On 14/09/06 18:31 +0000, Dinesh Shah wrote:
Hi!
On 9/14/06, Devdas Bhagat devdas@dvb.homelinux.org wrote:
On 15/09/06 20:14 +0530, Rony wrote:
<snip> > Thats the purpose of this CIS system. It will not help us detect a > person's intentions but it will ensure that no faceless person simply > goes about conning people or walks into a public place, plants a bomb
Those who would give up essential liberty ...
I think there is a great misconception between identity and privacy. Establishing an identity does not necessarily lead to lose of privacy or liberty.
Am all pervasive identity, on the other hand, does. Every time you need to identify yourself, you lose a little bit of privacy.
and walks away or will keep changing ids after every crime. Knowledge of a person's id acts as a natural control over behavior.
And there are perfectly good reasons for anonymous speech. Particularly when you want to criticise the government. I see absolutely no reason to trust a government which goes about banning blogs terming them "anti-national".
The anonymous speech can not and will not be stopped. Having an identity does not mean that you can not have an anonymous or free speech.
Having an all pervasive identity backed by biometrics does imply just that. All that you need to do is correlate speech and activity and timestamps (and we are _good_ at that).
Citizen Information System sounds like it provides information TO citizens. Instead, it provides information ABOUT citizens. Now, from when do we start wearing the star of david^W^W^Wthe cresent^W^W... ? (I lose here).
The 1st step has to be ABOUT the citizen which can lead to better governance, security and services to TO the citizens.
Why? Why do you need to know 'who' I am in order to provide me with better service? All that you need to worry about is that my payments to you clear.
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.
I would call it pure paranoia.
Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. And history _does_ indicate that malicious people will gain power, regardless of whether you want them to or not. Oh, and remember, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Since electricity gives a shock and it can be fatal one must not generate or use electricity. :-)
Errr, no. You do have to take precautions when using electricity.
Same arguments are given for nuclear, genetic and other technologies .
And all of them do need safeguards. What safeguards do you propose against the misuse of a database like this one? Keep in mind that the threat is malicious people getting access to that information.
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.
We must remember that technology per say is never evil. It is the technology in the wrong hands which leads to disaster.
And how do you stop the technology from falling into the wrong hands? Oh, another book: Database Nation, by Simon Garfinkel.
And I think you and many have great distrust in our government. But
Personally, I distrust all monopolies.
remember that this is the government elected by you and me. :-) (It does not matter whether you vote or not ;-))
Funny, I always understood the malice to be on the part of the unelected bureaucrats, and the stupidity and greed on the part of the elected politicians.
Devdas Bhagat
I hope a system developed under FOSS will have sufficient checks and balances for providing freedom of speech and other constitutional rights to the citizens.
The whole problem here is that the FOSS aspect of it is irrelevant. The threat is the centralised database which is necessary for this plan to work.
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.
Devdas Bhagat