In 2009, I became extremely concerned with the concept of Unique Identity for various reasons. Connected with many like minded highly educated people who were all concerned.
On 18th May 2010, I started this Blog to capture anything and everything I came across on the topic. This blog with its million hits is a testament to my concerns about loss of privacy and fear of the ID being misused and possible Criminal activities it could lead to.
In 2017 the Supreme Court of India gave its verdict after one of the longest hearings on any issue. I did my bit and appealed to the Supreme Court Judges too through an On Line Petition.
In 2019 the Aadhaar Legislation has been revised and passed by the two houses of the Parliament of India making it Legal. I am no Legal Eagle so my Opinion carries no weight except with people opposed to the very concept.
In 2019, this Blog now just captures on a Daily Basis list of Articles Published on anything to do with Aadhaar as obtained from Daily Google Searches and nothing more. Cannot burn the midnight candle any longer.
"In Matters of Conscience, the Law of Majority has no place"- Mahatma Gandhi
Ram Krishnaswamy
Sydney, Australia.

Aadhaar

The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. It’s use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. – Anupam Saraph 2018

When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi

“The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right.” Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi

“There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.”-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order.

Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says.

Good idea gone bad
I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and today’s technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha

“What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesn’t determine who is eligible and who isn’t,” Jairam Ramesh

But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP

“I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary,” Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017.

August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is “intrinsic to life and liberty”and is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has"

“Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.” -Edward Snowden

In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant.

Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life.

Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti.

UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy

1) Denial

2) Issue fiats and point finger

3) Shoot messenger

4) Bury head in sand.

God Save India

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

11411 - What if Cybersecurity Threats like ‘WannaCry’ Affects Our Aadhaar System? - Business World



“This underscores importance of security in the system we are building with Aadhaar. The lead agency has played defensive and offensive each time any researcher highlights flaws or leaks.”


Print this article

The ransomware attack called ‘WannaCry’ spread owing to a vulnerability in Microsoft XP for which a security patch had been released by Microsoft in March this year. As expected most organizations don't seem to have patched their operating system. India is listed among the already affected 74 countries.

The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT –In) is responsible for scouting the Indian Internet domain for cybersecurity threats. It has issued this critical code red alert, “It has been reported that a new ransomware named as WannaCry is spreading widely. WannaCry encrypts the files on infected Windows systems. This ransomware spreads by using a vulnerability in implementations of server message block (SMB) in Windows systems. This exploit is named ETERNALBLUE.”

WannaCry is a type of ransomware.

A ransomware downloads a virus onto the user's device, mostly by clicking on a suspicious link and then starts infecting everything a user may have access to including network; it encrypts all the data it encounters that can only be decrypted by a key provided after paying a ransom.

Unlike other cyberattacks, the data is usually kept intact, but is
encrypted by the virus. The only way to gain access to your data is to buy the encryption key from the attacker in exchange of a ransom payment.

Mishi Choudhary, president and founding director at the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) said,

"This is a flagrant example of a global blackmail facilitated by lax attitude of agencies and organizations on cybersecurity. In November last year, Sky News and Hacker House had warned about such risks but no heed was paid. Not installing regular software updates is the primary cause for such malware to spread like wildfire. This teaches us how something can wreak havoc without attacking the traditionally designated critical infrastructure like a power grid.”

A few tips to save yourself from ransomware:

1. Act early, don't be in denial
2. Use the Microsoft patch from March 2017
3. Install software updates
4. Use Free And Open Source Software
5. Don't click on suspicious links
6. Back up your data

Mr Choudhary continued, “This also underscores the importance of security in the system that we are building with Aadhaar. The lead agency has played defensive and offensive each time any researcher highlights flaws or leaks. It has shunned taking real action to plug in security holes and relied on PR or ad-hoc rules based arrangements to cure a design defect. We hope this cautionary tale pushes us towards an honest and transparent discussion about vulnerabilities that a digitized society brings.”

WannaCry started its spree on May 12. News of the threat came to light with 16 National Health Service (NHS) organizations in the UK and FedEx being affected but quickly spreading around the world. The demand from the hackers to release their hold on the PC has been a ransom payment of 300 dollars in bitcoins. It is also suspected that this malicious software was stolen from National Security Agency of the US.

CERT-In does not advocate paying this ransom amount to release an affected PC system since it does not guarantee the hackers will stick to their word.