Cyber-Policing In India: Bye-Bye, Anonymity 154
The Zapper writes: "The Mumbai (Formerly Bombay) Cops now want to control the Cyber World. In what they call a 'Step to curb hacking and proliferation of Pornographic Email ' they are going to introduce I-D cards issued on basis of passports and driving licenses without which no one will be able to have internet access in Cybercafes all over Mumbai.
If this gets implemented, and it seems it will, the Mumbai netizens can kiss anonymity good bye for ever. The I.T bill recently passed by the present Government makes hacking and accessing pornographic sites a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than an year.
Here is Link to the
story on Yahoo India."
Re:Porn in illegal in India? (Score:1)
inside an jail some time in the near future.... (Score:2)
Shoddy journalism, yet again (Score:2)
This isn't an example of a backwards nation (like Iran or France) trying to squash a technology (the Internet) they can't hope to master. Mumbai is at the forefront of the tech world (mobile banking [timesofindia.com], the first language in India to have [indiaserver.com] a universal keyboard, biotechnology parks for women [www.nic.in], etc.) They know what they're doing here: if they're implementing an ID system like this, then you know it's the correct technological solution.
You don't know what their reasons are. You're just speculating until you talk to them and find out. A mature individual doesn't exhibit knee-jerk reactions to everything.
This won't last. (Score:2)
Even if it's fake, people will soon see that stupid technology like this cuts both ways, and can easily turn on its implementors....
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
for the record: (Score:2)
Must be... (Score:2)
Oh, hold it. This is India. They outlaw Christian missionaries (and often murder them). In fact, they're mostly Hindus -- probably the world religion with the most relaxed attitudes towards sex. Wonder why THEY want to ban pornography? Could it be that they think it damages their society?
*boggle*
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Re:America and India (Score:1)
Woah.. Rush Limbaugh overdose.. (Score:1)
Kama Sutra (Score:2)
__
Where are the mod points when I need them? (Score:1)
The loss of anonymity is unavoidable. (Score:2)
The needs of trustworthyness and verifiability will force the adoption of biometric verification for all data transmission. If you're doing commerce, you have to KNOW you can trust the source and the wire. Its business.
In some respects this is sad. You'll never again be able to put on masks when you're on the 'net. The phrase "On the internet nobody knows you're a dog." will become incomprehensible in a few years.
All communication will automatically be encrypted, signed and traceable from origin to destination. Spoofability will vanish. There will be no place to hide.
Paedophiles and criminals will have to loiter 'round the shadows at mall and the bus terminals like they did before 1995.
I'm not going to miss it.
Re:Shoddy journalism, yet again (Score:3)
The argument here is about the horrible privacy violations this opens up.
Regardless of why they are doing it, it opens up the possibility of doing very nasty things they couldn't do nearly as easily without these cards.
It seems to pretty clearly violate Article 17 of the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights [hrweb.org], which India has signed and ratified and is thus subject to under international law.
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Draconian, indeed. (Score:3)
I thought this sort of thing could only happen in Saudia Arabia... or Utah.
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Re:Shoddy journalism, yet again (Score:1)
What? Huh?!
I cannot imagine how mandatory identification for use of the Internet (as though it's a drug like alcohol) would not stifle the civil liberties of the good people of Mumbai.
Politics and agendas play large roles even in "forwards" nations. If such measures were introduced in the States, neither you nor I would be very likely to "know it's the correct technological solution." I don't know where all this naivete is coming from, but I do know that you your subjective opinion places too much trust in the government for your own good.
A law punishing pornography shows that the government of Mumbai is far more succeptible to extremist moral standards than interested in preserving civil liberties.
Journalism in this case is immune from criticism, as there was only a letter published, much like the first few pages of any magazine off the shelf. The letter itself was purely factual and to the point, only making one subjective argument about the tentative state of anonymity in Mumbai. If you prefer an alternate editorial format, don't [zdnet.com] let [nytimes.com] us [cnet.com] stop [yahoo.com] you [wired.com].
"A mature individual" realizes his or her priorities, and civil liberty really should become one of yours.
