I abhor any decision that robs even a grain of my individual freedom.
India is currently run by a nationalist regime headed by the so called "butcher of Gujarat"[1], there isn't much that would shock me wrt to that lot's totalitarian tendencies.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_image_of_Narendra_Modi
Like sure you could in theory see every document I've ever signed if you have a warrant for BankID servers, but you could probably glean most of that if you had a warrant for the banks servers anyway, so it's not really a new capability.
If your digital ID is controlled centrally by the government (the guys that are watching most things you do already), and you need your digital ID to do most commercial interactions (banking, buying things, travel, etc), it means the government can revoke your ability to do any of those commercial interactions (or even other things that aren't strictly commercial, think "travel papers" for driving out of state).
And it doesn't even have to be in response to criminal actions. You too too many trips this year? Well, you've used up your CO2 budget as a citizen, have fun not buying CO2-intensive food (meat). Said something racist online? Well we certainly can't let a person like you buy a car now, can we?
And yes, things like credit cards and credit scores are centrally managed to a degree, and Visa/Mastercard can deny transactions for somewhat-arbitrary reasons (they're actually fairly legally limited in how they can do this, it's not totally arbitrary). But these things are not tied into every aspect of your life (your bank doesn't necessarily know how many miles you've driven this year), whereas states can (or can invent the legal authority to) tie a digital ID into everything.
The government can already do this today in the US, they can put your ID on a fly denylist, your passport on a "always go to secondary screening list" (ask anyone who's ever been to Iran on vacation and then decided to travel to the US) and your license plate on a wanted list.
It provides convenience, and the only thing I'd lose of it was hypothetically revoked(the government has no such powers, and are unlikely to gain them, more on that later) is that convenience.
The reason the government is unlikely to gain those powers is that it would require a change in the grundlag, and such changed has to be approved twice, and there has to be an election between the two approvals.
How is it a permission system? It's a way to prove your identity safely, online. No proposal/implementation that I'm aware of (maybe outside of China, but I'm not familiar enough) that actually conditionally does so based on preconditions and blocks you from actions. It would probably be actively illegal to do so in multiple countries.
> But these things are not tied into every aspect of your life (your bank doesn't necessarily know how many miles you've driven this year)
I mean, that's not true. LexisNexis is the company many car vendors send your driving data to, to be bought by insurance companies to do adaptive pricing. Banks don't necessarily need that data, but if they did, they could buy it too.
Which is why it's better if it's the government - there can be laws, regulations, pressure, judicial reviews to ensure that only legitimate uses are fine, and no such discrimination is legal. Take a look at credit scores in the US - they're run by private for profit companies, sold to whoever wants them, so credit scores have become a genuine barrier to employment, housing, etc. If this were managed by a state entity (like in France, Banque de France stores all loan data, and when someone wants to give you a loan, they check with them what your current debts are, and if you have defaulted on any recently; that's the only data they can get and use), there could be strong controls on who accesses the data and uses it for what.
Can someone revoke your ability to prove your identity? To pick an example, say, the far right wins an election and decides that trans people need to go back to their birth genders, and revokes the validity for the identifiers of anyone that has transitioned.
The examples don't even make sense historically. Haven't you noticed that most governments are failing to decarbonize, and government force against citizens is usually against the left?
Being a racist is mostly useless and self-serving, but if you make any particular scientific position illegal, it's identical to having state defined science. That's how we got people passing bills to define pi and Lysenkoism. It's how we institutionalized chattel slavery and sometimes teaching black people to read punishable by death.
The goal of government isn't to promote your "correct" opinions. The goal of government should be summarize the beliefs of a fully-informed public in order to act on their behalf.
I fully agree with your position here, but do you think the government has a roll in making sure the public is not misled or believes things that "experts" consider to be false? Do you think expert opinions should carry more weight that the average Joe?
I think my position is that the government is a tool we, the taxpayer, should use to investigate things and educate us of its findings. That this should be done in an open and transparent way so that we can trust the results. I don't think for profit companies should responsible for educating people. (sorry for the tangent)
It's a single point of failure. Digital ID servers on creation because as valuable to compromise as value_of_bank_hack*bank_count plus whatever other services are rolled in.
Furthermore now only one warrant is needed, or one illegal executive order. Take the USA as a live example - legal protections aren't actually real, a government official with enough political power can just do whatever they want while the courts struggle to keep up, and then just ignore court orders.
If your identity is spread out in many different ways, at least then there's more friction to compromise. Just because one bank capitulates doesn't mean the actor immediately has health information on you, for example. Just because the unemployment office capitulates doesn't mean the actor has your financial records.
My current interpretation is that they are fear mongering about violence because they are actually way more racist than they admit publicly, and might want to remove more people than they were letting on initially.
So okay you can definitely disagree with that, and how you feel about it can definitely be influenced by how much you feel threatened (personally or network) and that’s valid.
But why do we think that they are using this as a ruse to like become despotically authoritarian in general? Do we think that the borders were opened intentionally to fabricate this “crisis”? If not, it would be such a huge coincidence, because there are a zillion reasons to be concerned about the demographic situation without needing to use it as a smokescreen, what are the odds that this problem organically appeared and then they happen to be able to take advantage of it?
Note that I’m not asserting that the borders weren’t opened intentionally to fabricate this problem to which they can react with a “solution”, that sounds exactly like something a government would do. I just don’t hear anyone saying that out loud, at least, and having personal network or moral values or whatever threatened and reacting to that just seems a lot more likely to me as a reason why people feel like the world is ending.
Probably because the actions being taken are against people of every category; illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, and naturally born citizens.
