Indians and privacy · DIGIT-ARC

Someone had posted this article to reddit:
How Indian Kids Raised Without Personal Space Became Adults Who Don't Care About Privacy

There is no word in most Indian languages for privacy. That isn’t surprising, considering that unlike many western countries, Indian society is based on communities, not individuals.

We are a country of joint families — where cousins live under the same roof and grow up as siblings and having a room to yourself is a rare privilege. Privacy has never been something Indians have enjoyed, so it is not as much of a priority as it is for, let’s say, Americans, who tend to live in nuclear families.

I know its a Buzzfeed article, but it really raises a good point. Most Indians don't really understand the concept of privacy because it is still very alien to most of us. This can be observed in the way people sometimes freely give away their contact details on social media publicly or invade other's privacy.

Also from the article:

We already live in an environment where catastrophic oversights like a tenth of all Indian citizens’ Aadhaar numbers being uploaded without protection on government websites are commonplace. And yet, we’re not debating how to make sure less data is available about us, or how to ensure that corporates and governments have a responsibility to keep information about us safe and use it as minimally as possible. Instead, the debate is about whether privacy is a fundamental right.

The Supreme Court’s decision on privacy will be a historic moment for India. But even if it turns out well, it will just be the beginning of a long and tiring battle. But as the fight rages on in the courtrooms and in parliament, the bigger battle will be fought in our homes and schools, as we attempt to convince parents and principals that a 15-year-old's right to a private life is important to the future of this country.

What do you guys think? Is privacy really overrated or is it really crucial for us as individuals?

I can’t say if Indians are insensitive towards their own privacy however they appear to be insensitive to the privacy needs of others!!

-At a xerox shop when some of my personal documents were wrongly scaled, he offered me the corrected ones but refused to return the faulty ones. I had to buy them too to keep it with me and prevent being left at the shop

- When an ISO 27001 certified company offered me a job, they wanted me to register on a third party site by a well-known corporate body in India to enable background checks. When I asked about security agreements between the two, they were silent. When I asked if that third party site gets hacked and my personal data leaks to the unknown world, who takes the ownership, they were silent about it.

-A well-known brand in spectacles and lens in India has a bad practice of enabling public URLs (without customer consent) for customer queries to enable customers to track them without logging in. I had to argue with their helpdesk to get my queries (that disclosed my mail id, contact number and other details) on the public URL removed.

Just like how we litter on streets, drive from wrong side of the road, ride two wheelers on footpaths, we are insensitive to the privacy needs of others. We fundamentally don’t understand that we are invading someone else’s privacy by our actions and/or are not consciously doing anything to protect it if the need may be. This is visible from a small shops to security certified corporates alike.

When kids ask for privacy, most Indian parent's typical reply is " Why do you need Privacy ? You must be doing or planning to do something wrong. That's why you are asking for Privacy." LOL.

It is true, have been feeling this for a long time. It is just the kind of insanely personal questions that come up in casual conversations, there is absolutely no filter when it comes to people nosing their way into discussions they have no business having. For example, people ask "how old are you?", or "how much do you earn?", as if they are all answers that everyone is comfortable sharing.

So many times people will just barge in and intrude on random conversations.

And yeah, as @Stormbringer said, people here think that you only need privacy if you are doing something wrong in your life.

It is not just about casual things. At my office where I first used to work the CA used to fill out the tax e-filing forms for everyone (over 100 employees). I was a noob at that time for tax related things(still am). After I left that job I realized I had to fill those forms myself and tried to login to that website. Obviously my account was already registered by that CA and I couldn't log in. So I asked my mates who were still working there to get a contact of the CA (they had no idea about the e-filing website account as well). I got his e-mail id and sent a mail request to give my account back. I was expecting some kind of verification to be done. But no he just instantly replied giving away the password. I was like ARE U KIDDING ME? I got my my account and secured it.

There are many sites that still store the password in plain text, how do you secure against that?

By reading all these I'm angry and puzzled at the same time. Angry mostly because of the ignorance of the people ( the kind who don't give any importance to others rights ) and puzzled because there is no way this is going to ever change. So what do we do ? Can't think of anything.

Lack of personal space / privacy is a big problem of over populated countries be it us or our neighbor's . Over population brings all sort of morally degraded things one can think of - it's not like people of developed countries don't commit crimes they do but they got developed for a reason and we are still in same state.

We have seen so many good persons in our country including political leader, religious type, scholars, athletes etc. etc. but none of them have ever given utter importance to keep population in check. People are also guilty of same ...

Please read these :

The Muslim Overpopulation Myth That Just Won’t Die

Now, Saffron leaders ask Hindus to have 10 kids to ensure survival of religion

The Vatican Finally Admits Catholics Don't Care What It Says About Birth Control

What are these ? I always question myself. You grow your family and your population and you take others who are weaker in number by force. This is the basic line which is driving many religion. Many nowadays do it on purpose - We have now on a very advanced stage on science and technology and birth control is a very easy thing if implemented correctly but nowadays everyone has become more pious than ever ( pun intended ).

We can't make god happy by going to prayer houses - you don't need to believe in god just do good deeds and your work is what matters - sigh! only few are now left with this moral.

Anyway, Long story short to put a collar on our our data shall be used we need some strict rule like EU GDPR
Home Page of EU GDPR

These days religion is less about following the teachings of a religion and more about whether you belong to its tribe or not. Such a mentality has been around as long as humans have been around. When are not educated enough to use logic or reason, your reptilian brain will be dominant and subsequently result in a more tribal behaviour.

But I digress.

The real problem we have with privacy is the "I have nothing to hide" mentality. But this is really underestimating the value of your personal information. Imagine if someone had a criminal background, but they have done their time and are now reformed and an upstanding member of society. If their reputation as a criminal was public knowledge even after they moved to another location, they would still face discrimination in getting a job, a house, a loan, etc. no matter where they go. Their past will always be there to haunt them.

I think population is not really a problem, the problem is the mentality of the people. People need to know what personal boundaries are and keep out of other people's business when it does not involve them.

Hostels in Colleges and school don't give single sharing room even if you're will to pay for it no such thing as privacy at all

The hostel I lived in during college had single rooms as well though. They were a bit more expensive and fewer than dorms, but it was there for people who wanted to have them. But yes, other than this there was no privacy everywhere else.

Sometimes I feel, good old fashioned vigilante justice is the way to go, to teach these cancer of humanity, a lesson.
Leak their private information in retaliation. Only then, would they understand.

Desmond David said:
These days religion is less about following the teachings of a religion and more about whether you belong to its tribe or not. Such a mentality has been around as long as humans have been around. When are not educated enough to use logic or reason, your reptilian brain will be dominant and subsequently result in a more tribal behaviour.

But I digress.

The real problem we have with privacy is the "I have nothing to hide" mentality. But this is really underestimating the value of your personal information. Imagine if someone had a criminal background, but they have done their time and are now reformed and an upstanding member of society. If their reputation as a criminal was public knowledge even after they moved to another location, they would still face discrimination in getting a job, a house, a loan, etc. no matter where they go. Their past will always be there to haunt them.

I think population is not really a problem, the problem is the mentality of the people. People need to know what personal boundaries are and keep out of other people's business when it does not involve them.

This I can't disagree but we have lots of politicians with such background and people are supporting them ( at-least they win on elections ). Anyway, leaking of private information on everywhere and selling it off is a not a thing I civilized country should support and that's why we NEED some strong laws like EU GDPR.

But the real question is do we have forward thinking politicians who also respect privacy and therefore are willing to bring up this issue in parliament?

Desmond David said:
But the real question is do we have forward thinking politicians who also respect privacy and therefore are willing to bring up this issue in parliament?

I don't think we have any.

Privacy issues will affect politicians and businessmen more than the common man. They are not aware of it due to technical illiteracy

We have politicians who say privacy can be protected with five feet thick walls.

Then perhaps the only thing that will help is an official Pirate Party of India. There is one AFAIK, but they are not very active.

Desmond David said:
But the real question is do we have forward thinking politicians who also respect privacy and therefore are willing to bring up this issue in parliament?

The politicians that you see in power are the average of all common people.
If common people do not care about privacy, obviously the politicians wont cater to that need.

Makes sense. But then it becomes a chicken and egg problem. Respect for privacy must start somewhere.

No privacy in public places of India every where there are hidden CCTV cameras watching my activity First they need to get rid of CCTV in railway station,roads,airports,govt offices,banks etc for complete privacy

Cyberghost said:
No privacy in public places of India every where there are hidden CCTV cameras watching my activity First they need to get rid of CCTV in railway station,roads,airports,govt offices,banks etc for complete privacy

What happens when there is a major crime ? A terrorist attack ?

Nerevarine said:
What happens when there is a major crime ? A terrorist attack ?

They need to find via the old school way ie, before the era of CCTV cameras

Are you trolling ?

W

Cyberghost said:
They need to find via the old school way ie, before the era of CCTV cameras

"Old School" also had the "old murder/crime rate" much higher than today's rate.In fact unless something drastic happens expect increase in CCTVs in all areas of life in all nations.

Cyberghost said:
No privacy in public places of India every where there are hidden CCTV cameras watching my activity First they need to get rid of CCTV in railway station,roads,airports,govt offices,banks etc for complete privacy

You're just talking like current politicians who say "Wearing jeans is the main cause of raping" or "Yoga can cure cancer" or "Diseases like cancer due to sins committed in last lives". Why not discipline people to behave well in public places?

Cyberghost said:
No privacy in public places of India every where there are hidden CCTV cameras watching my activity First they need to get rid of CCTV in railway station,roads,airports,govt offices,banks etc for complete privacy

They are called public place for a reason .. duh !

Anyway, Govt. can collect our data but they should safe guard the collected data and should not sell / leak to other entities. W and one need some strict law so our personal data can remain safe.

Food for thought -
Facebook a national security threat because society values ‘Free Services’ over privacy, study says:
Facebook a national security threat because society values ‘Free Services’ over privacy: Study

Happened upon this thread a little late, but I see a lot of confusion here. There are various types of privacy being all lumped into one here, and they're not all equal.

For example, security is being treated as privacy, when we talk about Aadhaar or passwords stored as plain text, etc. That's not a privacy issue that's a pure security issue. People can do bad things with that data. Like create fake bank accounts in your name and endanger your freedom (you going to jail) or if you use the same passwords everywhere, it can endanger your assets (such as bank accounts), or even your email address, etc. This is security, not privacy.

Next, is the personal space privacy being discussed, which is parents not letting you be alone, or hostels not giving you single rooms, etc. That's a valid problem in every crowded country, and even a problem with minors in developed and sparsely populated countries as well. It's more societal than anything else, and with houses getting smaller and smaller because of congestion (all over the globe) this is a problem that will only get worse. If you think you have it bad here in India, think about the Japanese city dwellers who have it far worse than most of us when it comes to lack of personal privacy. There is a psychological effect that needs to be discussed as well, which may explain the more violent tendencies of some people these days, which may very well be linked to a lack of space in general, or the lack of privacy.