Re:Isn't it ironic... (Score:3)
Not widespread by any means, but definitely more than a misremembering of an NPR report.
If next time you are going to make a statement as serious as "there is female genital mutilation in india" or "there is no female genital mutilation in india" in a public forum, you would check with Google first, it would be to the betterment for us all. Just a thought.
Re:Isn't it ironic... (Score:1)
Re:Isn't it ironic... (Score:1)
Re:Be afraid of countries like this (Score:1)
One half wants to restrict what the other half sees, hears, and thinks. When that half is no longer in power, the tables turn and the other half does the same thing.
One year for skin (Score:5)
Re:Monkey Man (Score:1)
Many people have been attacked by this thing in New Delhi. this monkey guy is no joke. They say he has iron hands and terrorizes people who sleep on rooftops.
and you think your neighborhood is unsafe...
Re:One year for skin (Score:2)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
Re:Next? (Score:2)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
The ultimate antidote to human stupidity... (Score:2)
I predict... (Score:1)
Scenario: someone with a clue manages to break in to the central repository of ID's, steals lots of top LE/Govt ID's, starts churning out duplicate cards and selling them on street-corners...
Suddenly, India's government is a major pr0n junkie.
Re:This Is Not the Way to Combat Child Pornography (Score:1)
The page that he links to is really a howl:
"Indians attacked by `monkey man'."
It's pretty obvious that the poster was not speaking of protecting children from the dangers of pedophiles, but protecting children from the invisible monkey man which is already blamed for a handful of deaths by suicide in India.
"It has three buttons on its chest. One makes it turn into a monkey, the second gives it extra strenth, the third makes it invisible," said Kumari, the housemaid.
So MOBE, may you'll start doing a little research before counteracting with a knee-jerk.
Re:Ok. Mea Culpa. But you have to admit that... (Score:1)
As long as pedophiles have the desire to commit horrible acts against children, they will. You can't protect against a pervert uncle, or a sicko step-father.
As a note to policy makers, kiddie pr0n got around before the invention of the Internet, before the invention of the fax machine, even before the invention of Polaroid cameras. Child molestation is a social issue, and no amount of legislation can stop such a social disfunction.
Anyway, check the URL next time, man...
It begins. (Score:2)
Once upon a time, recreational drug use -- especially hallucenigens -- was a harmless way to expand one's mind. Once the drop-outs and revolutionaries of the 1960's began to genuinely threaten the plutocracy (and it did, too -- Nixon had troops in the basement of the White House after Kent State), propaganda and police forces were implemented. Now everyone knows drug users are scum.
Once upon a time, computers were tools of free speech. You could write as you wished, you could share ideas, you could communicate with anyone. It is starting to genuinely threaten the plutocracy in many ways, in ``intellectual propery'' subversion and the routing around of censorship. Propaganda and police forces are being implemented. Soon everyone will think of you, the users of this uncensored bulletin board which runs on free software, as scum.
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Re:Taking Responsibility (Score:1)
<p>
psychological/trauma support groups
complaining about the IRS
discussing Scientology
<p>
-c
Re:Shoddy journalism, yet again (Score:1)
Why do I know it's the correct tech solution?
Because they have mobile banking?
Just because they can do some things right that makes it Ok to be big brother?
What's wrong with it? (Score:1)
Everybody can post shit about anything or anyone anonymously. I'd be happy to see less of their crap all over the place.
No, it's not (Score:2)
-russ
2,000 cyber-cafes?!? (Score:2)
dammit (Score:1)
now these privacy nuts will ruin it all.
-Lx?
Worse problems (Score:1)
Re:Isn't it ironic... (Score:1)
That is not to say that religion and politics don't get mixed! They should not, and the Indian consititution protects religious freedom and separates religion from state affairs [uni-wuerzburg.de].
Re:Must be... (Score:1)
It's easy to make flippant statements such as this. How do you explain all the church burnings [rcn.com] in the USA? Let the person who has not sinned cast the first stone...
pornography (Score:1)
Something to ponder (Score:1)
My right to swing my fist ends where the other mans nose begins... O. W. Holmes.