As has been noted, _anyone_ not being entitled due process means _nobody_ is entitled to due process. Because then can kidnap you, claim you're "of a group not entitled to due process", and do whatever they want to you. And you can't push back because you're not in that group... because you need due process to do that.
> But why do we think that they are using this as a ruse to like become despotically authoritarian in general?
At some point, you have to call a duck a duck. They're doing things that despotically authoritarian would do, over and over. They may or may not _think_ that's what their goal is, but it clearly is.
Are you referring to getting arrested and released due to some suspicion (let’s say the suspicion is always fabricated for the sake of argument), or deported, or something else?
On due process, if someone accidentally gets a free flight to a foreign country, that totally sucks and they should be paid compensation, but let’s not pretend that deportation is the same as what authoritarian regimes typically do. Have people disappeared off the face of the earth? I think the Germans of the ‘30s would have a very different reputation if they had simply attempted to deport all the Jews…
Quite low. Borders weren't open to fabricate an excuse to engage in authoritarianism - the excuse was simply fabricate, whole-cloth, with no basis in reality to justify it.
There is no immigration problem in the USA. Large portions of the American economy are dependent on immigration, documented or otherwise. Immigrants, documented or otherwise, commit less crimes per-capita than USA citizens.
So, the current government is using immigration as a flash-point to get themselves elected, and as an ongoing distraction away from their failure to address their other platform (affordability). Getting to be more authoritarian is the stated goal, based on the plan outlined in "Project 2025."
Well this is a controversial statement. Many people have thought there was an immigration problem in the USA since well before Trump entered politics.
If I pretend to believe that there is definitely no immigration problem, though, then I agree with you. But like I said, that is a controversial statement.
Would you believe that the people who support this just do believe there is an immigration problem? People are allowed to care about things other than the economy and crime stats, by the way.
You stated this very well.
But I do think it's a ruse. I don't have a problem with enforcing the law on illegal immigration.[0] But I do think the deployment of National Guard and in some cases Marines on American streets, allegedly to disperse anti-ICE protests, is a long game to make sure that there will be no judicial obstacles in the way if MAGA loses the 2028 election fair and square, cries foul that the election was stolen, decides to send in their own slate of electors, and faces nationwide protests.
I live in Portland. I see the ridiculous cosplay of protesters outside the ICE detention facility. I see the absurdity of deploying troops to face off against them. If these clowns can be used as a casus belli to declare war and use the US military against the civilian population, then it will be no stretch to do so when a large portion of the population rises up to demand a proper electoral count in 2028. That's the scenario I see when I see the willy-nilly, unnecessary use of federalized troops on American soil.
And for the record, I'm a registered Republican and mostly libertarian.
[0] I am not anti-immigration, and I don't view immigration as a "demographic problem". I don't care what race people are as long as they are coming here for the right reasons and want to integrate and be productive members of our society. I was also an illegal immigrant in Europe for years. I accept the fact that countries have the right to decide who they want to accept as citizens, and that breaking those rules may damage your ability to become a citizen of the country you want to be accepted into. And that going there illegally may carry certain risks.
Maybe because many things Trump does and says are blatant lies and shameless despotic authoritarian ones? Ignoring courts, ignoring the constitution especially the first amendment, using his office for personal gain. I don't think I have to give examples because they're just too many. Only last week he pardoned a convicted drug dealer who was Hondurese president while planning to invade Venezuela and "just killing people" because of drugs for which there isn't even any evidence. It was just the last of many (including silk road captain Ross Ulbricht). Anyway that's just one of the recent things.
And the borders were never actually open. It's really hard to migrate to the US and the illegals do all the work the Americans won't do for almost nothing.
The real problem with public safety is the huge income gaps, leading to disenfranchised ghettos with festering organised crime gangs. A lot of them might be immigrants but many are born Americans. The thing they have in common that they are poor and have no upward opportunities.
[1]: https://e-estonia.com/digital-id-protecting-against-surveill...
The idea of all these digital documents is never a problem until you go through the exercise of figuring out what it will all be used for (controlling you).
Same with conscription, which needless to say was invented and effectively implemented prior to the invention of digital anything.
Yes, fight in advance to prevent such a situation, but don’t assume you will win. It’s good to have a backup plan.
Of course it does. It makes it possible to track exactly where you are and what you are doing. So it pushes the balance of power towards the authorities.
No??? What do you imagine, that every single transaction you make, like buying bread, will require a Digital ID? Why on earth would you imagine that?
you apply to or for anything.. and they just give you the option of authorizing via singpass.. and you use your passkey-like singpass app to authorize it... and its done!
you go to hospital and they need your medical records? singpass
you go to university and they need your academic history? singpass
you apply for bank loan? insurance? license? food handling permit? singpass
Or is there some way to restrict which party gets which data?
https://docs.developer.singpass.gov.sg/docs/getting-started/...
https://docs.developer.singpass.gov.sg/docs/data-catalog-myi...
As part of the flow you’ll be shown the list of data that’s being requested.
It is trade-off, but probably lot more accountable than paper records in big hospitals.
Yet we already had an interesting situation which shows just how complicated trust is. Sberbank, the Russian bank, was slated to issue digital identity certifications in March 2022. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and Sberbank got booted out of the country before actually gaining that capability.
What if it was March 2021 instead? How would we treat signatures on documents verified by Sberbank a day before the invasion etc.? What if the content of that document was really suspicious? Etc.
It doesn't seem like those should matter so much, but it really does make everything about democracy easier.
Things get much weirder when the population isn't so low or isn't relatively concentrated.
Hacker News has a unique user base. Professional Software Engineers, many of whom are Senior or Principal or Staff in level. Leaders and Managers and Architects.