Lastly, we have online / offline anonymity, which is debated as to whether it's even a valid privacy whinge. more and more internet services want to know who you are, and aren't interested in catering to anonymous people. Places like this forum are some of the last spaces left online (decent places, I mean) where people can still interact with others without revealing who they actually are in the "real world". Most of us don't use that feature or ability, admittedly, but it still exists nonetheless.

Aadhaar raised the question of whether a citizen deserves the right to be anonymous, and choose what data they want to share with their governments or corporations. Now, one can claim that in order to receive government benefits, one needs to be identified (still debatable whether biometrics is needed), and that would be true, but some believe that we as people have a right to exist without giving our details to everyone.

Of course that last one is getting more and more impossible to do, anywhere in the world. No one employs people without background checks, and checks of identity, societal standing and even social media stalking to assess an employee's stance on important subjects. For example, in the west, no one wants to hire a white supremacist, or a Nazi, and while we might argue that it is against free speech, or something like that, one also cannot argue against the fact that a company needs to be able to make a profit, and fire or not hire individuals who are detrimental to that goal.

In essence, the days of anonymity online or offline for most popular things is at an end. Yes, this forum is still one of the few remaining places that we have to be able to be anonymous, but such places are few and far between now.

CCTVs, Facebook and the likes, and even ad networks, etc, are all tracking you and know who you are. For the most part, it's only because they want to try and sell you some crap, so it's not really evil, but there will always be a few that will use your data against you in ever increasing evil ways, without you even knowing it. Influencing voting and elections, shady politics in general, fear mongering, etc, are all on the rise thanks to social media, and that's not going anywhere, sadly. Either way, wishing for anonymity is just wishful thinking now, so get used to spending your life under the glare of the spotlight of the world, and being judged for every little thing. It's the sad future of our species, for better or worse...

I agree. Realistically we don't really have much control over what data is being gathered about us. The govt already has a lot of data on us already, even before aadhaar became a thing. The real question is where do we draw the line. We have to trust these companies and the govt. to be responsible custodians of whatever data they have collected about us. However, there are many ways in which this data can be abused. Like the latest Cambridge Analytica scandal where they used people's data to sway public opinion. There is also the danger of doxxing which can be done with even simpler methods of gathering data.

W

Desmond David said:
I agree. Realistically we don't really have much control over what data is being gathered about us. The govt already has a lot of data on us already, even before aadhaar became a thing. The real question is where do we draw the line. We have to trust these companies and the govt. to be responsible custodians of whatever data they have collected about us. However, there are many ways in which this data can be abused. Like the latest Cambridge Analytica scandal where they used people's data to sway public opinion. There is also the danger of doxxing which can be done with even simpler methods of gathering data.

To be frank someone who can be swayed by "customized news feeds over social media" doesn't inspire much confidence in that person's rational thinking in the first place.To put it in perspective I never take any sensational news online/social media/tv channel at its face value(even if I do spend some time reading them just for laughs.e.g.the paytm demonetization scam article over whatsapp where somebody calculated 100 rupee note circulated 100000 times gives paytm 250000 at 2.5% transaction charge :lol:

no wonder it is hard to find good economics experts in India worthy of RBI governor post) unless it is published in at least 2 national english newspapers(usually Hindu & ToI).

I don't see why what Cambridge Analytica did is so wrong. Someone please explain this to me.

We had demographic profiling for so long in advertising, and it does work. Psychographic profiling is just an evolution of that. Facebook by its very nature, allows granular targeting of content and ads... this is what fills its coffers. Generally, is it not better that you are seeing ads that you like instead of ads that you do not like? Personalised communication is proven to be better for individuals and companies alike. For example, if you are playing some sidey game, you might get ads to dating sites, pets, karaoke ads and whatnot. Since we cannot escape ads really, is it not better to get ads that are purely of other games? Now why cannot political campaigns use the same tools, especially since they are allowed traditional advertising? If it was wrong, the moral judgement on the wrongness was decided after the fact, so they certainly did not know it was wrong before hand. And come on, since when have politicians been squeaky clean. Someone who propagates politically coloured posts on social media, would do so from any source.

W

^^The thing they did wrong is taking advantage of an already "rationally crippled" section of population(aka believing in social media type) by getting their hands on illegally obtained data. To give an analogy it is like a life insurance agent selling an expensive policy to 18 years old who just inherited a large sum of money(which he knows by gaining access to an otherwise private database of people inheriting large sums of money recently) by scaring him with false info about death but on a very large scale(aka he did the same to millions of 18 years old). The agent did not exactly do anything illegal(except getting the information part) as life insurance policy is genuine & there is a life risk for any person irrespective of age but that does not make this right especially if done on a large scale.

As for distributing biased posts from other sources remember that unlike social media there is no "hard analytical data" for those sources.One can print biased posters,get newspapers to print biased news articles etc but there is no guarantee that it will work because there is no data that says X% of ppl in Y town trust any news in Z newspaper over others or they trust wall papers more than newspapers etc.

IMO Political parties should not employ methods that corporations use for "customer engagement and retention". Politicians must be elected based on merits and demerits. That is why I am not very happy with Cambridge Analytica's role in swaying elections.

But then, this was being done for at least a 100 years, through traditional modes of advertisement as well. Even if you remove micro targeting for delivering the ads, it will cost a bit more to achieve the same results. An agency can disseminate the same ads, with the same content, without the targeting. You cannot stop political parties from campaigning.

Facebook is being singled out here. They had a number of data sources. This included Snapchat, Acxiom, Infogroup, Experian, Datatrust, Aristotle, Folk, L2 and Nielsen among others. This allowed them to get all the data points they needed to make granular targeting possible.

W

^^None of them is as effective as Facebook & no it will not be possible to achieve the same results(using facebook data) using other sources no matter how much more you spend.

Nix himself said it, the big data was big, allowed them billions of data points on each individual. Some of the stuff you cannot get from Facebook, like which TV shows you watched on your cable subscription. These are all professional data vendors. The difference in costs will be reaching the same number of people through non targeted campaigns on FB only.

W

Facebook is in a league of its own,there is no other source(aka netflix,hulu,instagram etc) which wields as much influence on as many people.The reason facebook is facing so much flak for cambridge analytica is exactly this.This is also why russian hackers/bots are most active on facebook because they know this is where it is most efficient(with their skills penetrating databases of netfilx etc is nothing too difficult for them).

It could also be that Facebook is the most visible, or the conspiracy theorist in me is saying it was deliberately targeted. The scandal came out in a vortex of whistleblowers and leaked videos, almost a year and a half after CA worked on the Trump campaign, and more than 5 years after their work on other political campaigns, and 4 years after FB fixed the underlying problem (the method used to scrub the data. Selling it was a whole other issue). In any case, there is little or no scrutiny on the mountain of data that the other data brokers sold to CA. I'm pretty sure the data gathered from FB is just the tip of the iceberg.

Russian troll farms purchased $50,000 worth of FB ads. Clinton and Trump spent $80 million. src

Giving some examples. What you purchased, when you did it, where you got it from, how much you paid for it. What you watched on local cable channels. Where you went out to eat. Your financial records. Your medical history. Your call records. All of this data is collected somewhere. FB does not collect all this data. That data has a price. This is the job of data brokers.

It's simple really, CA had generated psychographic profiles of every adult in the Untied States. Every adult in the United States is not on Facebook.

True, but creating a psychographic profile won't really help anyone unless you find a way to engage said people. And Facebook is the largest platform where you can do so.

W

I am not much of a believer in conspiracy theories most importantly because they either hugely overestimate human intelligence aka area 51 alien research or hugely underestimate it aka 9/11.To me CA case just represents an opportunity opened up probably because of pent up frustration & anger caused by Trump.

Conventional forms of spending always costs more else there wouldn't be a black economy.The $50k spend by Russians was just a starting point,its effects were multiplied by their bots/trolls.The same can not be done in a legit conventional form or at least not without significant additional costs.

Necrobumping this thread to update on some serious development in potential violation of privacy by the government - While Delhi has its pollution mask on, the rest of India might need one too. For different reasons of course...

The concoction of CCTVs and Facial Recognition continue to ring alarm bells. We recently even received a response from the NCRB to a legal notice sent to them. But in light of the continuing growing concerns of CCTVs and facial recognition technology in the recent weeks, we throw a few more kicks to fight against this trajectory of mass surveillance.

While the supreme court did uphold our right to privacy, the government is doing everything it can to undermine this ruling.

W

Desmond David said:
While the supreme court did uphold our right to privacy, the government is doing everything it can to undermine this ruling.

This is inevitable with the advancements in technology. CCTVs will soon become a necessity simply because in today's world(at least developed nations/tier 1 cities in India) almost every reasonably well off person has a camera in their pocket courtesy mobile phone so it is illogical for govt not to install cameras of their own in every place.With the advancements in facial recognition soon it will not be just mobile phones unlocking but also many other things/devices(China already started a facial recognition based payment system eliminating need to carry even cards/phones) & at that time it will again be illogical for govt to not use facial recognition.Only solution to this is electing people who don't misuse it & if one gives an argument that it is impossible then one should probably make plans for immigration because living in a country where one can never expect to have even a little confidence in their elected representatives is simply pointless.

"China is doing it" is not a good example as the Chinese government is a textbook example of an autocratic government. There is ample proof of the extent to which they will go to suppress their citizens. It may seem logical, but it's not ethical. There is no net benefit for the public. Sure, the government feed some propaganda about using it to capturing terrorists, but that is like a 0.1% use case for mass surveillance, other 99.9% of the time, they are just spying on ordinary citizens for no reason.

whitestar_999 said:
Only solution to this is electing people who don't misuse it

I think there should be mechanisms in place for accountability. Surveillance must be done only upon a court order or a official warrant. Also a record of whenever it was used must be made available through RTI (which I doubt considering recent developments regarding RTI officers). Such a dangerous system would only be justified with such mechanisms in place otherwise it's free game for the govt. to abuse in anyway they see fit.

whitestar_999 said:
if one gives an argument that it is impossible then one should probably make plans for immigration because living in a country where one can never expect to have even a little confidence in their elected representatives is simply pointless.

In worst case, this is the only option. I don't want to live in China 2.0.

W

Desmond David said:
"China is doing it" is not a good example as the Chinese government is a textbook example of an autocratic government. There is ample proof of the extent to which they will go to suppress their citizens. It may seem logical, but it's not ethical. There is no net benefit for the public.

The point I was trying to make was that the argument of govt not allowed to use facial recognition will hold little water if most citizens are already using facial recognition in their daily lives(as part of their device usage,transactions etc).

Desmond David said:
Sure, the government feed some propaganda about using it to capturing terrorists, but that is like a 0.1% use case for mass surveillance, other 99.9% of the time, they are just spying on ordinary citizens for no reason.

Again,with technological advancement in future,terrorists too will employ advanced means.Don't forget that 0.1% may be mathematically insignificant but one person able to hack into a nuclear power plant to disable its safety function in a country of millions/billion is enough for any court/sane person to override any law/regulation to stop him so as you said earlier,not a good example.Future terrorists won't be using suicide vests,vehicles or knives,they will probably be using keyboards/3d printers/labs on chips & this is where the all encompassing electronic surveillance will come into play.

whitestar_999 said:
The point I was trying to make was that the argument of govt not allowed to use facial recognition will hold little water if most citizens are already using facial recognition in their daily lives(as part of their device usage,transactions etc).