Taking Responsibility (Score:1)
Peace
Re:Taking Responsibility (Score:1)
As as for AA, they have to show up *in person*, so, while their name isn't known, if they act like an ass at the meeting, they still get hauled off to jail.
Remember my title - it's about taking responsibility.
Re:Taking Responsibility (Score:1)
corrected link (Score:4)
Seems like the site moved the page. Anyways this is the link for the company who suckered India's goverment into buying highly priced honeypots.
http://www.peakxv.net/InterOp/interop.html
The more uninformed goverments are, the more likely cruddy laws will be passed that hinders tech sectors such as those in the industry on a security related basis. Well thankfully I don't have these laws in the US oh so great land of the free && *snicker*
India's comedy (Score:5)
Recently the Indian government was suckered into buying honeypots [timesofindia.com] and in January for those who don't recall they hired a dozen script kiddies to handle security (I couldn't find the link sorry), so what I see happening is, goverments are getting scared by technology, and instead of coming up with logical solutions, they feel harsh punishments will deter someone's future actions.
Instead of creating such broad laws which can also hurt innocent people somewhere down the line, hardcore studies should be done before such broad laws are created, and every 5 or so years another study should be done to ensure the laws are working to the benefit of the people as opposed to throwing something out because of fears, or because its almost election time $WHEREVER.
Sadly it looks like we are going to have a complete world full of drones who'll either be afraid to interact, or a world full of what the government will view as anarchists if things continue with these trends.
Re:Is That Really Oppression? (Score:2)
You are borrowing LIBRARY property. In cyberspace you aren't borrowing anyone's property. BIG DIFFERENCE.
> a license to drive a car
You don't need permission from the government to exercise your Right To Travel [teaminfinity.com]
e.g. An International Driver's Permit works quite nicely. (Not valid in the place of issue)
Cheers
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"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite." - Thomas Jefferson
Re:Privacy. (Score:1)
O US Slashdot reader, Consider this: you probably have a drivers' licence and you probably drive everywhere. For the vast majority of US residents, for the vast majority of the time that you're out and about on public property, you're driving.
To drive you must have, on you, your government issued ID. A cop can ask you for your ID at any time. (Sure, "probable cause" and all that crap, but have you heard of DWB - Driving While Black (or Brown)?)
The most common form of public transportation for you, O USian Reader of Slashdot, is airline travel. You have to show them your state-issued ID to get on that plane. In an international airport, you can be asked to show an INS or Customs or DEA agent "your papers".
So here's my thesis: In the US, we all have to carry a state-issued ID card that the police can ask us for at any time.
Perhaps there's more to freedom than having to carry ID.
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children? (Score:2)
or:
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,200
With things like this going on in India, I'd say drastic measures are called for indeed.
-carl
Re:Shoddy journalism, yet again (Score:2)
My take on this (Maybe I'm biased because I grew up in Bombay - before they renamed it to Mumbai): The only significant piece of this is the fact that they are requiring identification for internet access and are requiring the cafes to tie any access to a specific individual. How they do it - i.e. what technology: ID cards, snoop cams, etc. - is irrelevant.
Personally, I'd hesistate to hit the panic button. It seems like they are only requiring that that information be collected - there is no implication that they will have free access to it. For example, a record of every phone call made from your home is collected right now -but the police can't access that unless they have a warrant. I'll assume access to this information will be on a similar basis.
About pornography: From reading the article, I have no idea whether what they want to target people who access porn or who send "porn mail" (I assume that means unsolicited porn via email).
(OT: PS: Wtf?? I tried posting this and it says I need to slow down because it's been 30 seconds since I last posted -- but I haven't!)
Re:Shoddy journalism, yet again (Score:2)
Yes, the Mumbai police has a website and I applaud them for that inspite of the fact that is a very shoddy site but that doesn't imply that the police force as a whole is tech-savvy.
Yes, there is mobile banking available in Mumbai. I'm not sure I'd conclude anything about their police from that.
The universal keyboard announcement was for the Tamil language. Tamil is not spoken (at least it's not significant as a language) in Mumbai.
The biotech park link was dead but I'll assume that has nothing to do with Mumbai either.