I think, anytime we design a new system, we need to carefully think about how it can be used and what can go wrong. Not just with the current owners and users of that system, but future users and owners too.
Discrimination is one of those areas where identity management can go wrong. Discrimination and deliberate but undetectable Denial of Service "bugs" that always seem to hit the same types of users in the legs.
And getting evidence of wrongdoing like that takes years. It's nothing to an institution, but a lifetime to an individual. Sometimes there aren't even recordings or logs of individuals trying to ensure service and legal contracts are upheld. And again, the legal process is nothing for a large institution but soul crushing for an individual. And the solution always seems to be more institutional power, not individual power.
That kind of education in Engineering Ethics is common nowadays in University and College.
A lot of us who grew up self-educated in the early days or specialized in other schools may have missed out on those lessons early in our career.
And a person who goes through a Brazil-esque nightmare like that comes out at the end with a broken reputation. And always whispers and subtext floating around even after justice.
And there may be technically sophisticated intelligence services that can detect that kind of subtle tampering. But it's not the responsibility of other country's intelligence services to protect citizens of countries other than theie own.
Going through that I can say strength wouldn't be enough.
BankID is very convenient, I use it all the time here in Norway but, at least theoretically, it is a private initiative of the banks and not the state. It is not compulsory to have BankID.
No thank you, I'll take no ID over ID any day, and at worst, a physical plastic card over a bullsh*t digital solution that is used to lock you out off society.
Sweden is really the worst possible approach, is authoritarian, and hands over the power to the banks controlling the digital ID system.
I believe you'll find that no ID, which is the American approach, is, in actual fact, worse than digital ID.
Also, authoritarian? You're not forced to use BankID, what are you even on about?
Convenience - what you’re describing is convenience
It’s totally fine if you prioritize that over everything else, but my only thought here is that everyone should be crystal clear in what they are trading off for convenience
It’s convenient for the government too, tk have a single identifier to thread a persons entire life
We are, sadly, well beyond any expectation of privacy, but we should at least be aware of it and try to not make it worse
Yes it's selling point is convenience. Convenience is good.
In this particular case I disagree that there's a price in privacy. At least currently, and the way the Swedish electronic ID is implemented, I don't see it.
With other variations there might be problems of course, though I'd worry more about someone messing up the security of it rather than privacy
You can never put the genie back in the bottle and you never know who will be in charge in 20 years
If trump was elected prime minister of Sweden, he wouldn't have been able to do half the stuff he's done.
And what has he done? Enforced immigration laws according to written law? Reorganized the executive branch?
He can't pass any laws by himself. The judiciary can overturn his executive orders.
He can already do that?
We can all play "I struggle to see" and throw out weak arguments but it does not advance the topic
You just said "privacy" and pretended that's an argument
There have been 0 incidents of any of the hysterical hypotheticals y'all are on about actually happening, maybe it's time for a reality check?
I can't speak for Sweden but that is not true in Norway where we also use BankID (I'm not sur but I think it originated in Norway).
Source?
https://www.newsweek.com/people-get-microchips-implanted-tha...
"In 2017, a railway company in Sweden began allowing travelers to load their ticket information onto the microchips implanted in their bodies, according to BBC News. Railway conductors were then able to use smartphones to detect the chip and confirm the travelers' tickets."
We can probably find more crack addicts in Sweden...
Let put the brakes on these slippery slopes, otherwise we'll be afraid of our own shadows soon. Scepticism is fine, paranoia isn't.
You mention crack addicts there. Yeah, they're kind of similar. With a new drug like cocaine, it starts with a handful of impressionable people who get given it cheap. Then they influence other people who take it up, and before you know it you have drug epidemic on your hands. (As most developed countries do.? The difference is that the ruling class doesn't openly encourage cocaine use, because it doesn't benefit them in anyway (other than doping up potential troublemakers).
You should read some of the Fourth Industrial Revolution material that governments and their advisers put out. They are quite plain about where they want this to head. Transhumanism is sold as a means to improve us, but it can also be used as a means of control. (There is a lot of hypocrisy in such documents — how can one argue that we need to lower carbon emissions and at the same time engage in project which increase electricity usage? That seems contradictory at least for now, because even renewables generate have environmental issues. These data centres will gobble up more energy than people's homes do.)
If you mean Swedish dogs and cats, then yes. Otherwise, no.
You shouldn't believe everything they say on YouTube.
Also, the Bible is mostly lies, don't trust that either.
I'm sure some idiot put a dog microchip in their hand for shits and giggles, but so what? Their hand their choice.
Similar scenario here. The old boiling a frog scenario. Some company trying to persuade its employees to get microchipped. Also other interests trying to push it. The dog thing is not unconnected, even with that, doing it to pets is partly a soft sell to saying humans can get one too. It has been normalised in science fiction films for decades.
"Their hand, their choice" turns into "they got a microchip, and why don't you?" into "everyone's got a microchip, why don't you?" and then "why the hell don't you have a microchip?" and eventually legal consequences for not having one. Of course microchips are only one possibility for tagging people... And the idea won't go away.
https://www.newsweek.com/people-get-microchips-implanted-tha...
It's a driver's licence infringing on my privacy too? Cause they're mostly the same, at least the way they're implemented in Sweden
The point is that the more identifiable information that the monopoly on violence has the easier it is for something, anything really, to be used against you should your tribal affiliation conflict with the ruling party.
This is like politics 101
Information that was previously in paper form and scattered across various bureaus is now being digitised and centralised, but that's orthogonal to "digital ID"!
Once the infrastructure for mass surveillance is available, States are tempted to use it.
Also even if it may be ok in Sweden for cultural reasons, the rest of the world unfortunately isn't (but can enjoy private washing machines in exchange).