Agreed, but that is mostly because the citizens are not fully educated as to the responsible usage of such technology and the "dark side" of it so to speak. Most people fall under the "nothing to hide" school of thought not knowing that just by having this attitude, they are making it worse for everybody, including themselves.

whitestar_999 said:
Again,with technological advancement in future,terrorists too will employ advanced means.Don't forget that 0.1% may be mathematically insignificant but one person able to hack into a nuclear power plant to disable its safety function in a country of millions/billion is enough for any court/sane person to override any law/regulation to stop him so as you said earlier,not a good example.Future terrorists won't be using suicide vests,vehicles or knives,they will probably be using keyboards/3d printers/labs on chips & this is where the all encompassing electronic surveillance will come into play.

Agreed. Not downplaying it's utility, but the main issue is, how do we insure that there will be no misuse? For example, what is stopping the government from monitoring journalists who criticize their policies or question their motives, dig up dirt on them and then use it to discredit them or worse? Such an action could have a chilling effect on free journalism in India and it is already pretty endangered. In other words, is it worth giving the government so much power, especially one that is as corrupt as ours?

W

Desmond David said:
Agreed, but that is mostly because the citizens are not fully educated as to the responsible usage of such technology and the "dark side" of it so to speak. Most people fall under the "nothing to hide" school of thought not knowing that just by having this attitude, they are making it worse for everybody, including themselves.

Agreed. Not downplaying it's utility, but the main issue is, how do we insure that there will be no misuse? For example, what is stopping the government from monitoring journalists who criticize their policies or question their motives, dig up dirt on them and then use it to discredit them or worse? Such an action could have a chilling effect on free journalism in India and it is already pretty endangered. In other words, is it worth giving the government so much power, especially one that is as corrupt as ours?

Joseph de Maistre - Wikiquote

Every nation gets the government it deserves. OR In a democracy, people get the government they deserve

I completely agree with above,all this talk about govt being "anti-democratic" conveniently forgets that it is the people themselves(directly by voting or indirectly by not voting) who elected the govt. You are saying "is it worth giving govt so much power" but ideally,giving power to govt is no different than giving power to ourselves in a democracy.What I mean to say is that people should not choose such leaders in the first place if they think they can not give them enough power. Just take a simple example,all this talk about misuse of surveillance in the name of curbing terrorism & yet how do you think those terrorists so easily get false identification papers/sims/bank accounts & what not.Just see all these bank frauds being committed on the basis of fraud bank accounts & cases of Jharkand villages/towns where committing bank fraud is now somewhat of a cottage industry.If a govt started adopting western level privacy protection measures in states like Jharkhand,you tell me how anyone is going to stop a terrorist from getting all the documents/sims he want from these areas. People want western world privileges without following the good civic behaviour of western world citizens.

Now that you mention like this, greed and poverty seems the major reason for people following corrupted practices in our country. It's like a circle feeding itself to grow bigger and stronger. If we want benefits like western countries, we obviously need to start with real education, not just degrees. may be then we will have people with more compassion and less selfishness to commit crimes like corruption.

Also, I too agree with Desmond about having a Audit(like) team who would see the surveillance report every month and check if all the rules and regulations were followed and to publish any wrongdoings to keep things as transparent as possible. But people are being paid to prepare false reports everywhere.

Corruption is there to stay as long we have over population problem and some religious agenda for not controlling this primary issue. It's high time now to control population like China.

Also college education is just too cheap if you compare with any developed nation - cheap things not always the best. Govt. would not curb many things as it will have serious social effect on typical "desi" mentality. So we are in a limbo of future development and old shitty mentality of the masses.

So let us welcome the surveillance or whatever measure is going to be introduced - we will adapt and overcome

whitestar_999 said:
I completely agree with above,all this talk about govt being "anti-democratic" conveniently forgets that it is the people themselves(directly by voting or indirectly by not voting) who elected the govt.

Considering this point, it makes sense. I guess ultimately it's the citizens fault. The people didn't vote for the government for important things like economic policies or progressive development. People voted for the government for things like "ram mandir", which is a luxury for us right now. Indian citizens don't seem to have a sense of priority.

whitestar_999 said:
You are saying "is it worth giving govt so much power" but ideally,giving power to govt is no different than giving power to ourselves in a democracy.

I only partially agree with this. A government can choose to do whatever they want once in power, they are not obligated to deliver everything in their manifesto and do whatever they like, such as incorporating facial recognition in this case with no proper justification. The public is not reliable in this case because it is easy to sell them a statement like "this will help catch terrorists" and they will gladly sign away their fundamental rights, right to privacy in this case. The government can reduce the power of the people by instilling fear. To what extent is it worth suspending your fundamental rights to catch terrorists? Thing is that this is not even something new, Hitler did this to introduce the Gestapo to fight communists, who were portrayed as arsonists and anarchists, but the Gestapo were actually used to hunt down Jews and political dissidents. So I think the power of the people is really an illusion for us, mostly because of the unreliable nature of the public.

whitestar_999 said:
What I mean to say is that people should not choose such leaders in the first place if they think they can not give them enough power.

Agreed.

whitestar_999 said:
Just take a simple example,all this talk about misuse of surveillance in the name of curbing terrorism & yet how do you think those terrorists so easily get false identification papers/sims/bank accounts & what not.Just see all these bank frauds being committed on the basis of fraud bank accounts & cases of Jharkand villages/towns where committing bank fraud is now somewhat of a cottage industry.If a govt started adopting western level privacy protection measures in states like Jharkhand,you tell me how anyone is going to stop a terrorist from getting all the documents/sims he want from these areas. People want western world privileges without following the good civic behaviour of western world citizens.

There are ways of doing this without privacy invasive measures. Getting falsified documents has nothing to do with mass surveillance/facial identification, it means a flaw in the process or inability (incompetence?) of bank workers or SIM providers in identifying forged documents or verification of identity of the persons. Do we need mass facial recognition just because people commit bank fraud or gets a SIM card by creating false documents? That is a flaw in the identity verification workflow. If it is so simple for unauthorized people to get SIM cards, perhaps there should be more stringent verification measures. But stringent verification is a far cry from public facial recognition.

TheSloth said:
If we want benefits like western countries, we obviously need to start with real education, not just degrees.

High population means more competition, which means no one really has the luxury to study for knowledge and everyone just wants to get ahead of each other. Couple this with fetishization of MBAs, IITs and IAS jobs and you see what the problems are. People are more concerned with forming an identity as a MBA, IIT, BE graduate than actual knowledge. It should not be this way but unfortunately this is the reality of our society right now.

topgear said:
Also college education is just too cheap if you compare with any developed nation - cheap things not always the best.

Education is not cheap is a lot of developed countries. It is cheap or even free in some mostly due to being heavily subsidized by their governments. Main thing for them is the lack of competition due to lower population. As such, their citizens don't have the pressure and are more comfortable switching their careers if they don't feel like it. But here in India, no one has that luxury.

topgear said:
Govt. would not curb many things as it will have serious social effect on typical "desi" mentality. So we are in a limbo of future development and old shitty mentality of the masses.

Agreed. But I think we must aspire to improve.

topgear said:
So let us welcome the surveillance or whatever measure is going to be introduced - we will adapt and overcome

Overcome how? We will be at the mercy of our glorious overlords.

W

Desmond David said:
There are ways of doing this without privacy invasive measures. Getting falsified documents has nothing to do with mass surveillance/facial identification, it means a flaw in the process or inability (incompetence?) of bank workers or SIM providers in identifying forged documents or verification of identity of the persons. Do we need mass facial recognition just because people commit bank fraud or gets a SIM card by creating false documents? That is a flaw in the identity verification workflow. If it is so simple for unauthorized people to get SIM cards, perhaps there should be more stringent verification measures. But stringent verification is a far cry from public facial recognition.

My point was that such technologies don't work in vacuum.e.g.cctv without facial recognition is pretty pointless to stop an imminent threat because 24*7 human monitoring of important sites in cities like Delhi & Mumbai is simply not possible.This works with assumption that terrorists already got all the required documents/sims & moving onto their target. Of course what you describe is an ideal situation where such things are not required in the first place because terrorists failed to get documents/sims because of stringent checks but chances of that happening are certainly lower than 1st option(basing this on fact that facial recognition/tech will certainly improve in next few years compared to hoping Indian society mentality will change in same next few years).

Desmond David said:
Education is not cheap is a lot of developed countries. It is cheap or even free in some mostly due to being heavily subsidized by their governments. Main thing for them is the lack of competition due to lower population. As such, their citizens don't have the pressure and are more comfortable switching their careers if they don't feel like it. But here in India, no one has that luxury.

Correct but one major issue with education in India is govt control & you don't need to look around to know what happens when govt tries to run a sector/industry(bsnl,air india,railways,defense psu,psb). If there is good enough education available in India then people can even create opportunities for themselves & won't have to think about switching careers in the first place.

Desmond David said:
Considering this point, it makes sense. I guess ultimately it's the citizens fault. The people didn't vote for the government for important things like economic policies or progressive development. People voted for the government for things like "ram mandir", which is a luxury for us right now. Indian citizens don't seem to have a sense of priority.

I only partially agree with this. A government can choose to do whatever they want once in power, they are not obligated to deliver everything in their manifesto and do whatever they like, such as incorporating facial recognition in this case with no proper justification. The public is not reliable in this case because it is easy to sell them a statement like "this will help catch terrorists" and they will gladly sign away their fundamental rights, right to privacy in this case. The government can reduce the power of the people by instilling fear. To what extent is it worth suspending your fundamental rights to catch terrorists? Thing is that this is not even something new, Hitler did this to introduce the Gestapo to fight communists, who were portrayed as arsonists and anarchists, but the Gestapo were actually used to hunt down Jews and political dissidents. So I think the power of the people is really an illusion for us, mostly because of the unreliable nature of the public.

Agreed.

There are ways of doing this without privacy invasive measures. Getting falsified documents has nothing to do with mass surveillance/facial identification, it means a flaw in the process or inability (incompetence?) of bank workers or SIM providers in identifying forged documents or verification of identity of the persons. Do we need mass facial recognition just because people commit bank fraud or gets a SIM card by creating false documents? That is a flaw in the identity verification workflow. If it is so simple for unauthorized people to get SIM cards, perhaps there should be more stringent verification measures. But stringent verification is a far cry from public facial recognition.

High population means more competition, which means no one really has the luxury to study for knowledge and everyone just wants to get ahead of each other. Couple this with fetishization of MBAs, IITs and IAS jobs and you see what the problems are. People are more concerned with forming an identity as a MBA, IIT, BE graduate than actual knowledge. It should not be this way but unfortunately this is the reality of our society right now.

Education is not cheap is a lot of developed countries. It is cheap or even free in some mostly due to being heavily subsidized by their governments. Main thing for them is the lack of competition due to lower population. As such, their citizens don't have the pressure and are more comfortable switching their careers if they don't feel like it. But here in India, no one has that luxury.

Agreed. But I think we must aspire to improve.

Overcome how? We will be at the mercy of our glorious overlords.