Just thought I'd make some facts clear. Regardless of how clueful the police is, it says nothing about whether the idea of removing anonymity is a good one or not.
Re:This Is Not the Way to Combat Child Pornography (Score:2)
The vast majority of the people are landless and disenfranchised (emphasis mine)
India is a stable democracy and has been that way for the past 54 years - no coups, nothing. Yes, democracy is implemented haphazardly in India, but to suggest that anyone in India is disenfranchised is ridiculous. Maybe you don't know what the word disenfranchised means.
The land must be redistributed
The commies are coming, the commies are coming...
and social (marriage) laws enacted so as to link the wealth of the land to population increases. There should not be more people than the resources of the country can support comfortably.
I have no idea what you mean by that but if you're thinking of forcibly sterilizing people or disallowing them from getting married or having children, I'm very, very afraid of you.
Maybe we should do this too? (Score:2)
Anonymity is important to preserve, and can still be preserved. I'm not sure what criteria they're going to to implement, but something as simple as requiring a search warrant (an already existing mechanism to prevent abuse of police power) for the release of the records is sufficient to protect us from those who would carry on illegal activities online.
What is morphing and why is it a crime? (Score:2)
What the heck is this evil crime called morphing? Does this mean they can't do digital animation online?
Re:Umm...no... (Score:1)
But, maybe I've just read one too many EM Forster novels.
Wind
Re:What is morphing and why is it a crime? (Score:2)
Needing Glasses ... ??? (Score:2)
I think I need my eyes testing, I must be going blind; because I read this as ....
... to curb hacking and proliferation of Pornographic Email ' they are going to introduce 1D [Graphics] cards
Re:Is That Really Oppression? (Score:3)
Or, more specifically, how is the indian government issuing ID cards to track what you're doing in a cybercafe (notice they're talking public access points here, nobody said anything about them issuing ID cards for using the internet in your own home), different than say a certain well known government censoring what sites you're allowed to visit at your local library public library?
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Is That Really Oppression? (Score:2)
Re:Is That Really Oppression? (Score:1)
Well let's see ... books can be stolen, cars kill people, but of course those are just minor (ha ha) differences.
India should embrace its cultural heritage (Score:2)
Why is anonymity so important? (Score:2)
Privacy. (Score:2)
Frightening thought, wouldn't you say?
Re:Next? (Score:2)
Re:What about this? (Score:1)
Re:Taking Responsibility (Score:1)
Re:One year for skin (Score:2)
That's how zero-tolerance policies work. Yes they're totally unfair. Yes they're totally illogical. Yes they really don't do anything about the underlying problem. And yes it's usually the people who want this kind of crap.
After all, there's too much corruptin' going on! Corruptin' out there evrawhaz! Why, can't even go down to Wenday Aftanuun SQUARE DANCIN' theyas soooooo much CORUPTIN'. Gotta do somethin about it! Sooo much CORRUPTIN' it's CORRUPTIN' MEEE! Haw! Don't know what we're gonna do but we gotta do SEOMTHING!!!!
This is where Freenet comes into play! (Score:1)
Thnx.
in a public place (Score:1)
Why ? (Score:2)
These "Internet Cafe"s have better connectivity like a high speed leases line, cable internet connection etc. So sometimes people prefer these compared to the poor dialup service. In addition to this I won't be surprised if people see good business oppertunity in Internet porn sites in a city like *mba* which already has a well established "sex industry" (also not legal in India).
Recently some companies have started introducing Cable internet connection for domestic users ... I hope that things will improve ...
Hear that? (Score:3)
And is it just me thinking that there is a certain sense of irony in prohibiting pornography in one of the most population-dense countries in the world? Methinks they have this male-female sexual congress thing down pat.
This coming from the culture... (Score:1)
You'd think they'd be more enlightened over there.
Re:Shoddy journalism, yet again (Score:2)
if they're implementing an ID system like this, then you know it's the correct technological solution.
Let me get this straight - you're bashing the slashdot crowd for knee-jerk distrust of mandating government-issued ID's for online access. And your rationale is that if the government says it's good, it must be good? Talk about knee-jerk...
And this is modded up to 5?