> "Legal" protections can disappear in one evening, and then you are left with a centralized system, very practical for population control.
but none of the upsides.
> "Legal" protections can disappear in one evening, and then you are left with a centralized system, very practical for population control.
but none of the upsides.
Once the eID system is set up and becomes ubiquitous, it will be trivial for companies to use eID to open any online account or reserve plane/train tickets. Therefore, giving enforcement forces very convenient access to all of my activity and allowing automated monitoring. Just look at what is happening in China.
I feel like what you mean by "digital ID" is very different to what others mean.
Why would a porn site pay ten cents per visitor to get a legally binding id of its visitors? But even more importantly, why would anyone sign it?
Y'all seem to think digital ID is some kind of super-cookie that tracks your every move online.
It's not.
Requiring identification in situations that don't need it is where the problems start, but that's possible with analog IDs as well, and is often even worse there (since these provide neither security against digital copies, nor privacy, which digital ID can, e.g. via zero knowledge proofs).
Small external signers with a display and confirmation button are a nice compromise (and also largely solve MITM!), since I don't mind an external device being under somebody else's administrative control as long as I can run what I want on my smartphone or computer.
But people don't want to carry two things... Hopefully we can at least have both as alternatives going forward.
It can be moved into a security processor within the smartphone's SOC.
As an example, this was the security model for mobile contactless payments for the longest time, and arguably as a result these never really took off until Google came up with a software-only alternative for Android. The potential for rent seeking of the hardware vendor is often too great, and even absent that, it requires close cooperation of too many distinct entities (hardware vendor, OS developer, bank, maybe a payment scheme etc).
(Apple had no issues, because their ecosystem is already a fully walled garden, and they can usually get away with charging access fees even for non-security-relevant hardware interfaces.)
With a contactless smartcard, I might have to carry one more plastic card than strictly necessary, but the technology for that is pretty mature (wallets), and I can migrate to a new phone without any hassle or use my credential on somebody else's device in a pinch.
Which is exactly the argument against digital ID, because it reduces the friction to asking for ID in situations that don't need it, causing it to become epidemic.
Meanwhile nearly all the instances where ID actually should be required are also instances where showing up in person should be required, like taking out your first line of credit with a financial institution, or signing on to a new job. Because the entire point is to verify that that person is the person on the ID and not someone in Russia who managed to hack their phone.
Availability has to be ensured just as much as security and privacy in such a scenario, and that's not trivial. (I still personally think it's worth trying.)
The US by contrast, has a distributed system where there are many authorities that can issue IDs that are valid for the activities of daily life.
The only common nationally issued ID in the US is a passport and people only get that for international travel -- and it wasn't even until 2024 that a majority of Americans even had one.
Or be forced to install yet another ID app from a private service that requires you have an iPhone or "compatible" Android.
The debate about this in the UK is just crazy. Notwithstanding the current "febrile" state of politics. It has always received weirdly vitriolic push back.
What really is the Government going to do with a digital ID service that they can't do already?
I just want to be able to give estate agents, solicitors, a bank, etc my ID number and a time-limited code that proves I am in control of that ID (or however that might work), and be done with it.
Because, as the Home Secretary herself observed, it would fundamentally change the relationship between the individual and the state.
> What really is the Government going to do with a digital ID service that they can't do already?
This gives the impression of having done no research into a topic of which you now opine opposition to be "weirdly vitriolic". We live in an age of search engines and GPTs, free encyclopaedias and entire lecture series online, and even libraries are still open and free, but you've done nothing to get past the very first thoughts you've had on the subject.
Was that weirdly vitriolic, or someone pointing out that an argument to undermine everyone's rights should have some effort behind it?
I addressed their unkind and ad hominem argument. If you think me unkind then I will shrug and say, in hacker parlance, they should RTFM. They have not put in the slightest work before opining and criticising, and on something as important as this?
May they receive such weird vitriol until they learn to at least Google first. Doesn't it automatically run a GPT for you now? They, and surely the people around them, will thank me for instilling such basic discipline.
Or just complain about “kindness” more - it’s easier to accuse others of being mean than to look in a mirror, I suppose.
In 20 years, the UK suffers a terrorist attack just before an election, and then elects a ultra right wing government on a platform of "remigrating foreigners." You're a British born citizen but your mom fled from Iran in the 80s and immigrated to the UK.
If you don't have digital ID, and the government decides to "remigrate all Iranians," they have to collect information from several different government groups, e.g. maybe your mom got a passport in which case one government agency may just know she's a non-native British citizen but nothing more. Maybe your immigration agency stands up to the government and engages in legal battles to prevent turning over immigration information.
However if there's a digital ID system that lets the government instantly know everything about a person, you lose the protection of friction.
I believe this is one of the fundamental premises of representative liberal democracy, and one of its most redeeming features: balance of power is spread not just between branches of government, but through ministries/departments/agencies, which makes it much harder for a despot to do despotism.
So I get the historical aversion to IDs as the stepping stone of governments to gaining access to potentially democracy-subverting informational hazmat, but these days, I feel like the downsides of not having a ubiquitous and privacy-preserving ID scheme vastly outweigh the little bit of extra friction of it will ever add.
"Digital ID" doesn't necessitate that all data is collected into one gigantic store with centralised access. Just that you can use the same attestation of identity to access the various systems. And you can also grant others access to a limited subset of the data.
If the government wanted to they could already have set up some direct access from (say) the passport office to HMRC. It's all digital anyway, backwards as the UK government can be, they're not sending people to pore over paper ledgers in person like in The Jackal.
Some of the system already works like this anyway with the share codes for permission to work for foreigners and proving your driving licence.
