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India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

reuters.com

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Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#741

Post by amarant »

Saline9515 wrote: post #510
eru wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, so you get all the downsides of > "Legal" protections can disappear in one evening, and then you are left with a centralized system, very practical for population control. but none of the upsides.

No, because with classic ID documents, the government doesn't know if I went to a specific healthcare provider, if I opened a social media account, if I bought a train ticket, or even where my bank accounts are (reporting is yearly, not in real time). Accessing all of this data is possible but bears a lot of friction, which prevents mass surveillance (or at least increases the costs). Once the eID system is set up an…

With digital ID, they don't either.. You just have no clue what you're on about and it shows

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#742

Post by Tor3 »

kube-system wrote: post #587
Tor3 wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In those places where a system like Sweden's has been implemented, the usage is constricted to certain areas. And in the case where it's used elsewhere, that's an option that is not mandatory (and in any case far and few between). A way to identify an individual is typically related to financial or contractual issues. So far, at least. Looking at you, the UK

Yes, but those "certain areas" are mandatory for functioning in society. And that ID is managed by a single central authority. The US by contrast, has a distributed system where there are many authorities that can issue IDs that are valid for the activities of daily life. The only common nationally issued ID in the US is a passport and people only get that for international travel -- and it wasn't even until 2024 tha…

With many authorities then you have as many more possibilities to break them, right? Note that the central digital ID used in e.g. Sweden is not the same as a central place for storing your private information.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#743

Post by 4gotunameagain »

rootusrootus wrote: post #619
4gotunameagain wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do a few nude photographs on wikipedia hold the same addiction potential as an infinite stream of short form HD videos - specifically optimized for attention capture - on platforms like reddit ? I am not even sure whether I should take you seriously.

> a few nude photographs on wikipedia It’s a wee bit more extensive than that. Videos, more than a few, and most of them not tied to a wiki page. As someone who tried to run a clean BBS and later a web forum, I’ll never be surprised at the lengths people will go to share porn.

It is still incomparable for all intents and purposes to platforms like reddit etc.

Of course people go to great lengths to share porn. But we should also go to great lengths to protect kids (and adults) from incredibly addictive things like hard drugs, porn, gambling, lootboxes etc.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#744

Post by nephihaha »

matips wrote: post #601
gclawes wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really that a digital ID can be used to spy on people (governments can already do this to a pretty large degree without needing spyware). It's that it's a permission system that can be instantly updated and centrally managed by people that have legal authority to spy on you. If your digital ID is controlled centrally by the government (the guys that are watching most things you do already), and you need your…

Actually Visa and MasterCard used their position to influence on business like Steam or Pornhub.

They wield way too much power. I've never understood what happened with American Express and Diners Club. These used to be major credit cards which have gone into heavy decline.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#745

Post by nephihaha »

amarant wrote: post #737
nephihaha wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I meant people. There are people who have been chipped and boasting about it on YouTube.

Hi I'm from Sweden. You shouldn't believe everything they say on YouTube. Also, the Bible is mostly lies, don't trust that either. I'm sure some idiot put a dog microchip in their hand for shits and giggles, but so what? Their hand their choice.

These things start out as voluntary and then you find it difficult to function without it. My local bank is always busy, but there is a bank employee nagging everyone to use online banking. We're lucky it is still open, because every bank is shutting branches. They close branches and make them inconvenient to use, and then say the public want it. Yes, some do, but not everyone does and some want both options.

Similar scenario here. The old boiling a frog scenario. Some company trying to persuade its employees to get microchipped. Also other interests trying to push it. The dog thing is not unconnected, even with that, doing it to pets is partly a soft sell to saying humans can get one too. It has been normalised in science fiction films for decades.

"Their hand, their choice" turns into "they got a microchip, and why don't you?" into "everyone's got a microchip, why don't you?" and then "why the hell don't you have a microchip?" and eventually legal consequences for not having one. Of course microchips are only one possibility for tagging people... And the idea won't go away.

https://www.newsweek.com/people-get-microchips-implanted-tha...

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#747

Post by Tor3 »

nephihaha wrote: post #745
amarant wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi I'm from Sweden. You shouldn't believe everything they say on YouTube. Also, the Bible is mostly lies, don't trust that either. I'm sure some idiot put a dog microchip in their hand for shits and giggles, but so what? Their hand their choice.