Yes, it's higher education is free or cheap in some developed countries but what I meant to say was about the recent incidents of JNU or Jadavpur University of WB are not the most ideal example of how college student should behave. If we can make them financially responsible for their blunders and stop politics on college premises a lot of chaos could be controlled. Also discrimination between reserved and general is sometimes just too much.

How to overcome honestly I don't have any idea but anyway we need to get by - not saying if overlords do some thing wrong we should not disagree.

Yes, we ought to aspire to improve but also leave those we want to rot in hell or we will be dragged down.

"High population means more competition, which means no one really has the luxury to study for knowledge and everyone just wants to get ahead of each other. Couple this with fetishization of MBAs, IITs and IAS jobs and you see what the problems are. People are more concerned with forming an identity as a MBA, IIT, BE graduate than actual knowledge. It should not be this way but unfortunately this is the reality of our society right now."

You deserve a standing ovation for this only.

I know there would be use and misuse of the system we are talking so much about but rest assured due to incompetence of the people who will work for these systems everything would not work as the way "they "wanted.

People like to defend the system and citing population issues,, but I think it is important to point out that China has a bigger population and that population still mostly has a better quality of life than us.

While you would not be wrong in pointing out that we are a free country while China is authoritarian, it is important to point out that other than elections (mostly) our own state machinery is used against the populace and against political opponents freely. Regardless of who is in power. Plus China's government can do what it wants because it has the tacit approval of the majority of its population, which has seen significant economic progress even if it has been at the expense of ideological opponents.

Extreme Gamer said:
People like to defend the system and citing population issues,, but I think it is important to point out that China has a bigger population and that population still mostly has a better quality of life than us.

While you would not be wrong in pointing out that we are a free country while China is authoritarian, it is important to point out that other than elections (mostly) our own state machinery is used against the populace and against political opponents freely. Regardless of who is in power. Plus China's government can do what it wants because it has the tacit approval of the majority of its population, which has seen significant economic progress even if it has been at the expense of ideological opponents.

Do you remember China was the first to Curb it's population issue with laws - it was not a proper one but ultimately it was and is effective. Did you ever heard Chinese people fighting over religious issues ? China is almost thrice in size compared to ours. More people leads to lesser quality of life and vice versa. This is why countries with high birth rates are the worst ones.

Just read the below article and see if you can still agree with population control is just a matter which can be ignored :
Rohingya crisis: Population exploding as 91,000 babies are born in two years

It wasn't that effective. China is facing a problem of ageing population, and they had to revise their policy from one child to two children.

Chinese people don't fight over religious issues now because there is a strong degree of state control on religion. I'm sure you've heard about several incidents where bibles were confiscated. IIRC the majority of Chinese people identify as irreligious.

Also China being "thrice" our size is a misleading statement. Populations are not distributed uniformly across the landmass. The vast majority are ethnic Han Chinese who live on the eastern side. If you've ever been to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai or Beijing you will find the population density to be similar to that of Indian cities. At which point I will point out that in India the population is potentially more uniformly distributed, as we have fewer cities, and more of our population as a percentage lives in rural areas compared to China.

Also I had never said that having more people does not lead to a lower quality of life. My argument is that the quality of life the vast majority of us experience is purely out of mismanagement rather than population explosion. I will also point out that we have been extremely successful in our own population control measures, and the census data attests to that.

W

Chinese system is completely different & cannot be compared to India. Majority of China is Han & they are used to living under a "central emperor rule" much longer than Indians with their numerous communities based on caste,region,religion etc under equally numerous rulers(practically speaking India never lived under a central emperor rule after Ashoka's rule in 230BC,even mughals & british rule cannot be compared to his rule).

That's the thing, India has been largely divided since time immemorial, however none of that excuses the post-independence misgovernance that has plagued this country for decades.

Extreme Gamer said:
That's the thing, India has been largely divided since time immemorial, however none of that excuses the post-independence misgovernance that has plagued this country for decades.

Divided on what terms?
If one thinks one way others thinks so many other ways and there are some who gain by this wishful thinking.
Backwards is not based on economic factors but socio factors.
We are still the same since AD...

Let us come out of this kind of mould of thinking and give talented people a chance to do good to this land.

Divided on more ways than one. Political, cultural, economic, as well as ethnographic.

United India as a proper country along eurocentric lines did not officially exist until it was partitioned in 1947.

Ancient empires which united large swathes of the subcontinent did not claim to be emperors of undivided an undivided Indian nation.

Extreme Gamer said:
Divided on more ways than one. Political, cultural, economic, as well as ethnographic.

United India as a proper country along eurocentric lines did not officially exist until it was partitioned in 1947.

Ancient empires which united large swathes of the subcontinent did not claim to be emperors of undivided an undivided Indian nation.

Caste System should be abolished. But this cannot be done without awareness among the massess that Caste does not bring any good to them or to the nation at large.
What is the use of all these advancements in education system if we cannot think that " All men are created equal"
Maybe Article 370 is a step into that direction. Maybe... I hope so...

Article 370 should be removed but after winning the hearts of the population, not after putting them on lockdown based on deceit and lies. It's also ironic that the same government is reassuring the states of the sanctity of Article 371 which has largely the same provisions.

Extreme Gamer said:
Article 370 should be removed but after winning the hearts of the population, not after putting them on lockdown based on deceit and lies. It's also ironic that the same government is reassuring the states of the sanctity of Article 371 which has largely the same provisions.

I think it was unanimously agreed upon before taking a decision in the parliament.
Some states want special status due to their backwardness but centre is taking too much time in this regard.

whitestar_999 said:
Majority of China is Han & they are used to living under a "central emperor rule" much longer than Indians with their numerous communities based on caste,region,religion etc under equally numerous rulers(practically speaking India never lived under a central emperor rule after Ashoka's rule in 230BC,even mughals & british rule cannot be compared to his rule).

I don't think this example applies in the modern day. China has had a communist government that was permissive in the beginning of Mao Zedong's chairmanship. It was after the Tienanmen square incident that the Chinese govt. started suppressing down on their own citizens. I don't think their history has anything to do with their subservient attitude to their government.

Extreme Gamer said:
That's the thing, India has been largely divided since time immemorial, however none of that excuses the post-independence misgovernance that has plagued this country for decades.

Agreed, even though that we are a fully united republic, we still divide ourselves based on events and traditions from hundreds of years ago. First step to remedy this I think is to first see each other as human beings.

bssunilreddy said:
Caste System should be abolished. But this cannot be done without awareness among the massess that Caste does not bring any good to them or to the nation at large.
What is the use of all these advancements in education system if we cannot think that " All men are created equal"

Caste as an identity is okay, I mean you can't really escape your caste, so to speak, owing to your bloodline. Using your caste as an excuse to gain an advantage over other citizens is a different matter altogether.

W

Desmond David said:
I don't think this example applies in the modern day. China has had a communist government that was permissive in the beginning of Mao Zedong's chairmanship. It was after the Tienanmen square incident that the Chinese govt. started suppressing down on their own citizens. I don't think their history has anything to do with their subservient attitude to their government.

No.Mao was a communist no doubt but his functioning style was not much different from an emperor. Great Leap Forward - Wikipedia
This one is a must read,trust me Four Pests Campaign - Wikipedia

Chinese govt was never permissive,it just didn't start taking action until Tienanmem square probably because by that time it had seen the signs of collapsing USSR & was in a much better economic/military/diplomatic position compared to mao's rule.

Desmond David said:
Caste as an identity is okay, I mean you can't really escape your caste, so to speak, owing to your bloodline. Using your caste as an excuse to gain an advantage over other citizens is a different matter altogether.

That is a dangerous slippery road.The moment you start using words like "caste identity","bloodlines" is the moment when when you already draw a line between yourself & others based on something you just got by luck(aka born in the right family). If you work to become a billionaire & then comment something negative about not so rich people then it's ok(even if not considerate) but not if you became a billionaire by inheriting family wealth.

Caste is govt approved. Works at schools, colleges, govt offices etc. You will get benefits for being from certain castes and get penalised for being from some other.

W

meetdilip said:
Caste is govt approved. Works at schools, colleges, govt offices etc. You will get benefits for being from certain castes and get penalised for being from some other.

It is society approved,any govt just use it to justify their actions. Caste system is deeply entrenched in Indian society,it is capable of distorting even basic human emotions & the reason behind such incidents:
Tamil Nadu girl burnt alive by mother to stop her marrying dalit | Trichy News - Times of India

Govt says some guys are special some are not. It happens everywhere where govt is involved.

Govt. sets you aside if you are not from a particular caste.

whitestar_999 said:
This one is a must read,trust me Four Pests Campaign - Wikipedia

Yeah, I know about that campaign where he started eliminating Sparrows and other pests.
My point is that even if the people want a democratic government, they were powerless to do anything. Not because they have an affinity with for autocracy.

whitestar_999 said:
That is a dangerous slippery road.

I didn't mean it as an official identity. I mean that because you were born in a certain caste, and someone asks you what is your caste, you can only answer with the caste you were born under. My point is that you can call yourself whatever you want, but it should not be used as an excuse to gain an advantage over or harming someone of another caste. Getting rid of the caste system is an ideal scenario but practically not possible without radical reforms right now. I think inter-caste marriages need to be de-taboo-ified first.

whitestar_999 said:
It is society approved

Agreed.

W

meetdilip said:
Govt says some guys are special some are not. It happens everywhere where govt is involved.

Govt. sets you aside if you are not from a particular caste.

Govt says it because society demands it.

Society in many places also sets you aside if you are not from a particular caste.

W

Desmond David said:
I didn't mean it as an official identity. I mean that because you were born in a certain caste, and someone asks you what is your caste, you can only answer with the caste you were born under.

This is what the problem is.Someone should not ask your caste in the first place & neither one should reply about the same. I may sound harsh but that's what the reality also is. As long as one is interested in knowing the caste of another,there will always be evils of caste system present in the society.

Btw what about those orphans/adopted who don't even know the identity of their real parents let alone know the "caste they were born under".

You see, no group actively supports the withdrawal of privileges they have enjoyed. Japan had the Satsuma Rebellion, Europe had several of its own - the French one being the most famous. Similarly in India if you remove or even hint at removing reservation, the opposition will pounce on it and rile up the affected groups. It's even worse here in that because of the sheer diversity and existing affirmative action programs other communities too want special treatment. Politicians make careers out of these demands.

W

Extreme Gamer said:
You see, no group actively supports the withdrawal of privileges they have enjoyed. Japan had the Satsuma Rebellion, Europe had several of its own - the French one being the most famous. Similarly in India if you remove or even hint at removing reservation, the opposition will pounce on it and rile up the affected groups. It's even worse here in that because of the sheer diversity and existing affirmative action programs other communities too want special treatment. Politicians make careers out of these demands.

Indian caste system is unique in the world,in some ways it is even worse than discrimination against blacks & similar situations. Reservation was originally meant for only SC/ST communities & it was supposed to be for 10 years initially but it keeps getting extended & not without reasons as you can see the news link(mother burning her daughter & then trying to commit suicide) above which is just the tip of the iceberg. It is the Mandal commission by V P Singh govt & their 27% OBC reservation which sparked this reservation cauldron. All these jats,patiyadars etc movements demanding reservation is for this OBC category only(you can rest assured that no influential/decently developed community will demand itself to be incl in SC/ST category).