Theoretically you would also be able to have an audit log of who asked for attestation for access to which system using that ID. Which you currently don't have when everyone is doing it by passport scans, NI numbers given over the phone and so on.
What it does allow is a creeping over-attestation especially of non-government services where you need to use the ID to do things that were previously anonymous or at least potentially anonymous. But since you currently need to use a driving license or selfie to look at boobies, that's already a thing.
It also, depending on cryptographic implementation, can leak information about attestations directly to the government. For example if I certify my identity at BumTickling.com, the website might only find out that I'm over 18, but the government may then know that BT.com's operator requested attestation of my ID's age field. Whereas currently, BT.com's (probably) shady identity service partner may have my selfie and know I tried to look at BT.com, but the government (probably, maybe they forward these things secretly) doesn't know about it unless they audit that partner.
It also has the possibility to gate access to government services behind app installations which, when done lazily, means not only smartphones are required which is bad enough, but specifically Google and Apple devices.
“ICE was confirmed by independent review and U.S. judges to have violated laws including the Immigration Act of 1990 by interrogating and detaining people without warrants or review of their citizenship status”
Given that dragnet operations result in all sorts of random people being deported, including citizens, and given that sometimes these people are deported to countries where they face violence or death, you are arguing for state-sponsored violence without due process. Other than people immigrating, what other circumstances do you feel justify the elimination of due process?
Suppose there is a law against being Jewish.
In the case of ID cards and the like, the state does not rule over the populace, it rules on behalf of the populace. I am innocent and they work for me. Hence, I do not have to prove to some random government agent who I am unless it is relevant to the task they perform, e.g.
- the police have a reasonable and justifiable suspicion that I am engaged in criminal activity - an immigration officer may only ask for my details when I am crossing a border or, again, have some reasonable and justifiable suspicion that I am in need of deportation etc. - Or perhaps I just need some documents from my local municipal office, and they rightly ask who I am and to prove it before giving out my private info.
Me going about my business is no business of the government's until I start abusing the rules.
The opposite view is that:
- I am ruled over - Any agent of the government can question me and prevent me from going about my business
Of course, in practice, the application of such liberal principles like not requiring ID to go about my day are often not done well, but to change the principle is to change the entire character of the most fundamental aspects of Englishness. You'll note, much of the continent lurches between different forms of collectivist oppressive government whereas, until of late, the UK has not. This is because of the lack of this fundamental principle there, I am sure of that, and those calling for these kind of ID laws, digital or otherwise, are not to be entertained.
The most interesting case will be the USA, where they still care about the principles of English liberty, far more than the English do.
> The fundamental proposition on which all of English culture flows from is that of innocence.
One thing I have found true (and somewhat different from other countries), when UK folks talk about how they view the police, it is generally beneficial. (Don't throw your tomatoes at me just yet!) Versus other countries, the police are viewed as more neutral or negative (especially the US). I always thought the idea of having no regular police carrying guns is a pretty brave policy in the 21st century. In many ways, imperfect policy, but it works well, and (appears) to reduce police violence against the public. On a more personal note, I also find the UK police are incredibly restrained during heated protests. Imperfect, yes, but they make a real effort. As an outsider, when I watch a short YouTube clip of a heated protest in the UK, and the police are doing their best to keep cool and not antogise the crowds. (I promise: I'm not here to shill for UK police; I'm sure they do some bad stuff too.) The best phrase that I ever heard from a British person to describe UK police: "They police by consent (of the people)." It is a powerful phrase and idea.
> Is this not true in all highly advanced democracies?
Been to Japan?
Sure, its slightly harder to have a government issue credentials to everybody and not have them abuse the possibilities that come with it, but if a society can pull it of, there are vast benefits in many areas of life.
On top of that, the flip side of people regularly not carrying any identification documents seems to be a police force much more eager to arrest people on the spot to figure out their identity. (Presented as an observation without value judgement: This way of doing things does lower the likelihood of the police arresting somebody because of not carrying identification.)
I don't agree that there is any such mix up, you'd need to point to the actual mix up.
> Sure, its slightly harder to have a government issue credentials to everybody and not have them abuse the possibilities that come with it, but if a society can pull it of, there are vast benefits in many areas of life.
There are lots of things that may benefit the group at the expense of individuals, but that is exactly why any group that values individual liberty should be opposed to it.
> On top of that, the flip side of people regularly not carrying any identification documents seems to be a police force much more eager to arrest people on the spot to figure out their identity.
The police in the UK aren't allowed to arrest people simply for not providing ID, and they are sued and lose when they do. I used to enjoy watching the Crimebodge account on Youtube where there are plenty of such scenarios. It's especially fun watching teenagers who know the law frustrate authoritarian rozzers.
So no, the way to lower the risk of the police arresting people for not having ID is to make not having ID a normal thing and increase the rights the individual has against persecution by the police.
A good current example is the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill which very much is based on the idea that the state, rather than parents, is primarily responsible for children. The Online Safety Act reflects much the same thinking.
I think there has been a cultural change. Both from the state, and from people who expect to be told what to do to a greater extent than the past.
This is at odds to much of the EU where carrying ID is normal and you can be fined for not having it on you in public.
Proving your identity to a company usually involves a copy of passport and a recent utility bill. Sometimes you need to get a "professional" (doctor, lawyer) to write "I certify this is a valid copy" on it. Financial systems often use your NI number (think SSN) as the ID factor for things like KYC, the NHS uses a separate number. There are several fairly mysterious companies that provide this service to companies who need to know like solicitors (you upload the photos, they authenticte it "somehow", hopefully they look after it, presumably they can be audited I turn out to be a money launderer using a fake document). Getting a passport is a bit of a performance as you have to bootstrap the trust chain by getting someone you know to submit their documents and vouch for your photos.
