Praveen Arimbrathodiyil blogs here

Some of you are probably pretty happy around now. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Yay, we’ve defeated SOPA and PIPA! Yay, victory us!!!”

Actually, you’ve lost. You’ve lost this war, because you… along with everyone else in this half-decayed republic of ours, allow a specific hot button issue to cloud your judgement and allow public sentiment to be unanimous concerning one specific topic.

Pedophiles.

You may be wondering what the hell Pedophiles have to do with Internet Censorship. The answer is; Everything. You cannot win, you are going to lose your internet freedom. You will be monitored, you will be followed and every act and idea you commit to the web will be logged and archived in the halls of Government.

All because you’re afraid of Pedophiles. If you aren’t, then maybe I am using the Royal “YOU” to comment on the public at large; the ignorant Baby Boomers who don’t understand the interwebs, the vacuous youth who haven’t learned the hard way that real opinions don’t make you many friends and often alienate you.

The sort of “YOU” that cannot argue that Pedophiles, just like Homosexuals, have a right to Exist.

It’s that “YOU” that is responsible for the death of the internet.

“But Wait, Heretic,” You might say. “The Net isn’t DEAD yet, we beat SOPA! We Beat PIPA!”

Wrong. You’ve insured your defeat. Consider the following;

http://investmentwatchblog.com/threatening-new-bill-worse-than-sopapipa-this-bill-entitled-the-protecting-children-from-internet-pornographers-act-of-2011-is-a-bill-with-overly-broadened-language-that-greatly-threatens-all/#.Tx0xqPk8d8G

No no. Follow the link. Copy-pasta if you must. You read it. You understand it… and realize that it is from the same corporate schill that propose SOPA and PIPA.

“What is this thing?” You might ask. Well if you’re part of the vast illiterati, I’ll explain you the thing (Bad grammar intentional).

H.R. 1981 is titled “The Protect Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″.

It is a bill that requires the following; Your real, legal I.D. name, personal home address, IP address, browsing history, search terms you’ve searched and the complete details of your online habits are to be made trackable and must be logged by all ISP’s.

“Wait a second!” You might argue, “That has nothing to do with Children!”

At this point in the discussion is where I typically chime in with; I told you so.

For the last twelve years of my life, I’ve been arguing rationality in the face of rampant, frothing at the mouth hatred concerning Pedophiles and the various scaremongering news articles that are propogated and proliferated across the news media services and sites.

I recognized that this one topic, out of any topic, is where people lose any sense of proportion or reason; people cease thinking or functioning when a discussion starts involving, “People that diddle children”. Or people that might, hypothetically, because of pornography they look at, decide to diddle children.

“That’s monstrous, Heretic,” You might say. “Why would you defend people such as this?”

The answer is I am defending you. I am defending humanity, because if you allow a portion of humanity to become classified as sub-human, you allow the Government to abuse that concept for it’s own gain.

I am defending Pedophiles as human beings, because if I don’t, someone will be next. And then another. Who would it be? The Furries? People into BDSM? Japanese Hentai fans with their schoolgirl fetishes?

It turns out, no. They didn’t just move on to other fetishists and people with peculiar or abnormal paraphilias. They skipped them and decided to bilk the public.

Oh, fat surprise.

This bill will pass. It will pass because nobody in the Congress or House will vote against it. They won’t vote against it because it’s to protect children from Pedophiles.

And there you have it, folks. Because Pedophiles are universally reviled by society, you have your reason that all of your freedom gets to be stripped away.

Not because you are guilty, and it certainly isn’t because you might have child pornography on your computer.

H.R. 1981 isn’t for pornography, it’s the mechanism of control. It is the perfect tool to combat piracy, to punish the public and to create… as some writers would term it… Total Criminality.

You’re a criminal because you’re on the internet.

Who is to blame for this? You are. You are because you didn’t defend the most reviled people in society, did not argue for their rights, did not protect them from having their human rights stripped away.

