Sep 4
Shocking how the Indian media is not just absolutely silent about
the Blackberry ban issue, but sometimes even citing it as one related to national prestige. None of our media even talks about the revelations some months back about
illegal monitoring of opposition politicians by government agencies. And how little public information has been made available as to what steps were taken to strengthen safeguards
as promised by our home minister.
But then, with half-baked projects like the national UID project, which thankfully has
recently got a more universal opposition, India has rarely been a country which respected individual privacy.
But I am digressing a lot from what I originally wanted to write in this post. It seems that the bogey of nationalism and fear in US, spurred on by 9/11, has tamed the watergate-revealing fourth estate there. So much in fact, that to display their "nationalistic" side to the fearful public, rather than defending wikileaks' larger agenda, they have actually agreed with the government to not consider wikileaks as a journalistic entity. This essentially exposes
Thankfully, quite a few voices are cropping up when one looks beyond the mainstream media. Quoting from
one of those rare non-mainstream US media article which takes a larger look at the ongoing tussle between Wikileaks and American military.
That WikiLeaks and its founder manifest a planetary consciousness rather than a national one, that they put human security above U. S. national security, that they dare to advocate for “justice for the victims of the war in Afghanistan ” seems to make many in America apoplectic.
Yet, considering the profound damage that nationalism has done to the human species as contrasted with the benefit to humanity of a more internationalist, human-centered perspective, WikiLeaks may have the better of the argument.
Still, many Americans seem to be wondering, “How dare these WikiLeaks people not side with us in this war?”
The truth is that WikiLeaks’ philosophy requires that it be committed to the interests of no nation in particular, and to human interests in general.
Jul 26
Interesting
analysis of Pakistan army chief's recent "extension" at
Filter Coffee:
Yet, of all the 14 chiefs of army staff to have served Pakistan, only one man holds the distinction of having commanded both Pakistan’s premiere intelligence agency, the ISI, and the Pakistani army. That man is Gen. Kayani. That Gen. Kayani played an integral part in ensuring that talks between S.M. Krishna and his counterpart in Pakistan failed should be no surprise. What Gen. Kayani does or doesn’t do within the confines of Pakistan’s political environment is a matter entirely internal to Pakistan.However, “secure” Pakistani generals have displayed a knack for misunderstanding their relative power within the Pakistani establishment and misconstruing their ability to force India’s hand on “unresolved issues.” And this is something that India needs to be wary of.
May 17
Just read
this awesome essay by
Bruce Scheneier about the fundamentally broken way in which security policies and management is being done in the countries of today.
Most of the folks in charge of security are trying to base their measures and policy around the worst case scenario. This leads to ridiculous scenarios which makes the 99.9999% scenario of normalcy as bad as possible - not carrying liquids in plane, photography being banned from many public places, strip searching of travelers, etc.
Scheneier argues that this only makes things worse.
There's a certain blindness that comes from worst-case thinking. An extension of the precautionary principle, it involves imagining the worst possible outcome and then acting as if it were a certainty. It substitutes imagination for thinking, speculation for risk analysis, and fear for reason. It fosters powerlessness and vulnerability and magnifies social paralysis. And it makes us more vulnerable to the effects of terrorism.
For one, instead of working with facts, the emphasis in security policy is revolving around imagination.
Secondly, instead of allocating resources based on the probability of all the possible scenarios, our policy makers are allocating all the resources on the worst case scenario .... no matter how improbable it is.
Thirdly, by trying to convince administrators and the public that this doomsday scenario is what they need to protect themselves again, the public ends up being more scared and vulnerable all the time. Even events where security measures have been successful in fending off an attack, ends up making people feel more vulnerable instead of secure!
A quote referenced in the article:
Worst-case thinking encourages society to adopt fear as one of the dominant principles around which the public, the government and institutions should organize their life. It institutionalizes insecurity and fosters a mood of confusion and powerlessness. Through popularizing the belief that worst cases are normal, it incites people to feel defenseless and vulnerable to a wide range
of future threats.
