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Re: Citizen Information System (CIS): A FOSS Model
by Vivek Rai 15 Sep '06

15 Sep '06

> Citizen Information System sounds like it provides information TO citizens. > Instead, it provides information ABOUT citizens. Yes, we should also think of a framework which makes it convinient for a government department to provide its services online to citizens. (there are many such CMS tools, a multilingual one can easily be adopted) However, depending on the kind of service, the access may need to be authorized. 1) Viewing tendors, notifications, documents - open access 2) submitting forms online etc - authorized access. To effectively handle the 2nd kind of service, a centralized system can be useful. (another potential use of CIS) > May I recommend Nineteen Eighty-Four? While you are at it, Brave New > World, Farenheit 451, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, The rise and fall > of the Third Reich are also good to read. Many developed countries already have such unique ID systems.. and they are nothing like the big brother society discussed in Nineteen Eighty-Four.. you cannot get to that situation in a democracy of billion plus people.. > Modification of the data can render your identity pretty useless. > Merely reading that data and correlating it across databases can cause > serious havoc. Identity theft isn't a mere buzzword. > I can understand your concerns, identity theft is indeed a serious problem in the west. Identity theft can always occur, with or without such a database.. and it depends on the checks being used to identify a person.. EVEN now, if I get a driving license with the name of Devdas Bhagat by paying a bribe at the RTO, I can use it to travel in your name.. open a bank account... etc etc. Which is why if such a database can store some biometric information.. (pictures, fingerprints for example).. it will, in fact, serve to minimize any identity theft.. if an organization still relies solely on publicly available data (address, age etc) to identify you, they are being foolish.. this is NOT the fault of the database. Still, we have to be very careful about classifying A) what data needs to be private, accessable to tax/law authorities only (financial data, things that can be mis-used) B) what MAY be made public (perhaps depending on the preference of the citizen) .. address/contact/family details.. ? C) what NEEDS TO be made available, perhaps some of it to specific agencies only, and not the public directly (loan defaults... criminal records? although one can argue that it can unnecessarily prejudice people against a "reformed" criminal ?) I am not sure if our existing cyber-crime laws address issues related to identity theft, privacy and data protection... anyways, the point is -- such a system could be very useful, of course, we would need to have the adequete safegaurds in place to prevent any misuse .. but that doesnt mean that u stop thinking about developing such a system, it merely means that u think even harder and try to plug any potential loopholes in the scheme. > About the only way your proposal could work would be if the idea of > privacy is completely destroyed. No one has any privacy, and the > database is fully accessible to everyone all the time. The only > private thing you would possess would be your thoughts. I think you are over-estimating the power of such a database.. it would be very difficult to store ALL the details of a billion people and still make it easily searchanble and useful.. So, such a database can only ever have a very few details.. (storing fingerprint/pics itself could take a lot of space) i can probably learn more about your thoughts from reading all your posts to this forum (publicly available) than by getting a few other details from a database (sex, age, ID, educational qualifications)... I cannot do anything extra with it, that i cannot do now... unless, you have stored all your credit card details on your hotmail account, and your secret question in case of forgotten passwords is your age, and your age was a best-kept secret until this CIS database went live. that would be like carrying a paper with all your PIN witten inside your wallet! u dont start arguing for a 23 different PIN based ATM system from your bank.. it only invades your privacy if you had something to hide ... you were an illegal immigrant from Bangaladesh, a terrorist who has sneaked into india and doesnt have a proper ID.. you had taken a huge loan from a bank in nagaland and had disappeared, you had a criminal past.. you are a middle aged woman who keeps on claiming she is only 26.. you were a married guy fooling around with a girl .. (if marital status/age are chosen to be "public" details)

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Re: new idea, screen reader for KDE desktop, Reminder for 16th. meet
by krishnakant Mane 15 Sep '06

15 Sep '06

hello, Please be at HBCSE on 16th. sep that is tomorrow. the meeting is at 5 in the evening. I had posted the ajenda in my previous email. thanking all. Krishnakant.

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Maximum volume on OpenSuse 10.1
by Nadeem M. Khan 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

Hi. Following the suggestions given by list members, I installed OpenSuse 10.1 on my HP Compaq v5000 laptop. Everything is detected nicely. Just one major problem. I am not able to get maximum volume whem I play music. All sliders on alsamixer and the speaker volume applet on the desktop next to the clock are set to maximum, but the the sound plays at say 50% of the max. Any suggestions? Its a built in Intel soundcard with Altec Lansing speakers. Regards, NMK.

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Re: Link to GPLv3 audio and video (dead link?), RMS public lecture Audio / Video CD?
by Roshan 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

> > "...Microsoft Windows is a spyware ...(Windows > XP)" > > May i know who was it that said this? RMS. He's said this because, either he has discovered it or someone has told him. You weren't there at the lecture? __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/

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migrating thunderbird from windoze 2000 to linux
by Kenneth Gonsalves 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

hi, i saw a thread on this in the archives which says just copy the folders across. But i searched doze and couldnt find the folders. Where does thunderbird store the mail, profiles etc? -- regards Kenneth Gonsalves Associate, NRC-FOSS lawgon(a)au-kbc.org http://nrcfosshelpline.in/web/

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Thunderbird has lost its thunder.
by Rony 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