You can blame yourself for the death of the Internet, because you never put yourself on the line to take the stand nobody else would take.

But I’m sure it’s fine. I’m sure you’re okay with this, because after all, some of you MIGHT be pedophiles.

So when your children ask you when the internet died, you can look them straight in the eyes and tell them it was murdered by everyone who couldn’t stand to think of Pedophiles existing on earth, and how the very idea of such a thing was enough for us to hand our betrayers the keys to the house.

If, on the other hand, you aren’t okay with this bill… I encourage you to fight against it. I say this while laughing, because good fucking luck; the entirety of the U.S. super-ego will crush you into a fine powder rather than hear anyone object to a bill protecting kids from Pedophiles.

Oh, and if you do want to fight the destruction of the internet, why don’t you share this with everyone you know. Print it and give it to your mum, pass it out to the elderly and the infirm, read it to your teenage children, make people understand.

Though I don’t have much hope of THAT happening.

This has been your Heresy of the Day.

Note: Repost of a diaspora update by The Heretic Of Ethics

अमेरिका में न्यूयोर्क शहर में दो महीनों से चलने वाली ओकुपै वालस्ट्रीट आन्दोलन के बारे में सब सुना ही होगा। अब वह न्यूयोर्क के बाहर अमेरिकी शहरों में ही नही पूरी दुनिया में फैली है। अमेरिकी समाज में आज हम को बहुत खैर बराबरी दिखाइ देगा, बहुत सारे लोगोंको अपना घर और नैकरी आज नहीं है, बहुत युवा लोग अपनी शिक्षा के लिए जो खर्चा लिया वो वापस कर नहि पा रहा है, उनको अच्छी नैकरी की प्रतीक्षा भी नहीं है। यह सभी लोग यह अन्याय व्यवस्था खतम करके एक न्याय समाज लाने के लिए आज रस्ते पर आयें है। यह लोग आज पूरे दुनिया के लिए – हम सब के लिए लड रहें है। जो लोग आज एक न्याय समाज और सच्ची लोकशाही का सपना देखते है, उन सबको आज इसमें शामिल होना है और उनकी आवाजको हमारे समाज में पहूँचाना जरूरि है, क्योंकि ये हमारी ही लडाई है। हम भी इधर एक नया समाज बनाने की कोशिश शुरू करेंगे। हम यह लडाई जीत सकेंगे की नहीं ये मुझे पता नही, एक बात तो पक्कि है, हम कोशिश ही नहिं करेंगें तो बदलाव नहीं होने वाला है। कम से कम ये मुद्धे हम सबकी बातचीत और सोच में ला सकते है। जब और लोगोने इसपर सोचना शुरू किया तो शायद कुछ जवाब मिल सकता है। पूरे दुनिया में आज बदलाव के लिए लोग अपने घर और ओफीस के बाहर आकर रस्ते पर आ चुका है, और सबके मन में बदलाव की आशा मजबूत है, आज हमारे सामने यह एक ऐतिहासिक मोका है, हमको इसका पूरा फायदा उठाना है। आप भी हमारे साथ इसमें जुडें।

अधिक जानकारि के लिए http://piratepad.net/18octpune देखे।

PS: Thanks to Sandeep for spelling and grammar help!

NMAMIT, Nitte

Just back in Pune after 4 days in Nitte in between Mangalore and Udupi in Karnataka state. The best part was the awesome food we had every single day! I never liked Sambar in my 3+ years in Bangalore, but it was so awesome here! (I don’t know how many times I can use the word ‘awesome’ in a blog!) I still think the “Mangalorean Pomfret Masala” was bliss!

Of course meeting awesome people is given, for any Free Software conference, so I don’t have to highlight that Chandan had interviewed Jonas Smedegaard and it was excellent – both questions and answers! The best question was “what is your message to Canonical/Ubuntu?” We had to cut the interview and let him think about an answer. He said “When a kid leaves their home, we just say best of luck with whatever you do. Ubuntu is like a kid leaving home to debian – so best of luck!” It was so thoughtful and graceful, at debian ubuntu has always been a strain – how do we deal with it? It looks like most people have swallowed the bitter pill and adjusted to Ubuntu being more popular. Jonas kept telling Ubuntu is also a debian user and we have made an oath “Our priorities are our users and free software“.