Re:Must be... (Score:2)
Actually, the article doesn't say a thing about about banning pornography. What it's mainly about is the police wanting the remove the anonymity in using cybercafes that helps people to use the internet to do bad things. The bad things specified in the article include "hacking, credit card misuse, death threats, pornography, morphing and terrorism." In fact, it's not the viewing of pornography that's talked about, but the sending of "porn mail." Since that's mentioned in conjunction with death threats and extortion, I assume they mean sending pornographic images to people who don't want to see them or would be upset by them, although I suppose it could mean passing around n00d g1fz by email.
But as long as you're reading stuff into random articles in order to support your ideology, I'll bite. Porn is damaging to society, but only to the elements of society that have demanded that everyone must keep their clothes on to cover up their "naughty bits." Just because something goes against rigid social controls doesn't make it automatically a bad thing. In fact, if the controls are set up to vilify female sexuality and judge women on their looks and their "purity," then it's probably not a bad thing at all.
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Re:Isn't it ironic... (Score:1)
Nope! You are probably thinking of Sudan or Ethiopia. But who cares, right? Just another third world country...
Why are they really doing this? (Score:3)
Please excuse my ignorance and stereotypes, but as far as I know, India tends to look the other way when it comes to the sex trade, especially in Mumbai. I have read that the city has hundreds of brothels.
I think that really the government is only doing this for two reasons:
Advice (Score:1)
Bribery (Score:1)
Is anonymous the safe route? (Score:3)
If you could walk around in the world anonymously. No one would know who you were and couldn't trace you. How much would crime increase?
I use this as a strong point. Of course, things as bad as rape and murder (and tax evaison!) wouldn't happen over the net, but when people are forced to tell who they are, even if no one would know who they were, they tend to be cautious and safer. It isn't big-brotherism, because they aren't watching you every second, they are just forcing you to show your face when you do something naughty.
Imagine having the name of someone who just sent you that pron spam, or the name of the 43 year old man that is chatting with your 14 year old daughter.... it isn't all that bad, is it??
censorship bah (Score:1)
The slashdot 2 minute between postings limit: /.'ers since Spring 2001.
Pissing off hyper caffineated
Question (Score:1)
What's the jail term for obviously bad grammer?
excellent... (Score:1)
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Re:The internet is not special (Score:2)
First, as of course you realized, appeals to the US 1st amendment make very little difference in other countries. It is also of very little use when debating how things "should" be to appeal to how they happen to be.
That said, your point has merit. The right to speak anonymously has been upheld in this country - and for the Klan specifically - and there are solid reasons behind that. However, there are a couple of differences here. First, the circumstances of, say, a klan march are somewhat different than an untracked internet usage. If a Klansman wlaking through a black neighborhood shouts a threat at a specific protester, the police may nab the marcher and take his pillow case off. As a matter of practical usage, this is exactly what the police have instituted. Second, the action in question is not merely speech, but also commerce, and even in the good old USA there are much stricter controls on commerce than on pure speech - even though the Supreme Court has held that the use of money is protected speech in many contexts. You can't buy a car without the state knowing who you are, for instance. Well, here you can't rent internet access from a cybercafe without the state at least being able to know who you are.
The suggestions that a method not involving login cards could be used - say, supplying identification to the cafe, which would then track who used what computer and when - do have merit, and are much closer to other commercial tracking methods. However, the system they propose is actually less intrusive. Unless and until the police need to track who used a computer, only the user and the computer need know. If the system were done using normal identification and registration, everyone who worked at the cybercafe or had access to the log books (licitly or not) would know who was using what computers when and for how long.
Re:Zero Knowledge? (Score:3)
First question... are there only cyber-cafes there?
I have relatives in Mumbai. Though it's been a while since I visited, the first thing to note is that most (or at least many) people don't have telephones in their home. It's much more common for 1 person in a building to have a phone, and for everyone else to borrow it. Thus, for people who have computers, dial-up isn't common, and broadband quite rare.
This is particularly true in College Hostels. Unlike dorms here (or at least where I went to school) there aren't phones in every room. Plus, if your family has a computer, it's probably for the entire family -- not just you. Cybercafes are a much more major source of internet access.