Hello All, I got Mandriva 2006 and while everything is fine, since many days I notice that whenever I use thunderbird, it shows a lot of HDD activity and opening new messages and moving to the next ones is too slow, as the HDD shows busy activity. The /log/messages show the following report below as the activity takes place. I even downgraded from Thunderbird 1.5 to 1.0.6 but still same problem. Browsing is no problem. I even uninstalled clamv in case it was scanning mail but still same problem. Has my system got a linix based spyware? ( Calm down guys! ) What is the net activity below? I have set the mailbox to manual mail download only. Below is the log. Is this anything to do with the reiserfs? Sep 8 22:01:26 mandrake06 kernel: Shorewall:net2all:DROP:IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=192.168.1.2 DST=192.168.1.255 LEN=198 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=39 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=631 DPT=631 LEN=178 Sep 8 22:01:57 mandrake06 kernel: Shorewall:net2all:DROP:IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=192.168.1.2 DST=192.168.1.255 LEN=198 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=40 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=631 DPT=631 LEN=178 Sep 8 22:02:31 mandrake06 kernel: Shorewall:net2all:DROP:IN=eth0 OUT= MAC= SRC=192.168.1.2 DST=192.168.1.255 LEN=198 TOS=0x00 PREC=0x00 TTL=64 ID=41 DF PROTO=UDP SPT=631 DPT=631 LEN=178 Regards, Rony. ___________________________________________________________ Try the all-new Yahoo! Mail. "The New Version is radically easier to use" The Wall Street Journal http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

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Citizen Information System (CIS): A FOSS Model
by Dinesh Shah 14 Sep '06

14 Sep '06

Hi All, This is a proposal based on the idea 1st proposed by Rony and discussed on the list. This is very important and useful idea and we must develop this idea further by the FOSS process of collective wisdom. Here is the out-line. I will put more info over a period of time. Citizen Information System (CIS): A FOSS Model Today India faces a serious challenge of identifying her citizens and her citizens have to struggle to establish their positive identities. Due to the lack of unique and verified/verifiable citizen identity the State has to face the challenges of internal and external security, leakage in revenues and wasteful expenditures, improper and/or inappropriate planing for the welfare of her citizens. At the same time, due to the lack of unique, verifiable an positive identity citizens have to cope with acquiring and managing and establishing his or her identity which leads to waste of valuable resources and seriously hampers his/her rights to enjoy the state welfare schemes and plans and impair him/her in carry out his/her duties. An unique and verifiable identity can help the country in - Securing her citizens for internal and external threats - Secure proper revenue collections and control expenditures - Can make the citizen welfare plans more effective - Can improve the law and order in the country - Can empower her citizens to enjoy their democratic rights and help Carry out their duties. An unique and verifiable identity can help the citizens in - Enjoying their constitutional and democratic rights - Empower them to fulfill their duties - Help them fully enjoy the ownership of movable and immovable properties - Reduction / elimination of harassment by various authorities - Improved state provided security - Better rewards from the country's citizen welfare plans Considering the tremendous advantages of the Citizen Identification/Information System (CIS), I would like to propose a FOSS model for developing and implementing such a system. In this paper I will propose and develop this idea in the FOSS spirit where people for all walks of life can participate in - Formulating such an Open System - Discussing social, economical and legal aspect of the CIS - Discussing implementation and management aspects of the CIS - Discussing technological details of the CIS Your feedback as usual is most welcome. With regards, -- --Dinesh Shah :-)

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Re: new idea, screen reader for KDE desktop
by Roshan 13 Sep '06

13 Sep '06

>So why not > meet at an open place like some garden? Wouldn't that require new members to be introduced to the existing members? Or would there be a sign-post that would tell where the GLUG members are actually discussing? :-? > > 16th is a Saturday, so could the timings be after > > 5:30 pm in the evening? > > Oh dear that would prevent me from attending. sunday > is all i have :-( I think the date is tentative. Not many from the list have replied. __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/

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Re: new idea, screen reader for KDE desktop
by Roshan 13 Sep '06

13 Sep '06

> > BTW when and where is the lug meet being held? > > We have no agenda for the meet as yet. Should we all > meet on 16th > itself at HBCSE? 16th is a Saturday, so could the timings be after 5:30 pm in the evening? __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/

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new idea, screen reader for KDE desktop
by krishnakant Mane 13 Sep '06

13 Sep '06

hello, with a lot of accessibility related talk going out on this list, I just discovered that some thing is yet to be done. there is a big hole in the accessibility of gnu/linux desktop. while the gnome desktop is getting more and more accessible slowly, there is nothing but an un organised start made on the k desktop side. there is a speach front end for the k desktop it is called ktts. the link was given to me by roni it is http://accessibility.kde.org/developer/kttsd/index.php if any one want to have a look. so we will not be re inventing the wheal but use the wheal to build up a car. + we have the engine of the car also. I am refering to festival speach synthesizer. the mattter of fact is that it will be easiest to convert blind computer users to k desktop and thus linux, if we can provide a good screen reader. there are applications on the k desktop which make transition from windows to gnu/linux much easy as compared to gnome. and then the programmers or any one interested can be gathered together for this kind of an organisation. and the finansial aspect is that we can earn by providing this service to blind people. they can and will happily give out a few thousand rs for this service as compared to rs. 80000 + for some screen reader on windows. thanks all waiting for feedback. Krishnakant.

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