There is much more to write, hopefully I will find some time to write more later.

I would like to just look at how advancement in digital and communication technology is impacting this world. One reason to look at this topic is my interest in Free Software. Eben Moglen has been speaking on impact of these technologies on larger society and it is very inspirational. Most of what I say here is originally said by Eben. When we moved from analog to digital format for storage and transmission of information, knowledge and culture became very cheap or additional cost has become zero. Once we pay for computer and internet it does not cost us any more to copy from a friend or download a movie, song or a software. I see this as huge advancement in human history. At this point we can give every one all of our culture, knowledge and information free of cost. Instead of using this opportunity to put all our efforts together to make this available to every one, we are trying to device even more restrictions to prevent even natural effort in this direction.

With mobile phones and internet becoming more prevalent, collaboration has become easier. Wikipedia, Free Software, Free Maps etc are examples of this. Collaboration of large number of common people now have the power of beating wealthiest corporation (Free Software communities can beat Microsoft today). Also use of twitter, facebook and other social media tools in Middle East and North African uprisings shows the power of these tools in effecting social change. Frantic efforts by governments to curtail free speech on the internet is another indication of its effectiveness. I believe it is right time to take this to as many fields as possible.

Price of petrol has been hiked by rupees 5 to around 70 per litre last Saturday midnight and diesel price is likely to be increased by 4 per litre and cooking gas price likely to go up by 30 rupees per cylinder. 8% increase is steepest petrol price rise ever with oil companies asking for even more. This hike will feed into spiraling of prices of all essential goods. This is going to give a serious blow to the common man. The most striking thing I felt in this petrol price hike is the timing of it. Government waited for polls in many states to conclude before announcing the hike, to me it looks like they expect people to forget about it by next election. I observed long queues in petrol stations before the price hike came to effect. My friend Shravan mentioned about ‘Out of Petrol’ boards at some stations and observed it as cheating to sell the stock next day at a higher price.

Currently we cross-subsidise diesel and natural gas (cooking gas) with higher prices for petrol. The thinking behind this move is that, diesel and natural gas affects common people and also its price has a big impact on prices of commodities. But SUVs and luxury cars run on diesel and that picture is changed now. But still the price hike poses questions about government’s spending priorities. There is also a green demand for spending more money on renewable energy sources like solar and wind instead of continuing to subsidise polluting and dangerous energy sources like coal, nuclear etc.

We are doing a cycle rally in Pune coming Saturday at 5:00pm from Deccan Corner. Join in and register your protest. It is organised by Lokayat, an activists collective fighting against all injustices in our society. Visit lokayat.org.in to know more about Lokayat and get involved.

Petrol price hike: What do you think should be done? – story by Rediff.com

It was a great event. I liked the small turn out 12 on first day ~20 on second day and about 12 on third day, because it meant we could make it interactive and ensure every one folllowed each step.

The highlight of the event was that it was a zero budget event. MES College of Engineering provided us lab and hostels, every one paid for their own travel and food. I hope to see more such events – small interested audient, less burden on organisers, more interaction and effectiveness. Instead of less big events, let’s start doing more small events.

I really liked the enthusiasm of the participants and we made sure those who completed a step helped others to complete. We proceeded to next step only when every single person completed each step. This is something I usually focus on wherever I take classes, but it is not effective with big audience. That is one reason I like small audiences. Normally only the brightest gets to follow everything and those who have less exposure feels left out. This time even if one is smart and completed a step, he/she has to help others if they want to move on.