Exactly. OBC is a bane upon society. It eats away into opportunities for the tribals and dalits who face discrimination. Also add religious reservation to the mix and damn.

Even if we don't ask caste to each other, I never did to anyone in my life, govt has been asking it in every application. And giving preference to some people based on it. Society wants to stop corruption, is govt doing it as efficiently as giving goodies to people based on in which family they are born ?

W

meetdilip said:
Even if we don't ask caste to each other, I never did to anyone in my life, govt has been asking it in every application. And giving preference to some people based on it. Society wants to stop corruption, is govt doing it as efficiently as giving goodies to people based on in which family they are born ?

Just because you don't ask doesn't mean others too don't. Just watch Article 15 movie to get a rough idea. You seems to be confusing reservation to SC/ST(given by authors of Indian constitution) with reservation to OBC(given by V P Singh govt in 1980). What you call "goodies" may be true for OBC but for SC/ST it may be a difference of life & death.

It is not just for caste. In most states, they give on the basis of religion too. If person A is from a particular religion, he gets a lot of goodies like some castes. If person B has more marks/higher rank in a selection exam, he will be thrown out in favour of person A just because he was born into another religion. If you want an example, I know 2 people, one with rank 3k and another with 16k getting an entry for the same post in a national level exam. This is official and legal by the constitution and govt of India. No corruption, no donation, no capitation fee, no chacha-bathija relationship. Just based on religion.

W

meetdilip said:
It is not just for caste. In most states, they give on the basis of religion too. If person A is from a particular religion, he gets a lot of goodies like some castes. If person B has more marks/higher rank in a selection exam, he will be thrown out in favour of person A just because he was born into another religion. If you want an example, I know 2 people, one with rank 3k and another with 16k getting an entry for the same post in a national level exam. This is official and legal by the constitution and govt of India. No corruption, no donation, no capitation fee, no chacha-bathija relationship. Just based on religion.

There is no religion based reservation in India,some states' govt tried but the Supreme Court ruled against it.
Reservation on basis of religion

Which exam is this,whether it was conducted by state(which state) or central govt,what post? You must be missing some details/clarification regarding this.

I don't want to argue on this. I was telling the truth. You can believe or skip it. Your choice.

W

meetdilip said:
I don't want to argue on this. I was telling the truth. You can believe or skip it. Your choice.

?? I prepared for some govt exams & read Indian polity & Constitution in detail. I am telling you there is no religion based reservation in constitution though some state govt have tried to implement this in an indirect manner by implementing it within the OBC quota & such decisions are always challenged in Supreme Court.
Reservation in India - Wikipedia

There is no reservation granted on the basis of religion in the Central educational institutions at the national level, although reservation has been extended to religious minorities in some states. The Tamil Nadu government has allotted 3.5% of seats each to Muslims and Christians, thereby altering the OBC reservation to 23% from 30% (since it excludes persons belonging to Other Backward Castes who are either Muslims or Christians).[29]

The Government of Andhra Pradesh introduced a law enabling 4 percent reservations for Muslims in 2004. This law was upheld by the Supreme Court in an interim order in 2010 but it constituted a Constitution bench to look further into the issue.[30][31] The referral was to examine the constitutional validity of quotas based on religion.[32] Kerala Public Service Commission has a quota of 6% for Muslims. Religious minority (Muslim or Christian) educational institutes also have 50% reservation for Muslim or Christian religions. The Central government has listed a number of Muslim communities as backward Muslims, making them eligible for reservation.

whitestar_999 said:
Someone should not ask your caste in the first place & neither one should reply about the same.

The thing I said about "cannot escape your caste" was because even if no one asks your caste, they can determine your caste from even your surname. So to truly escape your caste, you will have to change your surname to something else. Until then you will always be shackled to it.

W

Desmond David said:
The thing I said about "cannot escape your caste" was because even if no one asks your caste, they can determine your caste from even your surname. So to truly escape your caste, you will have to change your surname to something else. Until then you will always be shackled to it.

And that is exactly what many SC/ST people do(at least in North India),using common surnames like kumar etc. As long as this caste system exists,India can forget about ever becoming a "superpower" because no country with such hollow society can ever rise to great heights.

Now something to get back to the topic

Data Protection Bill: Govt breaks silence but secrecy remains

Isn't it a nice thing as Jio says. Indian data stays in India. They even got Azure for us.

T

Are we seriously not having a discussion regarding privacy concerns about the Aarogya Setu App?

theterminator said:
Are we seriously not having a discussion regarding privacy concerns about the Aarogya Setu App?

I've gone through some twitter posts. Govt. is trying to make it seem like privacy is irrelevant when it comes to protecting lives of millions.

They have mandated it for private and public employees to install the app. This is reaching China's level of spying on its own citizens. :facepalm:

T

SaiyanGoku said:
I've gone through some twitter posts. Govt. is trying to make it seem like privacy is irrelevant when it comes to protecting lives of millions.
They have mandated it for private and public employees to install the app. This is reaching China's level of spying on its own citizens.

Yeah like come on...they are forcing all employees to install an app that records GPS activities ... instead they should invest heavily on healthcare infrastructure and removing unnecessary hurdles when claiming insurance.

The true victims are people with zero knowledge of privacy, old people, bhakts, kids, teens etc.

Nerevarine said:
The true victims are people with zero knowledge of privacy, old people, bhakts, kids, teens etc.

Why do members in forums always speak about bhakts?
It's feels like something is being pierced into the heart.

Sent from my Nokia 8.1 using Tapatalk

T

bssunilreddy said:
Why do members in forums always speak about bhakts?
It's feels like something is being pierced into the heart.

Sent from my Nokia 8.1 using Tapatalk

coz its an app by modi govt .. had it been by congress govt then bhakt would be replaced by andhbhakt

Bhakts are a major demographic to install this app willingly, like it or not.
if this app was externally audited and open source, I would have no issue with it.
But as it stands govt has a lot of potential to misuse it.
It's important to ask questions, during these trying times. Govt is a service provider, nothing more. Don't attach emotion to their actions.

bssunilreddy said:
Why do members in forums always speak about bhakts?

I take it you identify as a so called bhakt that's why you are feeling bad. But you see, when someone calls others libtards, gaddar, etc. they also feel just as bad. Truth, however is that people are extremely polarized right now owing to what I can only call abuse of social media. The more polarized people become, the more friction is created and more such name-calling will happen. But this is just how things are right now. I understand how you feel but I don't think we can do anything about that because I doubt this will be the last time you hear someone blaming "bhakts" or "libtards".

On topic: I am aware about the whole Arogya Setu app debacle. From what I have observed so far is that people have been downplaying the ramifications of this. Making this app mandatory will have far reaching effects way beyond the current COVID scare. In fact I'd say the government is using the on going panic to justify installing an invasive app like this. Just the fact that the government can have your location at any time itself is scary. Lets say that after this COVID scare is over, the apps will remain and the government can still use it to track people. That is why I am against making it mandatory, but let it be voluntary.

Secondly, I'd be more comfortable with making it mandatory if the government publishes the source code for the app, both client and server, for the public to audit. This way we will know how the data is being used.

In fact, I think all software developed using tax payer money should be open source.

T

Nerevarine said:
Bhakts are a major demographic to install this app willingly, like it or not.
if this app was externally audited and open source, I would have no issue with it.
But as it stands govt has a lot of potential to misuse it.
It's important to ask questions, during these trying times. Govt is a service provider, nothing more. Don't attach emotion to their actions.

That's far away from reality as Mars is from Earth. Who thinks government is a service provider? Elections are fought emotionally. The politicians will try to make a situation (riots,murders,martyrdoms,etc) where the voter decides emotionally rather than rationally. The present govrnment has achieved Ph.D in this and continues to enjoy unprecedented majority even after economic disaster after disasters. Currently, I am seeing a trend of hardline Pro hindutva supporters advocating for Swadeshi products, especially in the wake of covid19. But when their darling government will pitch in FDI for Make In India, they will be the first ones to praise the 56 inch.

theterminator said:
voter decides emotionally rather than rationally

Well, have have a history of pathos driven rhetoric in news since the beginning of time.

T

Desmond David said:
Well, have have a history of pathos driven rhetoric in news since the beginning of time.

You would think that with time we would evolve.

It's more about confirmation bias. That is people will only consume media that they confirms to their pre-existing beliefs. But let's not dwell on this now. Analyzing the biases of every demographic in India would warrant a thread of it's own. Let's stick to the topic for now.

T

*uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200504/45ac2bf758b201e8ed05037b6d883fe8.jpg

This mentions an anonymous govt source that govt might release source code soon.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Inb4 open sourcing it but releasing private/api keys to cloud back end..

Nerevarine said:
Inb4 open sourcing it but releasing private/api keys to cloud back end..

Lol. That would be the joke of the day. But I don't think anyone would be that careless, govt probably contracted some software development company to build this, so they should know how to share.

My expectation is that they should share the source code of both the client app and the server. Ideally with unit tests so that we can test the functionality ourselves.

Sent from my GM1911 using Tapatalk

Okay forget terms of service, potential for misuse and lack of laws in India - because none of these are problems with the actual app. Focus on the capabilities of the Aarogya Setu app, and tell me one thing that is wrong with it.

-Bluetooth is for "chirps", same tech used for pairing, gives better proximity information to other devices, higher resolution than GPS which can be spotty at times
-Forcing people to install it or preinstalling it makes sense in a pandemic situation
-The data does not even leave the device and go to the server. If someone reports testing positive, then their info is sent to servers, and you get an alert depending on the data on your phone.
-They have even taken the extra step of encrypting the data that is stored on the device itself, not really necessary as such information can be gleaned even if the app is not there, but people have physical access to the device!

Overall, it is very secure and well implemented. Source code not being made public does not mean that it is not open source

.

The closest thing to a real problem was exposing the details of the affected people on Government web sites, which caused their neighbours to shame and humiliate them, which is again a problem with the people, and not the app itself, but yeah, maybe their details should not have been publicly released.

For anyone accusing me of being a bhakt, just google "aditya madanapalle firstpost aadhaar" without the quotes. I made it my business to walk into office every morning and fight that battle for privacy.

I honestly find it very hard to believe.

Besides, making the source code public is a good will move that will give them some trust and if the source code is clean then everyone will calm down.

And I don't support the "fundamental rights can be rescinded in case of crisis" argument because getting complacent now will have far reaching effects, way beyond the current coronavirus crisis.

My point is that, things like this should never be normalised, especially if government is involved.

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sure okay, but what is the problem with the app?
The app itself does not have the capability for misuse at this point of time.

Thing is, let us just say that the worst case scenario is that the govt is trying to consolidate its power by putting itself in the centre of personal life instead of being a service provider in civic life, then the point of attack should not be the app. If the worst case scenario is indeed true, then attacking the app will not achieve anything, better to channel all efforts to a better personal data regime. This is stuck in limbo because of pushback from stakeholders, where simple services such as Wikipedia will not work because the proposed data privacy regime is actually harsher than GDPR! No one has checked if the app is GDPR compliant btw. IMO we need to go through the entire process and find out exactly how claustrophobic these surveillance tech can get before there is sufficient public push back to effect actual change. It took like 15 years before the UK started destroying the national DNA database, IMO, India has to go through this journey if the surveillance gets oppressive. It might just turn out to be fine. We cannot say at this point in time.

