zero comments from mod…

No, it's not admissible to see arguments you disagree with and make posts "wondering" if state actors are astroturfing HN. That's just another variation of the same insinuation, so please don't do it here.

Again, that's not what happened, and not what I described several times even though you can see it for yourself. I'm not going to repeat myself to describe it again, but this is absurd. It represents what you suspect in your mind - motives and intent - not the words on the page, while it overlooks half the actual text (the second paragraph, which contains the evidence). What defense is there from mind-reading? The baseless allegations are not welcome, even from moderators.

EDIT: I don't even disagree with the alleged astroturfers; I've known about Aadhaar for a long time and think it probably is a good idea on balance. This really is a ridiculous situation.

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

#240

Post by ashwinaj »

intended wrote: post #228
ashwinaj wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> demonstrably don't care about sanitation, and are easily sidelined by superstition. Exactly, thanks for making my point. There are such fundamental problems in India that privacy laws are the least of the layman's problems. Do you seriously think someone who doesn't have basic ameneties (that we take for granted) cares about this? Get real, they don't.

Why do you think Ambedkar made the constitution with the protections he did? Why did Gandhi fight for dignity and freedom at the same time. A country is not its GDP, the GDP is valuable because it serves the country. You deeply underestimate the intelligence and drive of the people, as well as the protections people need. Do you think all these people in the west don't see this? See this math on privacy vs efficiency…

We agree to disagree.

> Do you think all these people in the west don't see this? See this math on privacy vs efficiency? They do. And they've seen what it does, and it's been bad enough that it's been burnt into them through generations.

I won't be using the people in the "West" as a benchmark to determine what is right or wrong. There are equally dumb, superstitious people in the West as they are in India. Source: [0][1][2][3][4][5] and many many more...

[0] https://today.yougov.com/news/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies... [1] http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_Nati... [2] http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/18710759/kyrie-irving-cle... [3] https://www.adl.org/education/resources/backgrounders/militi... [4] http://www.newsweek.com/what-does-alt-right-movement-want-52... [5] http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/senate-dems-block-sanctuar...

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