First day we focused on different problems and complaints people have about Free Software and GNU/Linux. Instead of normal focus of a Free Software event on features of Free Software, we focused on what is not working in Free Software. Our focus was not in selling Free Software to the audience, but to make sure Free Software will become popular if we fix these problems. Normally audience just have complaints and speaker is always defensive. Here audience had to analyse the problem with the speaker, find out the root of the problem, and plan how to fix it.

One common complaint we always here is about dependencies and software installation. So we focused on two parts to solve that problem. First was lack of good internet connection, so apt-on-cd and keryx needs to be popularised. Second one is having to install from source. We concluded that once all software is available in a repository this problem will go away. So we decided to package all available Free Software. Starting with popular software that is in demand. We also figured out it will need many more packagers too. So if you want to help out, join our packaging effort. We have online packaging sessions every Saturday. Those who learned packaging, consider teaching it to others.

Food was really good, I was happy to get puttu (rice steam cake), beef curry and ghee rice. Lime juice was very good too, I miss it in Pune, where most places give old lime We stayed in their hostel. Bhushan, Abhishek and Ranjan came from Magalore standing in a train! Their enthusiasm cheered up everyone. I planned my vacation around these dates so that my travel expense would not be an issue. We missed Pavithran as he had fever and could not come.

Second day we had more people joining. This rarely happens in any conference, most of the time people drop out after first day. Last year we had a tough time manging a crowd of about 200 on the first day, but almost half of them did not turn up on second day. First day I explained debian release process and I made sure every on understood the process by asking each of them to explain it. I was happy to see most of them got it. Second day I asked Sajjad to summarise discussions on first day and explain release process. He did a pretty good job of explaining various concepts. Sooraj’s explanation of dependencies by taking example of average depending on sum and division was very good.

Then Jishnu started explaing control file and we asked every one to refer debian new maintainer’s guide. The whole day was spent on creating these files. Most of them were not used following a document and doing it themselves. Many times I have to ask them to read the document again when they make mistakes. Most of them made mistake about standards version, they used upstream version. Explanation of sections is a bit mis leading in new maintainer’s guide and most people ended up choosing main. I explained it and asked them to read the whole paragraph. I felt new maintainer’s guide could be improved a bit. We will try to send some patches.

Over enthusiasm resulted in a few RFPs being filed for lekhonee-gnome. We told them just create a text file, but many already sent RFPs! I told them how to close a bug and all of them closed it. Though it added a little bit of noise to BTS, I hope it has helped in the long run, hopefully these over enthusiastic folsk would help close more bugs!

We skipped copyright file as many wanted to leave. We just created a blank file for copyright and moved ahead with changelog and rules. Both these files caused bit of problem with formatting. Many did not have dch installed and they eneded up figuring out extra space or character causing error. Whitespaces instead of tab caused rules file breakage. We fixed all of them and I was happy every one had a working deb at the end of the day. First day we were explaining anatomy of a binary package most of them saw the control file, I think it would have been a rewarding experience for all of them when they opened up the binary file and saw their names inside it.

Third day was coordinated by Vasudev Kamath online. I had to leave for Sujith’s marriage. I have to mention about Sajith sir here. It was really encouraging to see a lecturer sitting through the whole session. I was happy to meet Raju sir after a long time. I remember two of my previous sessions at MES. I am sure we will see more contributors from MES. Anish and Sooraj had come from Thiruvananthapuram. Manu was running around fixing proxies all the time. I was happy to meet to aethiests there – Aneez and Nakul. Aneez was calling me agnostic I remember few more names – Shuvaib, Jasir, Muzafir, Jamal, Sunaiba. If you don’t see your name here, sorry, please shout your name as a comment Overall it was a really memorable experience. Now looking forward to Mini DebConf India tour stops in Mangalore, Pune and Ahamedabad.

Update: Jishnu told me there were about 12 students on third day. Ershad complained that I missed his name Ershad was playing with GNOME 3 release party balloons with every one and took pictures too. He has uploaded photos on diaspora and facebook, I will link it here once I get net access on my computer (now using my mobile and wifi sharing is too slow that only ping works and even that takes 5000-6000 msec for response).