It also means that, to use a hot-button subject recently, the police have limited practical ways to prove a right to work, unless they have strong intelligence that a particular place is using illegal labour and do a raid. The current tactic seems to be arresting people for illegal e-bikes, where they have reasonable grounds for an arrest and can then get the name and do the immigration checks at that point.
I remember once seeing the UK passport application. It struck me as having utterly byzantine requirements. When I read your post and think about it again, the lack of a universal ID could make it very tricky to get a passport, which is ultimately a national/universal ID.
It's really 4 horsemen of the infocalypse garbage being trotted out, and the general population is clueless and credulous. "They're in charge, surely they must know what they're doing! They wouldn't lie to us! They most assuredly have our collective best interests in mind, and they'll do the right thing!"
Literally nobody thinks that.
Unfortunately most people don't have the time or energy to fight every emerging attack on freedom.
Everything is going to plan for the billionaire class.
Eventually everything will burn, only time will tell if it will be from global warming or food riots.
> Literally nobody thinks that.
I'd have to disagree; I'd say this is the modal perspective.
I must live in a more rational bubble.
People trust elected officials, they trust institutions, they trust "experts", the media, the academics. A vast majority of people don't realize the scale of ineptitude amongst the people who wield power. Most of the "elites" are not overqualified geniuses, but instead average bumbling idiots who stumbled their way into office, or sociopaths, or physically attractive. Most political systems do not reward competence and diligence.
You could swap out all 535 congress people in the US for randomly selected citizens and I guarantee you that outcomes would improve. Things are going so badly because they're intended to go badly, because unethical people wield power for self enrichment and cronyism. The purpose of a system is what it does.
> In the 1970s, the Wallenberg family businesses employed 40% of Sweden's industrial workforce and represented 40% of the total worth of the Stockholm stock market.Between the electoral college, gerrymandering and 2 Senators per state regardless of population, the minority control who gets elected.
Not to mention that anyone who trusts the police is naive.
There's a signed blob on the RFID chip in your passport that could be easily copied to any phone, hardly any on-device implementation work to be done.
India's government is not termed 'nationalist' because of this one policy.
The issue is not about "Digital ID" it's about having a good ecosystem that is both open and secure. I don't want all my tax money being spent on a private company implementing a horrible software solution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal
I trust my government more than mega software firms who have no accountability or recourse
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Modi has often used a messianic tone in his speeches such as saying that his leadership qualities came from God. His latest claim to divinity was during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections when he said that while his mother was alive, he believed that he was born biologically but after her death he got convinced that God had sent him.
- A group of local muslims were found to set fire to a train of Hindu pilgrims/kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya (Holy city in Hinduism)
- There was a large scale riot (1000-2000 people) that broke out
- Modi was accused of slow deployment of forces and tacit approval.
- Modi was cleared of all charges after a multi year investigation.
Ethnic tension between Hindus and Muslims goes back a millennia at least.
"MonkeyClub" has been downvoted and flagged in this thread.
All your attempts to make this discussion into a negative political one instead of Cybersecurity related have failed.
- When asked if there is anything he regrets not doing during the riots to save lives? He answered: He could have managed the media better. The interviewer gave him a moment to say the right thing. He didn’t change his statement.
- When asked if he
Even if he truly was never involved, it's not a hit job or a con or a conspiracy to frame him, his political party members were involved personally and he promoted rhetoric very close to theirs. Any normal person would connect the two
At least in the US, the Supreme Court is anything but impartial. Judges typically vote along party lines.
They've also restricted the government's ability to change this system.
See the NJAC debacle for example.
Politicians crave power and control, it is that simple, and the current tech can give it to them quite easily. Not even Stalin could put a secret cop into every living room, but secret coppery can now be efficiently automated.
With all the mobile tracking tech, I would have thought that it would have been easier to catch the person if they had a working phone on them.
Good one. Do you see how dumb the average consumer is? They don't know or care even if you try to educate them.
There's no point in being able to buy an outrageously fancy toilet with remittances if there's no sewer to hook it up to.
Try giving free education to all government employees instead.
This resulted in higher ed becoming a defacto requirement for many professions that could have been open to professionally trained or experienced people. Employers need to draw their baseline requirements somewhere and if expensive credentials are too ubiquitous, it's understandable they rather select from those who achieved them than from those who didn't (or couldn't afford to).
And it's frankly disgusting how many doors remain closed to yourself unless you got access to an .edu email. More people with academic interests not having acquired one might open the door to many more who discovered their academic interests later in life but can no longer find a way to enter that garden.
You don't want to try to catch everyone, as then people do worse things trying to cover their tracks, but you do want to establish a credible fear of consequences that will shift the default societal balance point between {do corruption} and {don't}.
And it may take a generation, but it is possible.
Usually for police it is much better to not register the case and push victim to settle privately.
If they register they got more work and worse statistics.
This is the most secure option:
This is more flexible and will give you root, at the cost of an unlocked bootloader:
Which doesn't work. At all. A familiarity with the last 40 years of computing makes that clear.
The only things that have worked: ios/android walled gardens so users can't install spyware. yubikeys which can't be phished. etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Delhi_car_explosion
Planned and executed by highly educated, qualified, doctors.
A much more achievable goal is digging up dirt on specific people and opponents. In the end governments can struggle to justify how they got their hands on info about an affair you had or that you shocked dogs ~~on stream~~.
Such device backdoors are just a get-out-court-free card and a way for the media to justify not asking any serious questions.
