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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

#91

Post by realonedev »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #82
realonedev wrote: post #28

I belong to the third world of the third world. State called Uttar Pradesh. If you consider India as 3rd world, then UP is 3rd world of India. Here are the emotional benefits of Aadhar : My parents don't have to bribe the local gas connections distribution agents. Which means, No need to stay in long queue from 8 In the morning, not to get your cooking cylinder, but to pay the bribe. Since the government has advertis…

The track record of power-centralising anti-corruption projects is poor. This is because corruption is a sign of weak or ineffective institutions. Institutions which can't stop bribery probably can't prevent the next guy from e.g. zeroing out the bank accounts of vulnerable populations who voted against him or are to the detriment of a crony.

We had Nehru Firoz Khan dynasty, their relatives, their friends, at premier positions of adminstration, politics, law enforcement for 60 years.

They lacked the motive to actually establish strong and performance oriented institutions, hence corruption became a daily routine in India.

Slowly, some(not all) things are progressing.

Using Aadhar to directly transfer the money to exact recipient has rattled those who had enjoyed or felt entitled to waste the subsidiaries or sell the subsidiaries items in outer market + then ask the government for extra subsidiaries again and again and again.

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

#92

Post by it_learnses »

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 from the government, one uniform identity that I can use to get important things.

Sure aadhar might have some benefits for you. But the critique is raising many points which make it incredibly dangerous and harmful in the long run. It's like using steroids to gain muscle faster, which is very harmful in the long term.

>Coming to the security part, which centralised biometric DB doesn't have risks.

Yes and those systems do get criticised so it can be improved. Also, aadhar claims to be open source, open API, run by volunteers, none of which it is. It sells your data to private services. Were you going to address that point at all?

>Mozilla being such a nice organisation with so many good initiatives. Why don't it come forward and dedicate some of its resources in helping out the Indian Government?

Indian government has a lot of resources too. It's not exactly poor. It could do a good job if it wanted to. That's not what this criticism is about.

>Wouldn't that be better than just criticising without knowing any ground reality of how things operate in India?

How do you know the author doesn't know the ground reality of things in India?

Look, criticism of a system or policy serves to ignite debate on how best we can make improvements and move forward. Rather than being snarky and getting all defensive and making silly illogical arguments, how about you contribute to the discussion by addressing the points raised in the article?

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

#93

Post by anujdeshpande »

aub3bhat wrote: post #6

This is ridiculous fearmongering at a scale unseen before, given the enormous amount of corruption in Indian public distribution schemes, Aadhar has potential to be revolutionary in not only reducing corruption but also in providing poor people in India with assistance that they currently lack. Its easy to be a rich and employed in SF and pontificate about how other countries should run their government. Mozilla is e…

Have you read PG's How to Disagree essay? It's really good. http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html

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

#94

Post by eklavya »

I am in the wait and watch camp. So far aadhar has shown promise and benefits. I am also in the "make it compulsory for income tax" group. For privacy, they will get their act together I hope (plug leakages if any). If they don't, it would be foolish for them to think that we won't come after them. I have faith in the current generation. The activation energy maybe high but boy do they protest when they do :)

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

#95

Post by splintercell »

realonedev wrote: post #84
splintercell wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Surprisingly, in India if people would be against such a measure then only because it would violate the modesty of women, and not because it invades the privacy.

Refer, https://thewire.in/24713/aadhaar-identification-simplified-m... The UIDAI has emphasised several times that information related to religion or caste is neither collected nor stored in the Aadhaar database. Applicants and holders are encouraged to look at their Aadhaar to confirm this

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.

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

#96

Post by abhishivsaxena »

schoen wrote: post #75
abhishivsaxena wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aadhaar has the same data that your US birth certificate has. Name/DOB/gender/Address-if-available. Unless I'm mistaken everyone in US has a Birth Certificate. EDIT IN RESPONSE TO YOUR EDIT An birth certificate is also an ID. There's no rational reason of being proud of not having a national ID, when you have mandatory birth registrations and birth certificates. If anything Aadhaar store less information than your BC…

Birth certificates don't contain biometrics [edit: I guess some hospitals include a newborn's footprints] and may not contain address in some states; the address is also never updated (nor is the name in case of name changes). They also aren't issued by the national government and are kept in databases at the state level -- sometimes on paper. I don't believe there are any national standards for what data a birth cer…

Really. So anyone can physically break into an archiving unit, steal someone's BC, change some details and use it get benefits/fraud? And the victim wouldn't even get a hint? Sounds very dangerous!

I have my details saved in a centralised database, which notifies me via an SMS anytime my credentials are used.

I acknowledge the BM issue elsewhere in this thread. But please realise that unless you live in a cave your BM are already public. I can take you out for a coffee and steal your finger prints.

The point is that for KYC/payments BM are much more secure than the alternative you would use - signatures/xerox which are even easier to steal since you just need a pen and a paper.

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

#97

Post by realonedev »

hackuser wrote: post #85
realonedev wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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?

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

#98

Post by blindwatchmaker »

realonedev wrote: post #78
ganduG wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the old lady in the village will have a problem with it when it is used to marginalize and discriminate against her. The riots in 1984 and in 2001 showed us how voter lists can, and will, be misused by people in power to their own benefit.

Disgusting comment. Please make sure you know what you are talking. Don't spread fake news like the Indian communists. Edit: If people want I compile produce point by point data to prove that Indian communists are masters at spreding fake news, for decades. I will even quote a website which is mostly anti current government (it spreads fake news most of the times) thewire.in/24713/aadhaar-identification-simplified-my…

> Don't spread fake news like the communists.

> mostly anti current government (it spreads fake news most of the times)

Do you consider views from sources that disagree with your own as 'fake news' ? A lot of what you've posted here sounds a lot like the hyper partisan BJP trolls that seem to pop up wherever there's any criticism of the Modi government.

You should try to do better on HN, because I would prefer not to see that particular virulent strain of the internet in relatively sane places.

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

#99

Post by devnonymous »

realonedev wrote: post #81
flak48 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not many these so called privacy and human rights activists stood up then. The current PM Modi himself criticized it then : https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/453543852175925248?l... Coincidence?

He asked questions about implementation.

..and complained when he didn't receive any answers from the government in power and now that his Government is in power, not only is it also refusing to answer questions but is also targeting the people who ask similar questions.[1]

[1] Google for CIS and Aadhaar leaks

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

#100

Post by hackuser »

ams6110 wrote: post #32
mystere wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really have a pony in this race, but logically, there is a difference. There are strict government laws in place to protect SSN information, such laws do not exist (apparently) in India regarding Aadhar. I don't think the argument is (mostly) about having a national ID, but about the lack of privacy of that information. Of course biometrics are bad in another way... If one needed to, you could change an ID nu…

Social Security Number in the US pre-dates the internet and any concerns people had about privacy. People used to include it on their pre-printed personal checks along with their name and address. SSNs don't even have a checksum to detect typos, nor any convenient mechanism to issue a replacement number if one is compromised. Using the security flaws of the SSN implementation to justify security flaws in any modern i…

Generally I agree, but ...

> Social Security Number in the US pre-dates the internet and any concerns people had about privacy.

People in the US were concerned about privacy long before the Internet. The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution dates back to the 18th century, for example.

In fact, I'd say people are much less concerned about privacy in the Internet era; they put everything online and happily give private info to corporations and government.

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