2011/1/21 Devwrat More :
> Really nice one lokesh…..:)
> @ Praveen:
> Please elaborate on how Copyright is used for CopyLeft and who OWNS
> copyleft… ( really smart thing!!! )

Copyright law says copyright holder (author of a creative work) has all rights to his or her work. Nobody else can use, distribute or remix the work without his permission.

Now with copyleft, the author gives such a permission (called a copyright license), it can be GPL, LGPL, AGPL etc (difference copyleft licenses with slightly different conditions, will explain the difference below). which says you have all the freedoms, but when you give the work to others they are also entitles to all the freedom you got in the first place.

GPL (General Public License) – strong copyright, any work that uses a GPL covered work (derivative work) should also be GPL. For example you use a shared library (.so file on unix systems and .dll on windows systems) in your code and if that library is released under GPL, then your code also should be GPL. quid-pro-quid. Take my code, but give back what you write. gnu readline is an example.

LGPL (lesser General Public License) – weak copyleft, any change to the code covered under the license need to be released, but if you are just linking to it, you decide license for your code. GNU C Library (glibc) is an example. You write C programs and it uses functions from GNU C Library like printf, scanf etc. You include these functions when you say #include . If glibc were under GPL, you would have to release any code that uses these libraries also under GPL.

Between GPL and LGPL, the decision is a strategic one. If the code we write is a new feature, our interest is to give advantage to Free Software developers, we may use GPL. But if what you write is already available and there is no advantage to Free Software developers, you may chose LGPL so that more people may use the work. Read more details about this case written by RMS

“Which license is best for a given library is a matter of strategy, and it depends on the details of the situation. At present, most GNU libraries are covered by the Lesser GPL, and that means we are using only one of these two strategies, neglecting the other. So we are now seeking more libraries to release under the ordinary GPL.

Proprietary software developers have the advantage of money; free software developers need to make advantages for each other. Using the ordinary GPL for a library gives free software developers an advantage over proprietary developers: a library that they can use, while proprietary developers cannot use it.

Using the ordinary GPL is not advantageous for every library. There are reasons that can make it better to use the Lesser GPL in certain cases. The most common case is when a free library’s features are readily available for proprietary software through other alternative libraries. In that case, the library cannot give free software any particular advantage, so it is better to use the Lesser GPL for that library.”

Complete article is http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html

AGPL (Affero General Public License) – stronger copyleft than GPL itself, if you use the code as a website, all of its users should have access to its code. Example statusnet, silpa, launchpad, diaspora etc. Designed for web-based applications. I heard this story from someone, about bc (binary calculator). It goes like this, there was a known bug in bc and some people were curious and tried the same operation on google search box (in addition to web search google search box works as calculator, currentcy convertor and many other things). They found the same bug in google as well. After some time, they tried the same thing again and found google has fixed its site, but bc was still buggy, meaning google did not give back to the community. Current GPL implementation does not cover this case because web services were not common when it was written and it would be considered as normal use of the program. Just to reiterate, you don’t have to accept GPL if you are just using the program or even making private modification. GPL starts only when you give the software to someone else.

So what happens when someone does not follow the conditions of GPL? That is very common case for many embedded hardware like routers. Authors of the software (most of the time it is linux kernel developers, note this point carefully, only the authors can file a case, not you, me or even FSF can file a case if we don’t have copyright. You or me can notify the authors, if we see violations. FSF sues companies which violates code that FSF has copyright on like binutils – basic commands like ls, cat etc are part of binutils).

When the violator says, I did not read GPL, court asks show me the license. They don’t have any other license than GPL itself so it is a clear violation of copyright law. Distributing copyrighted work without a license – pay fine, stop distributing etc. Now if we say they don’t agree with GPL or they don’t like GPL, they again don’t have any other license, which means clear copyright violation. So if you are distributing GPL covered software, you have only two options

1. Agree with GPL and follow all its conditions
2. Don’t agree and stop distributing.

So you can go to court and enforce one of these conditions. And it has been proved in court.