If knives were technologically sophisticated enough that they could be programmed to refuse to pierce particular materials, you know that the government would be forcing manufacturers to include human flesh in that list, and making liable anyone who sells one without that restriction.
This is the first time we've had a device that we rely on for almost all our daily activities, produced by a small handful of businesses that are easy for states to pressure.
I have serious doubts that their intentions are nearly as harmless or sincere as you project it. The government through DoT has repeatedly shown their willingness to control, invade, impose arbitrary measures and harm the digital lives of the citizens with impunity. Remember how Aadhar was touted as a welfare support programme. They even promised in the supreme court that it wouldn't be made mandatory. But they just haughtily refused to honor that promise and linked it to every imaginable service. You can't live without it these days. On top of that, they were so careless with it that the entire biometric database of more than a billion individuals was leaked and published on the darkweb for sale. And despite several news media showing the evidence for it, the government just brazenly denied the leak.
With such a dubious track record, let me say that I'm skeptical about their claims on 'cybersecurity' on the phones. It may start like that. But with their attitude it won't take much time for it to progress from a cybersecurity app to a cybersecurity nightmare. We already know what they did with the Pegasus malware that they bought with the taxpayers' money - another accusation they just denied blatantly, ignoring the evidence provided by the others. No avenue for abuse will be left unused. The real issue is that an omnipresent app that cannot be uninstalled is the most valuable target and the perfect vector for malware delivery. And this government has destroyed any reputation they may have had in the digital space, with their overtly hostile attitude towards the citizens who voted them in. This app is going to be a nightmare for the citizens in the not-too-distant future.
Governments have to juggle a lot of different factors in order to maintain order and stay in office. It's natural that they would resort to less than scrupulous methods to attain this.
To go back to the knife example, once they have established preventing the piercing of human flesh as a mandate, it would be easy to extend this to preventing any kind of action using a knife that is inconvenient to them.
I'm struggling to come up with a reasonable sounding example though given the analogy. Perhaps... it gets extended to animals under the guise of protecting animal rights, but also prevents people from butchering their own hunt and animals killed must be submitted to a central processor who takes a large cut and have financial ties to particular politicians. I guess it's a stretch.
My point is just that the natural economics of the situation will cause governments to use all means at their disposal to achieve their end goals, whatever they may be. And so having these devices with their capabilities and our reliance on them is a huge hole in the defenses of freedom advocates just begging to be exploited.
I see your point. They'll bring it in the guise of a noble intent and stealthily slip in the nefarious functions later. I agree. That's exactly what they did with Aadhar too. And that project was introduced by the current government's rival alliance too. Really shows that the entire political class is against the citizens.
> It's natural that they would resort to less than scrupulous methods to attain this.
It's a bit more serious than this. This measure has the potential to sabotage India's democracy and constitution. And there is still the whole SIM-Binding issue to deal with. These are scandals serious enough to consider the government as a hostile usurper.
> And so having these devices with their capabilities and our reliance on them is a huge hole in the defenses of freedom advocates just begging to be exploited.
Abandoning the smart phone isn't an option anymore since that would mean a serious disadvantage in this information economy. That brings me to the same point as another comment of mine: We need fully user-controlled devices. We should be able to install and uninstall what we want, or even wipe it clean and start from scratch. And no hidden rings or blobs either.
We need to start demanding that this be established in the law of the land. Nothing less will be a step forward against such power greedy crowd.
I know very little about the politics of India, so I have no idea whether what you said is an objective assessment or if it's just the political talking points of one particular side, but at least in the US I find it very disappointing how the mainstream political opposition to creeping authoritarianism is often "Wow this is terrible, those guys totally shouldn't have that much power." with the unstated implication being "Give it to me instead. I'm a good guy; you can trust me."
I much prefer to emphasize principles which hold regardless of which tribe happens to be in power at the moment. In this case the overriding principle being that device owners should have ultimate control over the software running on their phone - not companies, and certainly not governments. Forcing people to run a particular piece of software on their phones is simply not a power the government should have, regardless of how good their intentions.
No. What if they decide to double cross later? Or, what about the next guy in power? Don't leave any loose ends. Technically, it's the zero-trust principle. Don't rely on any security measure that depends on the other party keeping their word. Always assume that they're hostile. (Though I've been in trouble for using this when designing procedures. People come with the 'don't you trust us?' question.)
> Forcing people to run a particular piece of software on their phones is simply not a power the government should have, regardless of how good their intentions.
Agreed completely. My answer would be the same even if a different party/alliance was in power (Mine is based on infosec principles. Partisan politics won't change that). I explained the politics only to show that this isn't a hypothetical scenario. The supporters will otherwise use excuses similar to what was thrown around in the US (eg: You need to worry only if you're an illegal alien). Indians have been making this mistake repeatedly. Those in power know how to play with their nationalistic sentiments to override such concerns.
How many people do you know who seem to be completely immune to learning? Go to any non-tech office an you will find shared passwords on post-it-notes, after 40 years of mantra-style 'Do not share your passwords' messaging.
If something goes wrong, it's not their fault, it's the machine's fault. "Why was this possible in the first place?" they ask. "Build it so this becomes impossible." That mindset let to OSHA regulations, to ever-safer aircraft, and to encryption on the web. It's not necessary a bad thing, it just throws out our - tech folks' - baby with the bathwater. How often has the increasingly regulated tech environment made you stop an easy implementation of a completely legitimate use case?
And yes, authoritarians thrive in this climate. Fear and promises of safety are the easiest paths to political power - and once in power, the demand for safety never ends. Politicians who genuinely prioritize individual freedom rarely get rewarded for it at the ballot box; the ones who win are simply better at wearing the right colours while expanding control.
