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

Saturday, March 24, 2018

13083 - New data leak hits Aadhaar system crumbling UIDAI’s 13-feet high, 5-feet thick wall - The New Minute


New data leak hits Aadhaar system crumbling UIDAI’s 13-feet high, 5-feet thick wall

A security researcher found a data leak on a state-owned utility company’s system that allows anyone to download private information on all Aadhaar holders.
Days after Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey defended Aadhaar’s security, a security researcher claims that the database is leaking information on every Aadhaar holder.

The New Delhi-based researcher reportedly told ZDNet that a data leak on a system run by a state-owned utility company can allow anyone to download private information on all Aadhaar holders.

This exposes their names, the 12-digit Aadhaar number and information of the services they have linked their Aadhar card to. These services include bank details, policy details and other private information. This potentially affects every Aadhaar card holder.

ZDNet claims that it tried to contact Indian authorities for over a month but didn’t receive any response from the government. It also claims to have contacted the Indian consulate with elaborate details on the vulnerability, but in vain. No action has been taken to fix the data leak and the vulnerability still exists, the website said in its report.

The application programming interface (API) through which the ultility provider – not revealed by ZDNet – verifies a customer’s identity is not secured and has no access controls in place. This makes it possible to retrieve private details of any Aadhaar holder.

“The affected endpoint uses a hardcoded access token, which, when decoded, translates to "INDAADHAARSECURESTATUS," allowing anyone to query Aadhaar numbers against the database without any additional authentication,” the report states.

The researcher says that the API allows any hacker to try several combinations of Aadhar numbers and every time he hits a successful result, that person’s details can be found.
The researcher reportedly could send thousands of requests each minute -- just from one computer.

"From the requests that were sent to check for a rate limiting issue and determine the possibility of stumbling across valid Aadhaar numbers, I have found that this information is not retrieved from a static database or a one-off data grab, but is clearly being updated -- from as early as 2014 to mid 2017. I cannot speculate whether it is UIDAI that is providing this information to [the utility provider], or if the banks or gas companies are, but it seems that everyone's information is available, with no authentication -- no rate limit, nothing,” ZDNet quotes him as saying.

The Aadhar database has information of over a billion Indian citizens. And with nearly every service such as mobile numbers, bank accounts, investment schemes, insurance policies asking citizens to link their Aadhaar cards, all this information is vulnerable.

Interestingly, this comes at a time when UIDAI and the Indian government is stressing on the security of Aadhaar.  On Thursday, Ajay Bhushan gave a technical presentation to defend the Aadhar system as part of the on-going Supreme Court case, which is hearing petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar.

He claimed that the personal data given when signing up for Aadhaar cannot be hacked and is encrypted. “It would take the world’s fastest computer the whole universe’s strength to break the Aadhaar encryption system,” he has been quoted as saying.

The nodal agency has also claimed that the data cannot be stored by any third party as it has a hidden barcode that carried the details of an original holder.
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