Ask if you are not clear, because it is a very important and commonly mistaken concept.

For more legal savvy folks, read the court judgement against D-Link http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_frankfurt_gpl.pdf

See http://gpl-violations.org/ for more details on how GPL is enforced.

> Also you did not answer about how one earns his living with Free softare. (I
> could not understand what Lokesh has written about earning and No warranty
> … does it mean programmer earns by MAINTAINING a software ????? )

Abhijit has explained one way of making money, provide services, charge for your expertise etc. This is used by many compnies including my employer Red Hat. The concept is similar to how we pay a plumber or a lawyer. We can fix our taps or we can pay someone to fix it. We can argue our case or pay a lawyer on behalf of us. Same way you can fix the code yourself or you pay someone for it. It might not be financially feasible to hire programmers to fix such large a codebase. So you opt for paying someone who has expertise on the entire code base and can help fix things when it breaks. Some big companies can afford to have their own programmers and they don’t buy these support. But then again that is another model, those compies are employing Free Software developers.

Another option is dual-licensing model. It is commonly used with GPL license. You take the code, it is GPL, but you have to make your code also GPL. If you don’t agree, pay us and you can keep your code proprietary. So the software itself will always be Free under GPL, and any other Free Software developers can use that code, but proprietary compies who want to use the code has to pay. So proprietary companies fund such Free Software projects! How brilliant! MySQL uses such a model, QT used follow this model, now after Nokia aquired TrollTech – the company which developed QT, they changed QT license from GPL to LGPL. Now Nokia wants everyone to use QT, they have lot of money and don’t have to depend on proprietary companies for funding. For mobile companies the choice may be between Android and QT. If they don’t have to pay for Android, and pay some money to Nokia for QT, they might not want to use QT.

For some hardware companies, all they care is about selling their hardware, so they employ developers to write drivers, test on Free Operating Systems etc. HP develops drivers for many of its printers and scanners this way. They employ developers to write drivers, it is released as Free Software. HP cares about selling more printers and not about drivers itself.

There are many other models we will discuss more on this as part of our foss elective, we will keep the session open for every one.

The basic idea is this, the old model of developing a software, marketing it, restricting it and charging huge moeny for each copy if obsolete now. It opens up new opportunities for everyone to make money. So a Free Software business model is only limited by every one’s imagination.

I am sure, if you see something is not working in Free Software and realise people are ready to pay to get it repaired, that is an opportunity for you. Its completely upto you how you want to make money with Free Software.

And remember this too, many developers have other day jobs and write Free Software because they like doing it. So there is absolutely no requirement for you to get a Free Software job to contribute to Free Software. If you like doing it, just do it. Look for a career else where.

Cheers
Praveen

See the whole thread of this discussion on cofsug list.

PS: College Of Engineering Pune has a vibrant Free Software community and it is rewarding experience to work with them. We are running a Free Software Development course as an elective for final year Information Technology and Computer Engineering students. The enthusiasm of the students is evident when I see some students who took it as an audit course – which means, they don’t get any credits for the course, but they come an sit for the course anyway! There are some second year students who also attend this course regularly! Not many teachers are this lucky to have such interested students, plus great flexibility to deliver it!

This beautiful song was sung at yesterday’s sabha demanding justice for Dr Binayak Sen.

HTML5 Video

Flash Video

Chale chalo dilo me ghav leke bhi chale chalo,
Chalo lahuluhan pao leke bhi chale chalo,
Chalo ki aaj sath-sath chalne ki jarurate,
Chalo ki khatm ho na jaye jindagi ki hasrate.

Jameen, khawab, jindagi, yakeen, sab ko batkar,
Woh chahtehe bebasi me aadmi jhukaye sar,
Woh chahtehe jindagi ho roshni se bekhabar,
Woh ek-ek karke aab jala rahe hai har shahar,
Jale hue gharo ke khawab leke bhi chale chalo.