Anorion said:
Thing is, let us just say that the worst case scenario is that the govt is trying to consolidate its power by putting itself in the centre of personal life instead of being a service provider in civic life, then the point of attack should not be the app

If there is even a 1% chance that the data can be abused, how to ensure accountability?

Anorion said:
If the worst case scenario is indeed true, then attacking the app will not achieve anything

Only thing I want is transparency. I am not against installing the app as long as there is transparency as to what data is being collected and how it is processed. Publishing the source code will help in this regard. It will also calm down privacy activists and lawyers and improve the image of the govt. It's win-win.

In either case, I will defer to the Internet Freedom Foundation's judgement in this regard.

No one is doubting the intention of the app by the way. Adhar was also intended to be a population registry of sorts but look how many data breaches related to adhar has happened so far, that too was given to a private body for implementation, I think it was Infosys.

External audit is only solution to solve this imo. Especially since the app is a non profit app..
And look at the positive scenario. Maybe such open source contribution will let other countries join in. This can really boost India's rep.

W

Nerevarine said:
No one is doubting the intention of the app by the way. Adhar was also intended to be a population registry of sorts but look how many data breaches related to adhar has happened so far, that too was given to a private body for implementation, I think it was Infosys.

No, the only infosys connection to Aadhaar is Nandan Nilekani. Also all those data leaks happened at registration/end usage side & never from UIDAI/Aadhaar core infrastructure.

There has been no data breach from Aadhaar, it was mostly during the on boarding process, and the punishment for that was harsh. For example, the guy who revealed Dhoni's details on social media, that entire agency was shut down.

Internet Freedom Foundation had a webinar on Friday, more details here here. Sat through one hour of that. There were zero relevant points made about Aarogya Setu, everything was not about the functionality of the app but about larger privacy concerns. When questioned specifically about it, Apar says something like "it is all connected", while giving no concrete points on the app itself. You cannot really convince people based on what the government may or may not do in the future.

So far, still no single legitimate issue when it comes to the app.

Simple thing is the data for a vast majority of the users does not even leave the device. For example, more than 4,92,212 people are using the app in 10km radius of me, but only 113 are infected, and the servers contain the details of only these 113 people.

@whitestar_999 @Anorion
Can you guys link a source for that adhar breach issue. If what you say is true, then my bad. I should have researched that.
My second point still stands though.

Its difficult to give a link to aadhaar breach issue, as each individual case has to be addressed to say there has been no breach. However, here is a list to UIDAI press releases, where they have responded to all the reports and rumours of alleged breaches. When flurries of the reports were coming in, top people at UIDAI were periodically informing people that there were no breaches so far, something that was even clarified in the supreme court.

Now coming to the app, this is how the data is actually used
-user data saved locally on smartphone is deleted after 30 days
-user data saved in the cloud for even those who test positive is deleted after 60 days

And about the open source thing, Niti Aayog has committed to releasing the source code once they have a stable release, as the app is still under development.

So really, there is no problem with this particular app. Highly doubt that all the tech has been developed in house from scratch. This is all pure speculation, but will go ahead and post the basis of my suspicions anyway. The symptom tracker implementation is similar to what is outlined in this whitepaper. The on boarding process is similar to what has been proposed here by a Stanford student. Finally, the BlueTooth chirping component could be the PACT protocol by MIT or BlueTrace developed by Singapore, both of which are open source. It's highly unlikely that NIC developed their own protocol in three days. I am not sure if all of this is exactly what they did, but if you do put these things together, you will end up with an app very similar to Aarogya Setu.

W

Just read the so called Aadhaar breach articles & UIDAI replies. You will find that leak happened at other/non-UIDAI end at the time of registration(like those Dhoni details leaked issue) or govt department error( Over 200 government sites reveal Aadhaar details; no leakage from UIDAI: Minister ) etc.

All of these will be verified once the source code is released. I think this is a good first step in releasing public sector code as open source. IMO all software developed using tax payer money should be open source.

NHS UK releases source code of their COVID-19 app - nhsx/COVID-19-app-Android-BETA

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The French ethical hacker pointed out glaring flaws in the aarogya setu app

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1257755315614801921

changing radius and gps spoofing across india will give location nd number of positive cases, which is anyway public

Aarogya Setu source code is now available on Github

Anorion said:
Aarogya Setu source code is now available on Github

Nice. I've been going through this. It seems like a standard Bluetooth proximity scanner and location reporting app. I wish they also shared the server source code.

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Server source code and iOS source code coming up.

Buut this happen:

Fake Aarogya Setu apps carrying spyware spotted

Pakistan's ISI creates fake Aarogya Setu app to snoop on Indian officials

Anorion said:
Server source code and iOS source code coming up.

Buut this happen:

Fake Aarogya Setu apps carrying spyware spotted

Pakistan's ISI creates fake Aarogya Setu app to snoop on Indian officials

That's what we have verified accounts on Google play for. But yeah, I kind of expected this to happen. As long as people download from the original Google play store account, there should be no issue.

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Desmond David said:
That's what we have verified accounts on Google play for. But yeah, I kind of expected this to happen. As long as people download from the original Google play store account, there should be no issue.

Sent from my GM1911 using Tapatalk

Good luck teaching that to majority of people

Indians don't care about privacy because they do nothing wrong. When someone does nothing wrong, he/she doesn't need to care about privacy.

W

ico said:
Indians don't care about privacy because they do nothing wrong. When someone does nothing wrong, he/she doesn't need to care about privacy.

ico said:
Indians don't care about privacy because they do nothing wrong. When someone does nothing wrong, he/she doesn't need to care about privacy.

This hits too close to home, with some interaction with my peers man

W

Nerevarine said:
This hits too close to home, with some interaction with my peers man

You know the worth of privacy in a nation/culture when people worry more about their neighbours' opinions of their choices than themselves(a 50k sofa set is useless unless all neighbourhood aunties have seen it(online & offline) & given compliments, never mind the actual utility of the sofa set).

Some good points on Facial Recognition technology.

T

*thelogicalindian.com/trending/utta...content-users-says-privacy-not-breached-26888

UP Police will monitor online pornography.
This is because too much pornography is one of the causes of Rape. An old user with the handle ‘chaitanya2106’ tried to put this infront of forum users but got thrashed by all corners from even users like ico. Nobody here believed this theory but it has been written about again and again.

theterminator said:
This is because too much pornography is one of the causes of Rape.

Saar, there were no rapes before internet or porn. This is all bhesturn kulchar.

T

SaiyanGoku said:
Saar, there were no rapes before internet or porn. This is all bhesturn kulchar.

exactly the kind of amateurish attitude that continues with the users in this thread.
go out and live with the people first , know their culture not in your colony or college

theterminator said:
exactly the kind of amateurish attitude that continues with the users in this thread.
go out and live with the people first , know their culture not in your colony or college

If you're that Indians abuse women because of adult content, I would like to know your sources or studies which point to this.

T

Extreme Gamer said:
If you're that Indians abuse women because of adult content, I would like to know your sources or studies which point to this.

I don’t have that much time to research for you. Try to debunk the theory.

You made a statement, you should prove it. You should not ask others to debunk a statement you made.

Regardless, here is the first study in Google I found.

*www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4031582/

Results presented needs to be interpreted with extreme care and caution. Nevertheless, the results from this study suggest that easy access to pornography did not have a significant impact on rape rates and crime rate against women.

There were statistically significant positive correlations between number of internet users and; total number of rapes (r = 0.857, P < 0.002), total crimes against women (r = 0.791, P < 0.006), and the percentage of total crime that was directed against women (r = 0.842, P < 0.002). There was no correlation between the number of internet users and total number of sexual harassment cases (r = 0.335, P = 0.313). However, there was also a significant positive correlation between total population and; total number of rapes (r = 0.933, P < 0.001), total crimes against women (r = 0.95, P < 0.001), the percentage of total crime that was directed against women (r = 0.933, P < 0.001), and the total number of sexual harassment cases (r = 0.844, P < 0.001). In addition, total population positively correlated with number of internet users (r = 0.935, P < 0.001). Hence, to control for the influence of population growth, linear regression was done using the number of rapes as the dependent variable; total population, number of internet users, and other crime rates as independent variables. None of the variables were significant.

This study is not 100 percent conclusive, if you have a study that claims otherwise, please link.

I am not going to delude anyone into thinking ANY study like this can be conclusive. Not at all, there are too many variables involved. But when lawmakers use their pre-conceived notion and bring in arbitrary laws WITHOUT any study, that's a call for protests. IMO, any law that comes into effect because of some study, however biased it might be, it has to be in public domain. Lawmakers dont get to tell us, dude trust me.. this is for the best and pass in some judgement.

W

theterminator said:
I don’t have that much time to research for you. Try to debunk the theory.

Trump also has/had a theory about his rightful election being stolen. Rapes were happening in India long before internet/pornography. Much more than this, it is the victim blaming culture(she must have asked for it) & the lax police & judicial system that encourages many people to think they can get away with it with some planning & money/muscle power.

theterminator said:
exactly the kind of amateurish attitude that continues with the users in this thread.
go out and live with the people first , know their culture not in your colony or college

This is same as saying playing video games causes people to become terrorists.

T

Nerevarine said:
You made a statement, you should prove it. You should not ask others to debunk a statement you made.

Regardless, here is the first study in Google I found.

*www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4031582/

This study is not 100 percent conclusive, if you have a study that claims otherwise, please link.

I am not going to delude anyone into thinking ANY study like this can be conclusive. Not at all, there are too many variables involved. But when lawmakers use their pre-conceived notion and bring in arbitrary laws WITHOUT any study, that's a call for protests. IMO, any law that comes into effect because of some study, however biased it might be, it has to be in public domain. Lawmakers dont get to tell us, dude trust me.. this is for the best and pass in some judgement.

First put a theory and then say that it’s not conclusive

T

whitestar_999 said:
Trump also has/had a theory about his rightful election being stolen. Rapes were happening in India long before internet/pornography. Much more than this, it is the victim blaming culture(she must have asked for it) & the lax police & judicial system that encourages many people to think they can get away with it with some planning & money/muscle power.

No buddy , you’re only talking about influential people’s rape. And sure there was rape before internet. But you can’t deny the correlation between pornography and rapes.
If you’ll read the news reports of any rape/molestation thoroughly then you will always find the accused made a video. Many times that video gets leaked to internet.

T

SaiyanGoku said:
This is same as saying playing video games causes people to become terrorists.

Man even Goku will find that comment amateurish

There are a number of factors to the "RAPE" problem in India.

-The definition of rape varies country to country. in some countries like germany, Sweden and even UK, these laws are very liberal. For eg. this thing, if had happened in India, would have resulted in death penalty.

-In india, there is no thing as consensual s## it is legal only between married couples. So even if it happened with consent, a case can be filed against it.

