AADHAAR RELATED ARTICLES: 11794 - Latest Aadhaar leak exposes security flaws in app developed by NIC

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

Friday, August 18, 2017

11794 - Latest Aadhaar leak exposes security flaws in app developed by NIC - Hindustan Times

Latest Aadhaar leak exposes security flaws in app developed by NIC

In recent months, websites maintained by NIC have inadvertently published the Aadhaar numbers and financial details of millions of citizens.

INDIA Updated: Aug 17, 2017 07:36 Ist

Aman Sethi and Samarth Bansal
Hindustan Times, New Delhi

Woman applying for Aadhaar card.(File Photo)

Crucial security flaws in the eHospital app developed by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) gave a Bengaluru-based software developer access to the Aadhaar numbers and personal details of thousands of citizens, officials said.

These flaws meant the Universal Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) servers were unable to distinguish between legitimate requests for Aadhaar data from NIC’s eHospital app, and unauthorised requests from “Mygov”, a free android app created by the developer, Abhinav Srivastava.

When Srivastava was arrested on July 26 this year, his app had already been downloaded 50,000 times, while the flaws he exploited had been live for two years. It is unclear if Srivastava is the only one to allegedly exploit the NIC vulnerability, but a senior NIC official admitted that it was possible.

“Some harm would happen if loopholes are exploited,” a NIC official told HT. “If someone finds a bug, they should report to NIC rather than exploit it.”

The UIDAI did not reply to requests for comment.
NIC is a government body that builds and maintains the digital networks that link every department and ministry of India’s central and state governments, and also extends Aadhaar-enabled services for numerous welfare programmes. But in recent months, websites maintained by NIC have inadvertently published the Aadhaar numbers and financial details of millions of citizens.

The eHospital app reveals in a nutshell how the headlong push to digitise government services at the cost of cybersecurity can put the personal data of citizens at risk.

“NIC is the biggest government implementer of e-governance, it is an unpardonable offence that they have made such a huge mistake,” said Dr Sandeep Shukla, head of the Computer Science department at IIT Kanpur, “NIC is incompetent but unfortunately all government activities happen through NIC.”

“eHospital was started in 2015,” said the NIC official, “People didn’t have confidence in Aadhaar…so the idea was to demonstrate the power of Aadhaar.”

The app uses UIDAI’s ‘know your customer’, or eKYC service, to let patients book appointments at government hospitals. As eHospital was designed for in rural areas with poor connectivity, the official said, NIC prioritised performance over security.

When security experts analysed eHospital, they found the app did not encrypt its communication with NIC’s servers. Second, the password was hardcoded in the eHospital application.

“This meant anyone could figure out the password and use NIC servers to get information from UIDAI,” explained Anivar Aravind, a technology consultant who has analysed the code, “The UIDAI servers would assume that the request is coming from NIC and would provide the information.”

In effect, Srivastava could build a replica of eHospital and NIC’s own servers could not tell the difference. And as UIDAI trusts agencies like NIC to act as gatekeepers, it released personal data of citizens on request. As Srivastava controlled the app, he could record the eKYC data of everyone who used his app.

“The problem is we are creating a huge ecosystem,” said Shukla, the IIT professor, explaining that such problems are likely to multiply as private and government agencies offer more Aadhaar-enabled services. “UIDAI authorities have created core security and encryption mechanism very well, but as you go outwards into the ecosystem, your control over those entities starts loosening.”