An illustrative example. I have about 7-8 email addresses that I use, plus another 5-6 that simply forward, plus two domains in which I can create an infinite number of addresses. This is just me. My mom (who lives here) has 4 email addresses, my brother has several and even my technophobe father have his own. My grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins in India all share 1 hotmail account. (And they actually have "home" access through my uncle's office.)
Summary: There aren't only cybercafe's in Mumbai, but there are a lot more people who have no other alternative.
Porn in illegal in India? (Score:4)
Re:Isn't it ironic... (Score:2)
They are based on the nature of religion. In western europe and the United States, religion has taken a back seat to politival motivations. In countries with far more history, and cultures that have developed over many thousands of years, religion remains at equal footing with politics, thus, religous goals are achieved through political acts and setting of social policy. This is not nessecerily a bad thing, but a DIFFERENT thing than one would epect in the United States where seperation of Church and State is a fundemental principle woven into our social fabric at almost an unconcious level.
--CTH
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Re:Umm...no... (Score:2)
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Re:No, it is a bad thing. (Score:2)
Ideology drives people to do many strange and unpredictable things, or are they only unpredictable from my perspective because I may not share the ideology? Well, no that can't be right, because Ideology is often open to indevidual interpretation. Greed is greed, and to quote one of my favorite movies [imdb.com] of all time, 'Ladies and gentlemen, [...] greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. [imdb.com]'.
--CTH
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Next? (Score:5)
I did some consulting for a U.S. government agency a few years back. Their network was using DHCP but the higher-ups were quite upset because they couldn't associate user with IP address. They spent millions ripping out their old network operating system and implementing another just to get this capability.
The government of the U.S. hates anonymity. They would like to be able to track absolutely everything and as soon as they can see a way to do it without getting too much noise from their citizens that's precisely what will happen.
Don't chortle too much about India.
From the same country that brought you 'Monkeyman' (Score:2)
http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/south/05/17
Core-ruption ? (Score:2)
Re:India's comedy (of errors ?) (Score:2)
Big Brotherism in India (Score:2)
The internet is your weapon. Download it all and copy it all!
Re:Big Brotherism in India; Please no GHANDI (Score:2)
Sorry.
Re:This Is Not the Way to Combat Child Pornography (Score:2)
You should look it up yourself. A landless peasant is disenfranchised and is forced to be a slave by moving into a big city where he is exploited. This is true all over the world.
The land must be redistributed
The commies are coming, the commies are coming...
Communism does not redistribute the land. It confiscates it and turns everybody into a slave for the state. Capitalism, on the other hand, gives the land to a few and enslaves the rest. This is sad. I've said it before, any system that is based exclusively on labor is doomed. What will happen to a slave economy when robots replace everybody, i.e., when human labor and expertise become worthless. Don't think it won't happen in your lifetime. You'd be fooling only yourself. Thanks to the internet, we are about to see an explosion in human knowledge and technology. One little breakthrough, that's all it will take. After that you'll witness an explosion in automation that will make all previous economic revolutions look like child's play. Unless we are prepared to change the system, get ready to face disaster.
and social (marriage) laws enacted so as to link the wealth of the land to population increases. There should not be more people than the resources of the country can support comfortably.
I have no idea what you mean by that but if you're thinking of forcibly sterilizing people or disallowing them from getting married or having children, I'm very, very afraid of you.
You should indeed be afraid, but not of me. You should be afraid of your own gullibility. Anybody who does not realize that population control must be tied to the wealth of the land has not a clue. Even animals know this instinctively. It is much more acceptable to institute marriage laws that are directly tied to how much people can afford than to forcibly sterilize people and make them abort their unborn fetuses.
In India and elsewhere in the world where there is a population problem, the family of the bride is called upon to offer all sorts of dowery to the groom. It should be the other way around. The groom should show proof that he can afford a family. Change this stupid ass-backward practice and you'll see a drop in world population.
The internet is your weapon. Download it all!
Re:This Is Not the Way to Combat Child Pornography (Score:2)
Your peasant may be exploited all to hell, but that's not the same thing as disenfranchised.