-There's a lot of problem in the school curriculum. Students are not taught anything related to personal space OR respecting and treating opposite gender like Human. this thing makes children very unaware. And when these children explore the internet, they see Pornographical content and think that is a NORMAL thing (and can be done with anybody), and ultimately their thinking becomes that way. And the real reason behind porn ban in India was this. Untill students are not taught to stop behaving withthe opposite gender like a "S#x Object" , this problem will retain.

-In India, Since a long time, Men are encouraged to be more powerful than women. Women are told from birth to be disciplined and often this leaves an impression on men that they are stronger and can do anything and impression left on women is that they have to be disciplined. BUT remeber, this was done at very old times, AND is still practised in highly backwards areas of our country. this Mentality of Male dominanace is the main reason behind it.

- Rapist have been classified into two major categories.
-Biological:- Who feel that in order to continue there race, they should rape and increase population(Not much research is done on this, as if this was true, there would have been constant rapes in all countries.
-Societal rapists:- These either are of the belief that the victim is of lower class and hence would not be taking action accordingly. This category also has people who have a fetish to rape. Rape gives them pleasure.
All these categories are limited to india though.

So ultimately conclusion is that "Porn" is not the only cause of rape, But does have an intense role in it.

T

RumbaMon19 said:
There are a number of factors to the "RAPE" problem in India.

-The definition of rape varies country to country. in some countries like germany, Sweden and even UK, these laws are very liberal. For eg. this thing, if had happened in India, would have resulted in death penalty.

-In india, there is no thing as consensual s## it is legal only between married couples. So even if it happened with consent, a case can be filed against it.

-There's a lot of problem in the school curriculum. Students are not taught anything related to personal space OR respecting and treating opposite gender like Human. this thing makes children very unaware. And when these children explore the internet, they see Pornographical content and think that is a NORMAL thing (and can be done with anybody), and ultimately their thinking becomes that way. And the real reason behind porn ban in India was this. Untill students are not taught to stop behaving withthe opposite gender like a "S#x Object" , this problem will retain.

-In India, Since a long time, Men are encouraged to be more powerful than women. Women are told from birth to be disciplined and often this leaves an impression on men that they are stronger and can do anything and impression left on women is that they have to be disciplined. BUT remeber, this was done at very old times, AND is still practised in highly backwards areas of our country. this Mentality of Male dominanace is the main reason behind it.

- Rapist have been classified into two major categories.
-Biological:- Who feel that in order to continue there race, they should rape and increase population(Not much research is done on this, as if this was true, there would have been constant rapes in all countries.
-Societal rapists:- These either are of the belief that the victim is of lower class and hence would not be taking action accordingly. This category also has people who have a fetish to rape. Rape gives them pleasure.
All these categories are limited to india though.

So ultimately conclusion is that "Porn" is not the only cause of rape, But does have an intense role in it.

Thanks .. I only read the conclusion which is in agreement

.

My interpretation would be that Indians are not mature enough for porn. But that does not mean porn must be banned. If porn must be banned, then also ban alcohol.

T

Desmond David said:
My interpretation would be that Indians are not mature enough for porn. But that does not mean porn must be banned. If porn must be banned, then also ban alcohol.

But Alcohol generates good revenue.

RumbaMon19 said:
-In india, there is no thing as consensual s## it is legal only between married couples. So even if it happened with consent, a case can be filed against it.

This is wrong. There is enough case law to establish the concept of consensual relations between individuals, and there are several specific judgements at both the high court and supreme court levels that have ruled against rape charges where the defendants were able to establish that the relationship was consensual, even if bonds of marriage were not entered into.

theterminator said:
But Alcohol generates good revenue.

Alcohol also leads to poor judgement which then may lead to rape. Ergo, alcohol should be banned.

theterminator said:
But Alcohol generates good revenue.

Revenue or not, it's still a nuisance to society.

T

Desmond David said:
Revenue or not, it's still a nuisance to society.

So are Indian roads … ban all that

.

You can make an argument that alcohol can be consumed responsibly and you can say the same about porn.

Both of these requires a level of maturity that's not very common.

theterminator said:
No buddy , you’re only talking about influential people’s rape. And sure there was rape before internet. But you can’t deny the correlation between pornography and rapes.
If you’ll read the news reports of any rape/molestation thoroughly then you will always find the accused made a video. Many times that video gets leaked to internet.

So basically you're saying that you don't have the time to buttress your claims which are based on preconceived notions, and you will add more hogwash which is easily disprovable to push your agenda.

T

Extreme Gamer said:
So basically you're saying that you don't have the time to buttress your claims which are based on preconceived notions, and you will add more hogwash which is easily disprovable to push your agenda.

“Preconceived notions”?

Good luck understanding the correlation.

theterminator said:
“Preconceived notions”? Good luck understanding the correlation.

Correlation != causation and since you can't be bothered to support your claims, those claims are not worth the keyboard they are typed from.

T

Extreme Gamer said:
Correlation != causation and since you can't be bothered to support your claims, those claims are not worth the keyboard they are typed from.

They are exactly worth typing on as now a State government is issuing an executive order over it. Just see for yourself and refrain from incriminating others.
Keep denying the corelation, tell a female member of your home to watch porn and then ask whether this will lead to violence on the street or not?

I don’t have to support my so called “claims”.

Well we can all agree UP is a model state with no flaws in governance at all.

theterminator said:
They are exactly worth typing on as now a State government is issuing an executive order over it. Just see for yourself and refrain from incriminating others.
Keep denying the corelation, tell a female member of your home to watch porn and then ask whether this will lead to violence on the street or not?

I don’t have to support my so called “claims”.

I didn't say that the topic wasn't worth discussing. I said that your contribution to this discussion was not worth the keyboard it was typed from.

What correlation am I denying? I asked you for evidence that porn leads to rape, and so far you have dismissed such demands with an ill-conceived sense of moral superiority because it doesn't suit your agenda or doesn't necessarily corroborate with what you said. Furthermore, I pointed out to you that even if you could find a 100% correlation, it wasn't worth much unless you could also establishb a causal link.

But clearly, as you proudly declare, you see no reason to support your so-called facts, which are apparently axioms in this universe because you took the effort to type them.

To mention nothing about your dubious claim that all rapes are filmed...

T

Extreme Gamer said:
I didn't say that the topic wasn't worth discussing. I said that your contribution to this discussion was not worth the keyboard it was typed from.

What correlation am I denying? I asked you for evidence that porn leads to rape, and so far you have dismissed such demands with an ill-conceived sense of moral superiority because it doesn't suit your agenda or doesn't necessarily corroborate with what you said. Furthermore, I pointed out to you that even if you could find a 100% correlation, it wasn't worth much unless you could also establishb a causal link.

But clearly, as you proudly declare, you see no reason to support your so-called facts, which are apparently axioms in this universe because you took the effort to type them.

So easily you get hyped over things .. relax. Chill. Your a$$ is not on

.
Another amateurish digit forum user…
My contribution was that I took the effort of copy pasting the link from another browser and then I opened tapatalk and searched for a suitable thread to post & paste it. Not only that, I added 3-4 lines also. See how much effort that is?

Come on guys. The discussion can be a bit more civil. No need to call names or anything to others. It was going good until then. Keep the discussion going, but civil.

theterminator said:
So easily you get hyped over things .. relax. Chill. Your a$$ is not on .
Another amateurish digit forum user…
My contribution was that I took the effort of copy pasting the link from another browser and then I opened tapatalk and searched for a suitable thread to post & paste it. Not only that, I added 3-4 lines also. See how much effort that is?

You can't just post flamebait and claim they were inoccuous 3-4 lines :/

Ok, this topic has gone on far too long. Let's not deviate from this topic. Make another thread if anybody wants to continue to discuss this.

T

TheSloth said:
Come on guys. The discussion can be a bit more civil. No need to call names or anything to others. It was going good until then. Keep the discussion going, but civil.

Yeah that’s what I’m saying to him/her.. Chill

T

Extreme Gamer said:
You can't just post flamebait and claim they were inoccuous 3-4 lines :/

Another claim dismissed

Coming back to the topic, I think it's about time we have some laws of facial recognition like we have (fictional) three laws of robotics by Asimov.
But obviously the moolah generated by Google amazon microsoft comes first. Only the eu is sane enough politically to do something about it (I hope)

As far as laws for face ID are concerned, I think the govt. should make some laws on it. But It will only happen once some big mishap takes place, as usual. We dont know where the Chinese brands are storing our data, and there claims cant be believed as they could even be used by ccp for Mass spying on us.

Earlier it was easier to flash Custom ROM to prevent companies from collecting data, now even that is becoming difficult as they knowingly are giving corrupt source files so no Custom roms can be made.

And the Surveillence systems in china, which keep track of Real Time movements of people, is again a great human rights abuse. So you can guess that they may implement such technologies for mass surveillence in India, as faces are scanned, and mics too can be accessed. This might be pretty much a possibility because all the chinese Tech Companies have to sign a agreement with CCP in which, No matter what the CCP demands, they will have to provide them, or else, no buisness for them.

Nerevarine said:
Only the eu is sane enough politically to do something about it (I hope)

They were in news for using HikVision's thermal cameras in there compound to monitor temperatures of there employs, only to find that HikVision has direct ties with the CCP, Like every other major chinese brand including Huawei, Dahua, Xiaomi, ByteDance etc. Didnt think that eu would not think about it. :facepalm:

P.S. Do we have a thread on china(Or "CCP" as it is the real culprit, chinese people aint bad, CCP is) on TDF?

I rather distrust our own govt misusing facial recognition than China. Not everything is about China. See the video linked above, by Olivier. In the last BLM protests, the police used facial recognition to catch protesters later on. Some of the matches were false positives.
With our own govt throwing UAPA and sedition around like biscuit to street dogs, imagine tomorrow police just comes up locks you up because you are a lookalike of some protester.
In the US, you can fight the courts and get some sort of justice, at least Microsoft, Google and Amazon have backed out of offering their facial recognition engine to Police for the foreseeable future. Do you think that is possible in India ?

^^ Completely agree with that. The common man should be given control to his privacy.

And that wll be difficult for India, As you see, Explaining all the things about privacy to people in backward areas is difficult. Hope some privacy measures are taken accordingly.

Maybe in future an independant body maybe formed, under government which will take control on it.

Desmond David said:
Someone had posted this article to reddit:
How Indian Kids Raised Without Personal Space Became Adults Who Don't Care About Privacy

I know its a Buzzfeed article, but it really raises a good point. Most Indians don't really understand the concept of privacy because it is still very alien to most of us. This can be observed in the way people sometimes freely give away their contact details on social media publicly or invade other's privacy.

Also from the article:

What do you guys think? Is privacy really overrated or is it really crucial for us as individuals?

BTW anyone knows the name of the school and the headmistress ? Surely "right to privacy" wasnt a fundamental right to the kid they expelled and the same should apply to the headmistress and the school right ? Or maybe its just buzzfeed trash and writer is gaslighting us for nothing..

The only answer to solving problems faced in India is to leave India. Otherwise this "my way or the highway" government will send you to Pakistan.