These things start out as voluntary and then you find it difficult to function without it. My local bank is always busy, but there is a bank employee nagging everyone to use online banking. We're lucky it is still open, because every bank is shutting branches. They close branches and make them inconvenient to use, and then say the public want it. Yes, some do, but not everyone does and some want both options. Similar…

Read some later articles. The first guy who did this was maybe that magician from Missouri, or at least one of the first ones (there aren't many). And it's turned out to be a useless gimmick, that magician's implant is currently inoperative. Forgot a password for re-programming it, or some such.

Mandatory microchipping people is firmly in sci-fi land, and, as many other things first tried out in sci-fi land it's not something particularly relevant for a very long time, I suspect. It's not very useful, to start with (compared to what we use already).

Online banking vs physical buildings.. that's a purely economic issue, and can't be compared to something like chipping.

Dogs and cats are microchipped because they can't talk, and for other non-human reasons.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#748

Post by nephihaha »

oblio wrote: post #715
nephihaha wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This from Newsweek in 2022 about Sweden. https://www.newsweek.com/people-get-microchips-implanted-tha... "In 2017, a railway company in Sweden began allowing travelers to load their ticket information onto the microchips implanted in their bodies, according to BBC News. Railway conductors were then able to use smartphones to detect the chip and confirm the travelers' tickets."

Buddy, you're talking about 4000 VOLUNTEERS in a country of 11 million people (0.04%). We can probably find more crack addicts in Sweden... Let put the brakes on these slippery slopes, otherwise we'll be afraid of our own shadows soon. Scepticism is fine, paranoia isn't.

Those 4000 are bellwethers for whatever other impressionable idiots will follow them. (I'd forgotten it was that many, I thought it was a fraction of that.) Then it becomes mandatory, then compulsory, like so many other things.

You mention crack addicts there. Yeah, they're kind of similar. With a new drug like cocaine, it starts with a handful of impressionable people who get given it cheap. Then they influence other people who take it up, and before you know it you have drug epidemic on your hands. (As most developed countries do.? The difference is that the ruling class doesn't openly encourage cocaine use, because it doesn't benefit them in anyway (other than doping up potential troublemakers).

You should read some of the Fourth Industrial Revolution material that governments and their advisers put out. They are quite plain about where they want this to head. Transhumanism is sold as a means to improve us, but it can also be used as a means of control. (There is a lot of hypocrisy in such documents — how can one argue that we need to lower carbon emissions and at the same time engage in project which increase electricity usage? That seems contradictory at least for now, because even renewables generate have environmental issues. These data centres will gobble up more energy than people's homes do.)

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#749

Post by sharperguy »

goku12 wrote: post #600
sharperguy wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with the sentiment. I think from their perspective, it's just a case of what CAN be done vs what is morally acceptable. If knives were technologically sophisticated enough that they could be programmed to refuse to pierce particular materials, you know that the government would be forcing manufacturers to include human flesh in that list, and making liable anyone who sells one without that restrict…

> If knives were technologically sophisticated enough that they could be programmed to refuse to pierce particular materials, you know that the government would be forcing manufacturers to include human flesh in that list I have serious doubts that their intentions are nearly as harmless or sincere as you project it. The government through DoT has repeatedly shown their willingness to control, invade, impose arbitrar…

I see how you could've got that from my comment, but I wasn't trying to imply pure intentions.

Governments have to juggle a lot of different factors in order to maintain order and stay in office. It's natural that they would resort to less than scrupulous methods to attain this.

To go back to the knife example, once they have established preventing the piercing of human flesh as a mandate, it would be easy to extend this to preventing any kind of action using a knife that is inconvenient to them.

I'm struggling to come up with a reasonable sounding example though given the analogy. Perhaps... it gets extended to animals under the guise of protecting animal rights, but also prevents people from butchering their own hunt and animals killed must be submitted to a central processor who takes a large cut and have financial ties to particular politicians. I guess it's a stretch.

My point is just that the natural economics of the situation will cause governments to use all means at their disposal to achieve their end goals, whatever they may be. And so having these devices with their capabilities and our reliance on them is a huge hole in the defenses of freedom advocates just begging to be exploited.

Re: India orders smartphone makers to preload state-owned cyber safety app

#750

Post by ekianjo »

sofixa wrote: post #613
ekianjo wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Digital ID makes no difference to this whatsoever. Of course it does. It makes it possible to track exactly where you are and what you are doing. So it pushes the balance of power towards the authorities.

> It makes it possible to track exactly where you are and what you are doing No??? What do you imagine, that every single transaction you make, like buying bread, will require a Digital ID? Why on earth would you imagine that?

if your digital ID is tied to your phone (which is eventually where things are going), that is exactly what is going to happen. There is no reason that it would stop somewhere in the middle.
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