[smc-discuss] [x-post] Open Letter to Advocate General Mukul Rohatki

[Pirate Praveen]

Dear Mr. A-G,

This is a response to the article "Absolute privacy is a futile notion,
says A-G" [1] that appeared on The Hindu.

The solution to losing privacy is not giving up even more privacy, but
to find ways to reclaim it by using tools like end to end encryption.
When you use Free Software apps like Dear kontalk, you can be assured,
no one is reading your messages.

You say “There is no absolute privacy. It’s a futile notion. Facebook,
if it wants, can pick up any message sent by one person to another if it
wants to snoop through WhatsApp. Our system [Aadhaar scheme] is far more
secure,”
You are deliberately confusing security and privacy here.

    WhatsApp uses https to secure messages whereas many agencies collect
data for Aadhar and each of these agencies can leak private data.

    People voluntarily give data to WhatsApp where as Aadhar is a
precondition for many services.

    People can choose not to use WhatsApp and communicate securely using
end to end encryption provided by apps like “Kontalk” and
“Conversations”. With Aadhar, more people are denied that choice, even
when you claim it is voluntary.

    WhatsApp claims they offer end to end encryption, but we have no way
of verifying that claim than just take their word for granted, like the
claims of Volks Wagen. Free Software, like “Kontalk”, which allows
anyone to inspect the source code and verify claims, is the only way to
ensure privacy.

    Your system may be secure, but bulk collection of citizen data
without a data privacy law is an invitation for misuse.


You sound eerily similar to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg [2], his
intention of saying there’s no privacy now is to defend his social
network’s changes in privacy settings that makes more things public. Is
your intention similar?
***
Are you casually implying that Facebook and whatsapp is or should be
used by every Indian? Are these recommended by the government or so? Do
government officials use it for discussing national issues? Do army
people use it?
Are people who do not have a whatsapp/Facebook account not citizens of
India? Do they or do they not have privacy? Should they also give up
privacy and get aadhaar?
***
Decentralized data is less harmful than centralized data. YouTube might
know which video I am watching, but they do not know where I’m planning
to go this afternoon.
Putting data from different sources together allows drawing inferences
that are not possible with single or few sources.
***
Why should the poor widow have to travel 20 miles if she doesn’t have
aadhaar? Why shouldn’t the scheme of going to her house be applied even
when she doesn’t have an aadhaar? What difference does aadhaar make to
pension status? Is a death certificate + marriage certificate not enough
to prove widowhood? Can only people with aadhaar card die? If people
without aadhaar card dies, are they not dead?
***
Facebook is a for profit company whose monetization strategy is selling
user data. Therefore it is natural that they employ technology that
doesn’t allow privacy. But that doesn’t mean it is technologically
impossible to have privacy.
Free software built by the community doesn’t have the same need for
collection of data and this allows them to implement privacy features.
We already have excellent Free Software applications like Kontalk which
makes end to end encryption easy to use for everyone. We demand you
start addressing the loss of privacy instead of using it as an excuse to
gather more data and power by promoting Free Software that gurantees
there are no backdoors for snooping. You have a duty to protect the
privacy guranteed by the constition. We know you are arguing there is no
such guarantee in the constitution, we hope you'll be proved wrong.

[1]
http://m.thehindu.com/news/national/absolute-privacy-is-a-futile-notion-says-ag/article7762780.ece
[2]
http://readwrite.com/2010/01/09/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov

Discuss here
https://www.loomio.org/d/nlkNS9xg/open-letter-to-advocate-general-mukul-rohatgi

Contribute your points https://pad.disroot.org/p/open-letter-to-AG