Woh chahtehe hai baatna yeh jindagi ke kafile,
Woh chahtehe baatna yeh jindagi ke walwale,
Woh chahtehe hai khatm ho ummid ke yeh silsile,
Woh chahtehe hai gir sake na loot ke yeh sab kile,
Sawal hi hai aab jawab leke bhi chale chalo.

Woh chahtehe hai jatiyon ki, boliyon ki phoot ho,
Woh chahtehe hai dharm ko tabahiyon ki choot ho,
Woh chahtehe hai jindagi me ho fareb, jhoot ho,
Woh chahtehe hai jis tarah bhi ho magar yeh loot ho,
Siro pe joh bachi hai chav leke bhi chale chalo.

US response to Julian Assange of wikileaks
Uploaded by thesasikkuttan. – News videos hot off the press.

“We have come to the conclusion that Julian Assange of Wikileaks is royally screwing us. People believe and respect him. We have to break it.

We need to trap him in some rape case and get rid of him. Once our propaganda succeeds he will lose his credibility.”

21st August 2010

Dear Friend,

Since May 2009, the UID project is under implementation. Even though any legislation sanctioning it is yet to be passed in parliament, the UID authority is functioning. Rs.19,500 million have been allocated to the project. In addition to this allocation, the census expenditure has a budget of Rs. 30,230 million. The UIDAI plans to use the census data, to issue Aadhar numbers. The total project is estimated to cost Rs. 1500 billion. The budget for the Authority was passed with the GoI annual budget but without discussion on it or setting up of UIDAI.

The UID project envisages recording ten finger prints and iris scan of all people residing in India, allocating a unique number to each individual whose biometric data is captured, and storing it in a database with other basic information such as: name, parent’s name, date of birth, gender, and address. Clearly, the UID project will affect everyone residing in India. To ensure proper implementation it is important to carry out a detailed study of the project’s viability and feasibility. That the project has been launched without such a study is a matter of grave concern.

The authority presents the UID project to the public as a way to prevent leakages in the PDS and MGNREGS. If the project could achieve this, it would be a welcome solution, but even a cursory examination reveals several reasons why this objective seems impossible to achieve. Among these is the fact that many countries, after trying similar projects, have abandoned them because they were found to be incapable of achieving their projected objectives and posed high security risks. For example: in a study that was conducted by the London School of Economics on the UK Government’s National ID card scheme, it was found that it would not achieve the objective of preventing illegal immigration and further that such a central database would itself become a target for terrorists, The new elected UK government scrapped the project in June 2010.

The UID project also raises many questions concerning the abuse of personal data gathered in the process. The collection and logging of data, done in the manner proposed by the UIDAI, is in effect similar to “phone tapping”, a practice which can be abused by those overseeing it. The data collection itself is outsourced to private agencies. The linkages provided by UID to a person’s data that is collected for the UID to other databases, such as bank accounts or mobile phone companies have the potential for serious abuse. Despite these concerns, the UIDAI has already taken initiatives, such as collaborating with many multinational and Indian private companies for gathering data and setting up / maintaining the database.

This meeting is organised to discuss UID’s lack of a feasibility study, huge cost, legality and real danger of abuse. Hence, we invite you to come for a public discussion where people from many diverse groups will express their viewpoints on the subject on -

25th August 2010 from 10.00 am to 6.00 p.m.

at the Constitution Club Auditorium, Rafi Marg, New Delhi.

High-Tea and meeting with MPs: 4 pm to 6 pm.

This will be an interactive meeting in which, we hope you will be able to gain insight into this immense project, its costs and impacts. Please confirm your participation in the workshop at insafdelhi@gmail.com. This would help us make the necessary arrangements for your convenience.

In Solidarity -
Alternative Law Forum, Citizen Action Forum, Delhi Forum, PEACE, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) – Karnataka, Moving Republic, Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), Slum Janandolana – Karnataka, The Center for Internet and Society (CIS) and many other organisations and concerned individuals.

Read UID appeal to MPs (pdf)