Sep 15
Like many people, I also had the perception that increased security can in most cases only be achieved at the cost of privacy and liberty. I have since started reconsidering that line of thought after I recently came across
this article by Bruce Schneier written way back on September 30 2001 just after 9/11, which argued that "
this association is simplistic and largely fallacious".
Security and privacy are not two sides of a teeter-totter. This association is simplistic and largely fallacious. It's easy and fast, but less effective, to increase security by taking away liberty. However, the best ways to increase security are not at the expense of privacy and liberty.
It's easy to refute the notion that all security comes at the expense of liberty. Arming pilots, reinforcing cockpit doors, and teaching flight attendants karate are all examples of security measures that have no effect on individual privacy or liberties. So are better authentication of airport maintenance workers, or dead-man switches that force planes to automatically land at the closest airport, or armed air marshals traveling on flights.
Liberty-depriving security measures are most often found when system designers failed to take security into account from the beginning. They're Band-aids, and evidence of bad security planning. When security is designed into a system, it can work without forcing people to give up their freedoms.
Schneier goes on to give some very good examples in the article which demonstrates his point. I find this other section of this article very true, and especially relevant to India at this point.
People are willing to give up liberties for vague promises of security because they think they have no choice. What they're not being told is that they can have both. It would require people to say no to the FBI's power grab. It would require us to discard the easy answers in favor of thoughtful answers. It would require structuring incentives to improve overall security rather than simply decreasing its costs. Designing security into systems from the beginning, instead of tacking it on at the end, would give us the security we need, while preserving the civil liberties we hold dear.
For example, take a look at our
National Unique Identification (NUID) project. The government and Mr. Nilekani is selling us the argument that it is the panacea to all our national and internal security problems. Illegal migration will be stopped, benefits of social programs will reach the intended recipient, etc. As Nilekani
said recently in an interview with Karan Thapar,
On being asked on the investment of money in this project be invested in some other project as is better used for education, health for women and children and sanitation programmes, he replied “We certainly don’t want to take away money from important social programmes but remember that as we expand our social programmes, the efficiency of the social programme depends on the fact that they reach the right people and that there are no duplicates who are taking away the benefits which are meant for the poor. We need to make them more efficient. So you need the infrastructure at the bottom to make that happen. The investment of money in this project will actually make all those other money’s be spent more efficiently. Think of it as an infrastructure for enabling you to spend money more effectively.”
Of course, he conveniently doesn't mention that there is another way to deal with the "efficiency" (an euphemism for corruption) of social programs.
Tackle the systematic corruption in the PDS and other government doles to the poor.
Instead of targeting only the relatively few people involved in the system, Nilekani and GoI would rather spend thousands of crores every year on this scheme asking each and every billions plus Indians to meekly surrender whatever anonymity that they have against government (and the inevitable corporate) surveillance of everything that they do. This is apart from causing additional sufferings for the misgoverned citizens when they try to be compliant with this authority for every change they do in their lives. If people felt irritated with the need for quoting PAN numbers and voters ID card in many places right now, I cannot but imagine how they would feel when they will have to quote the NUID in everything they do - while seeking employment,renting a house, using a cyber cafe, filing any government application, etc.
Of course, if instead they had just tried to confront the real problem, we don't have to do that. But again, who cares about the real problems? This country is just about tokenisms like NUID.
How are we ever going to get out of this mess? The government is best equipped to understand all the threats we face. The government security agencies specialize on knowing all the possible solutions to our problems. These people who are best placed do not disclose to us all the possibilities of tackling security problems that they have considered and how they have reached the best possible solution. So how will us ordinary citizens ever know that we could have had a better solution which is more effective but required more work from the government. The government has a vested interest in not letting us know that - they are part of the problem in most cases, they are the interested party in others and in most cases it is political expediency - the results of the right way would take longer than one election tterm to show.