Nerevarine said:
BTW anyone knows the name of the school and the headmistress ? Surely "right to privacy" wasnt a fundamental right to the kid they expelled and the same should apply to the headmistress and the school right ? Or maybe its just buzzfeed trash and writer is gaslighting us for nothing..

No idea, but I have heard about these things happening in some other colleges and even some employers. But nothing substantial about these.

Extreme Gamer said:
The only answer to solving problems faced in India is to leave India. Otherwise this "my way or the highway" government will send you to Pakistan.

This.

This is the reason for huge brain drain from india. Such a vast population causes government to focus deveopment of backward, and not those who deserve it.

W

RumbaMon19 said:
This.

This is the reason for huge brain drain from india. Such a vast population causes government to focus deveopment of backward, and not those who deserve it.

Don't be confused, true development results in benefit of all. Correct statement would be "development of backward vote banks".

T

Pheww .. man I really lit the

here

.

A

Thought to add an issue to this thread that I personally faced ....
There are some digital money lending apps which are farming user personal data such as contacts and lending loan with easy verification .
So Before this COVID while I was in my university I had some social life problems due to the economic situation Im In ( Its expensive university , I felt like I dont belong there ) . So I was using Loan Apps while I had no money . My loan limit was increased to almost 10k .
And due to the steam sales and my junkie habits , I was tempted to withdraw money and spend it to buy happiness .

3 Months ago , My loan amount summed up to about 12,000 and I couldn't just find that arrange that kinda amount ...

They started imposing penalty and till today it is about 24,000 . They were calling my friends (targeting female ) just to shame me .
I didn't knew they farmed all my contacts . Similar issue happened to one of my senior friend , where his loan amount got upto about 80K and he couldn't pay back . Those lending company apps created a whatsapp group named " 420 *Borrower Name* " and flushed all his personal details such as aadhaar , pan card and his promissory selfie video .

There are few similar incidents where people commited suicide such as this .

There are no RBI regulations regarding this , since Digital Lending apps are new to market and I think young students need to be informed about such issues .

consumerismjunkie69 said:
Thought to add an issue to this thread that I personally faced ....
There are some digital money lending apps which are farming user personal data such as contacts and lending loan with easy verification .
So Before this COVID while I was in my university I had some social life problems due to the economic situation Im In ( Its expensive university , I felt like I dont belong there ) . So I was using Loan Apps while I had no money . My loan limit was increased to almost 10k .
And due to the steam sales and my junkie habits , I was tempted to withdraw money and spend it to buy happiness .

3 Months ago , My loan amount summed up to about 12,000 and I couldn't just find that arrange that kinda amount ...

They started imposing penalty and till today it is about 24,000 . They were calling my friends (targeting female ) just to shame me .
I didn't knew they farmed all my contacts . Similar issue happened to one of my senior friend , where his loan amount got upto about 80K and he couldn't pay back . Those lending company apps created a whatsapp group named " 420 *Borrower Name* " and flushed all his personal details such as aadhaar , pan card and his promissory selfie video .

There are few similar incidents where people commited suicide such as this .

There are no RBI regulations regarding this , since Digital Lending apps are new to market and I think young students need to be informed about such issues .

Most of them are Chinese and recently one of the owners of these apps, was caught while trying to flee from India, after a person complained of harassment.

*www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress...-case-chinese-man-delhi-airport-7127235/lite/

consumerismjunkie69 said:
Thought to add an issue to this thread that I personally faced ....
There are some digital money lending apps which are farming user personal data such as contacts and lending loan with easy verification .
So Before this COVID while I was in my university I had some social life problems due to the economic situation Im In ( Its expensive university , I felt like I dont belong there ) . So I was using Loan Apps while I had no money . My loan limit was increased to almost 10k .
And due to the steam sales and my junkie habits , I was tempted to withdraw money and spend it to buy happiness .

3 Months ago , My loan amount summed up to about 12,000 and I couldn't just find that arrange that kinda amount ...

They started imposing penalty and till today it is about 24,000 . They were calling my friends (targeting female ) just to shame me .
I didn't knew they farmed all my contacts . Similar issue happened to one of my senior friend , where his loan amount got upto about 80K and he couldn't pay back . Those lending company apps created a whatsapp group named " 420 *Borrower Name* " and flushed all his personal details such as aadhaar , pan card and his promissory selfie video .

There are few similar incidents where people commited suicide such as this .

There are no RBI regulations regarding this , since Digital Lending apps are new to market and I think young students need to be informed about such issues .

Wow. This is really serious. I wonder how come there is no RBI regulation against such apps?

Can you give me some examples of such apps? I will see if I can dig some info.

A

Desmond David said:
Wow. This is really serious. I wonder how come there is no RBI regulation against such apps?

Can you give me some examples of such apps? I will see if I can dig some info.

this is the app that is blackmailing me , if possible kindly report on playstore . That is Kolkata based loan app .

A

Desmond David said:
Wow. This is really serious. I wonder how come there is no RBI regulation against such apps?

Can you give me some examples of such apps? I will see if I can dig some info.

There are no RBI Regulations (Absence of Action from RBI) as Digital Lending apps are a new thing and RBI is unaware of this kinda issues i guess .
And App stores should limit the permissions that 3rd party apps have control over our data . Now Im so paranoid and started using OpenContacts to isolate my contacts from Android Contacts Database

This happened in Hyderabad also recently ( 3 - 4 weeks back ). Multiple apps were giving loans, if you don't repay they used to call your friends and relatives.

Bangalore Police arrested two Tibetans related to this

*timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/h...betans-held-in-bluru/articleshow/80607842.cms

*www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/hc-tells-dgp-to-get-loan-apps-blocked/article33752281.ece

A

Worst thing is , they are leaking sensitive data like Aadhaar Card and PAN to everyone in the contacts . Imagine what they must be doing without knowledge of borrowers . And also they claim false news that the contact is responsible for paying loan . And there is no escape , the interest keeps on adding day by day (very high)

consumerismjunkie69 said:
Worst thing is , they are leaking sensitive data like Aadhaar Card and PAN to everyone in the contacts . Imagine what they must be doing without knowledge of borrowers . And also they claim false news that the contact is responsible for paying loan . And there is no escape , the interest keeps on adding day by day (very high)

What about registering FIR complaint and also in cyber cell?

A

Well Im a student and ain't got time for that .

If you are getting harassed for this then better inform your parents about this and then register a FIR. Is this an option?

A

TheSloth said:
If you are getting harassed for this then better inform your parents about this and then register a FIR. Is this an option?

They were called yesterday by the collection agents . And my father told he would pay back my loans .
But how could they just call randomly , just so they have my contacts ?

consumerismjunkie69 said:
They were called yesterday by the collection agents . And my father told he would pay back my loans .
But how could they just call randomly , just so they have my contacts ?

Inform all your contacts about them. And block them and report as spam on truecaller if possible.

Tweet about this and tag indian cyber cell, and any good youtuber, who is known to help people.

If possible lodge fir about it.

Spread the word. You may also mail some good media newspapers in your area.

@consumerismjunkie69 - what are the legal obligations for paying the loan amount back ? While you signed up for taking what kind of contract paper ( digital ) you agreed on. Did they send you the digital agreement / contract paper. Do you have some of the recordings of they harassing you ? Filing FiR shall be your top most priority.

consumerismjunkie69 said:
Thought to add an issue to this thread that I personally faced ....
There are some digital money lending apps which are farming user personal data such as contacts and lending loan with easy verification .
So Before this COVID while I was in my university I had some social life problems due to the economic situation Im In ( Its expensive university , I felt like I dont belong there ) . So I was using Loan Apps while I had no money . My loan limit was increased to almost 10k .
And due to the steam sales and my junkie habits , I was tempted to withdraw money and spend it to buy happiness .

3 Months ago , My loan amount summed up to about 12,000 and I couldn't just find that arrange that kinda amount ...

They started imposing penalty and till today it is about 24,000 . They were calling my friends (targeting female ) just to shame me .
I didn't knew they farmed all my contacts . Similar issue happened to one of my senior friend , where his loan amount got upto about 80K and he couldn't pay back . Those lending company apps created a whatsapp group named " 420 *Borrower Name* " and flushed all his personal details such as aadhaar , pan card and his promissory selfie video .

There are few similar incidents where people commited suicide such as this .

There are no RBI regulations regarding this , since Digital Lending apps are new to market and I think young students need to be informed about such issues .

I know this kind of comment has no place here, but from next time generally wait for the services to mature before putting some kind of money in it. New services always entail some amount of risks.

Don't buy anything you cannot afford and even more importantly, don't invest money you cannot afford to lose. It goes without saying that your first priority should be to have a strong savings balance to tide you over emergencies, and it should grow proportionately to inflation annually.

A

Good advice , thanks

But when it comes to real life its hard to rationalize cause everyone gonna act to the situation and it takes some experience to realize.
If its as simple as that , I'm sure credit card companies wont even exist .

I am just curious, how they got contact information of your friends and relatives.

W

Nerevarine said:
I am just curious, how they got contact information of your friends and relatives.

Such apps mandatorily demand permission access to contacts & messages upon install.

consumerismjunkie69 said:
Good advice , thanks But when it comes to real life its hard to rationalize cause everyone gonna act to the situation and it takes some experience to realize.
If its as simple as that , I'm sure credit card companies wont even exist .

Haha, I'm lucky to be relatively well off, which lets me preach these sermons with impunity while not having to care about the burn.

How can I be sure that my net activity is fully anonymous?

RumbaMon19 said:
How can I be sure that my net activity is fully anonymous?

Short answer: You can't.

Long answer: There is a chain of trust involved and one breach is all it takes. Onion routing gets close but even then it's a matter of peeling off the skins.

The best you can really do is avoid MITM attacks, but if either endpoint is compromised then you're SOL.

At best you can mitigate and minimize the risk.

RumbaMon19 said:
How can I be sure that my net activity is fully anonymous?

It depends upon who / what are you hiding from ? Internet activity can never be anonymous.

topgear said:
It depends upon who / what are you hiding from ? Internet activity can never be anonymous.

Everyone. Including ISP, government, the website owner, everything.

after lots of brainstorming, i have concluded total anonymity is just not possible. This came to my mind after reading about kim dotcom, anyone can be spied upon. Which is just not good.

There is a linux OS that stores all user configured data in RAM. Once you turn off, everything is lost.

Nerevarine said:
There is a linux OS that stores all user configured data in RAM. Once you turn off, everything is lost.

Data sent over the internet should be assumed to never truly be lost though, so that's a factor a RAMdisk or a RAM-only OS cannot mitigate.

Extreme Gamer said:
Data sent over the internet should be assumed to never truly be lost though, so that's a factor a RAMdisk or a RAM-only OS cannot mitigate.

Yes im saying how one aspect is taken into account when wanting to achieve total privacy.

Nerevarine said:
Yes im saying how one aspect is taken into account when wanting to achieve total privacy.

It's challenging to have a daily driver on RAM-only, as it significantly restricts your ability to work. Even Linus uses a normal distribution instead of LFS or something else that is esoteric.

That is not the use case its meant for. Its meant for individuals like journalists working in risky countries that need to have their slate cleared as soon as they turn off their PC.