Living in a society already means giving up more than a grain of personal freedom.
Try entering a store naked.
The real deal is the balance between loss and gain
I'm strongly against surveillance like this, but saying you won't give up a grain of freedom is not realistic.
An absence of surveillance causes increased frequency of terrorist attacks which causes people to demand solutions (necessarily involving surveillance and other authoritarian measures) which leads to increased surveillance. It's an unfortunate negative feedback loop.
If you lack solutions for too long, the negative feedback loop becomes severe and instead of just surveillance within a liberal democratic context, you get public safety authoritarians like Bukele or Duterte.
"Surveillance doesn't materially reduce terrorist attacks" - I am not sure about that based on the number of arrests of plotters and the lack of visibility I have into the tools and methods they used to find those plotters.
"Terrorist attacks still happen even with surveillance" - Yes, but if they happen less frequently, this reduces the demand from the public to ratchet up authoritarianism. See the problem?
"Terrorist attacks are a price worth paying for our freedom." - I mostly agree, but feeling like this doesn't make any difference to the negative feedback loop, does it? Regular people want public safety from physical danger almost as much as food and water.
Bukele and Duterte did not rise out of an environment of terrorism, so I don't know why you thought it relevant to bring them up. I think it is really sad to see comments on HN of all places advocating that if we don't implement chat control we'll spiral into a lawless hellscape.
The degree of cyber fraud in India is beyond insane.
Also - funnily enough - Indian telecom companies are meant to be fined for every SIM card given out under false data. There is already meant to be a check that stops this.
My point is that my subjective judgment counts for nothing, because the negative feedback loop that I described is a society-wide phenomenon beyond my control as an individual. Asking the majority of people to think the way you do about terrorism is somewhere between wishcasting and virtue signalling. It doesn't interrupt the causality behind the negative feedback loop, so it therefore fails to outline a path that can be trodden in the real world to achieve your desired vision of no surveillance.
I urge everyone to banish this mode of thinking which fixates on what "should" happen without first checking whether that desired end state is a possible world we can exist in once you factor in the second and third order effects beyond the control of any individual.
> Bukele and Duterte did not rise out of an environment of terrorism
Move your abstraction one level higher. They arose out of public safety concerns around murder and drugs and gangs. Those are not terrorism, but they fit under the same umbrella of public safety concerns that motivate regular people to demand authoritarian solutions.
Give it a few years and suddenly China is no longer worse than democracies.
Modi and his clique are authoritarian though. It's interesting that so many indian vote for that clique. They seem to not understand the problem domain; similar to Hungary, too. (Don't even get me going on Trump's clique of superrich running the show. I recently watched CNN in the last days and I fail to see how CNN is any better than Foxnews - they manipulate people via what they broadcast. For instance, yesterday some random US general basically convincing people that nobody in the military would do double-tap, not even Hegseth, when the exact opposite has actually happened. Or some female today in a show trying to explain that the first attack on a fisher boat was "legal" anyway. People don't even realise how much they are manipulated by these private media entities. These are basically owned by superrich influencing people one way or the other.)
This is what happens when the only lens through which people see politics is religion or race. It shows you how important scientific temper, fact checking skills, scientific knowledge, awareness of unrevised history, knowledge of civic duties, current affairs, critical thinking, etc are very important. And don't think that I'm talking about just India.
This is extreme and just as bad as any other extreme.
We have to find a way to maximise freedom across society. Being fixated on personal freedom won't turn out well. Whose personal freedom are we talking about? Should your neighbour be free to move the fence into your land? Didn't think so.
I will, however, give the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean giving up freedom without gaining anything. I don't see how this isn't a net loss for society.
You shouldn't be.
You don't have to dig deep or search widely to see Americans complaining, loudly and often, about the US government using the 9/11 to create massive new state security initiatives, most of which were inimical to both privacy and liberty. And that was nearly a quarter century ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalyp...
From the article, this has nothing to do with education. It's:
> The app is mainly designed to help users block and track lost or stolen smartphones across all telecom networks, using a central registry. It also lets them identify, and disconnect, fraudulent mobile connections.
If your phone gets stolen, you can disable it.
I'm not saying that a government app is necessarily the right or best way to go about this, but to suggest that this can be solved with education misses the point entirely. No amount of education is going to prevent someone on a bike swiping my phone from my hand and cycling off with it.
And as long as the app isn't otherwise spying on you (and there's no mention of that), I don't see much of what this has to do with freedom either. The freedom to steal someone's phone and use it without being blocked? There are already a bunch of apps on my phone I can't uninstall, so that's not new.
I think the correlation between "spying" and "saying that you're spying" is 0 or negative
There's no value in assuming everything is conspiratorial. You'll go crazy.
Will take decades if not more than a century to implement in India. Let alone old people, even the boomer generation is immensely tech illiterate.
...of course, it won't work and even if they honestly tried it will be outpaced by scam industry. Or at worst case be state exploit that then will be exploited by other state (or just malicious actors) coz of lack of security in "security" software
Now you have at least two problems
Silly goose.
"Freedom" is always balanced against "Responsibility" (both Individual and Group); it can never be absolute. The latter needs State support.
That is the reason my "freedom" to rob you is curtailed by the "State's (i.e. Group's) responsibility" enacting laws to prevent it.
You also exercise "your (i.e. Individual) responsibility" when you put a lock on your valuables to prevent my robbing you.
"Silly goose" is a lighthearted, informal expression used to describe someone who is acting foolish, silly, or has made a silly mistake. It is a playful term that is not meant to be offensive and is often used affectionately. The phrase can also refer to a "silly person" or "simpleton" in an informal context.