This is a modern and misleading interpretation of the word. One of the rights a human being should have is a right to a piece of the pie, the pie being the earth and its resources. One can be given the right to vote all one's life, but if one does not have a means of independent subsistence, one is a slave, ready for exploitation. And it does not matter how much they try to brainwash you into thinking you are free. Besides, there is nothing more pathetic than a slave who is deluded into thinking he's free, just because he/she has achieved some status among the other slaves. This was the definition of freedom (enfranchisement) in the Roman and Babylonian empires: you were free if you and your family were granted property. The others were slaves.
And I have to ask: why should the groom be required to show that he can support a family? My interest would be in showing that somebody can support the family, and my money's on the wife. The World Bank has been finding that, tradition notwithstanding, a hell of a lot of women are better businessmen than their husbands anyway, less inclined to piss away wealth on status and liquor (in fact, I'd bet the dowery tradition has a lot to do with fathers showing off how much they can give away.)
You can put as much of a politically correct spin on it as you want but the fact is that, in 99.9% of the earth's species (including the human species), the male is the one with the territorial instinct. Sure the females usually have more sense in making the territory prosper (in fact, in some African societies, the women control the market place and I think that's cool) but territoriality is the domain of the male. Any social system that ignores this basic human (and animal) instinct is a formula for disaster. Indeed, we witness the failure of modern social engineering in big cities all around the world, what with crime, poverty, abuse and countless family dysfunctions.
Re:This Is Not the Way to Combat Child Pornography (Score:2)
IOW, you are a male basher who delights in seeing men and women constantly at war. It's idiots like you who are responsible for the sorry state of the world.
Re:This Is Not the Way to Combat Child Pornography (Score:2)
What you are doing is thinking of yourself as being wiser than nature. You are a fool.
Just don't confuse it with territoriality, which in of itself neither feeds nor protects anybody, but rather seeks self-aggrandizement, if need be at the expense of the community or even family. Howler monkeys are probably not our best models.
Nature sets up a system among animals that ensures both species survival and ecological balance. It's a system that has been tried and tested over millions of years and you think you can do better? You are worse than a fool. You are an arrogant, self-righteous fool.
Territoriality is crucial to the survival of the species. It allows the strongest to survive while maintaining a balanced control over population. Human societies need to institute rules of behavior that are linked to territorial resources in order to guarantee a comparable balance. We don't need to eat our children to do that. The females of all species (including human females) must choose their mates according to their abilities to provide and maintain a profitable territory. This is the only natural way to control world population without instituting a fascist system that destroys our freedoms. The only way to do this is through a system of land inheritance. The land must not be divided for a price and sold like other commodities. This is pure folly, a sure prescription for disaster and we see the disatrous results of our present system all over the world. The land should be preserved as an inheritance for us, our children and their children.
Re:Shoddy journalism, yet again (Score:2)
If I have time, I think I'll look for the news story untranslated. I just don't believe Yahoo got it accurate.
Re:Isn't it ironic... (Score:2)
I wonder if alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.indian-asian will see a decrease in high quality posts now. There's something I find attractive about sari-clad women showing off their goods. Especially the ones where the lady is reaching above her head to grasp the mango branch, all birth-of-buddha like.
--
"Fuck your mama."
A potential problem with this technique (Score:2)
Beyond the obvious invasion of privacy these ID cards are promoting, there is another problem with tracking people across the internet. It is too simple to forge IP information as it is, there is no indication in the article that this new technology will guarantee 100% tracking to a given computer. In a cafe environment there is probably little security between computers, a hacker could use the IP of the computer across the room.
Of course, this level of accountability is so far a fiction, as well it should be. Too many consumer boxes are used as springboards to facilitate hacking elsewhere. The poor sap who owns the computer that is currently doing malicious deeds can't really be held accountable for its actions, to do so wouldn't really solve anything. It seems it will be the same in India, just because the computers say that this IP was accessing this server at this time doesn't actually mean that you can reliably track it to an individual.
Over the long term we'll probably employ a system similiar to this by choice. As people gain better ways to identify themselves online, we'll probably decide to cut the truly anonymous out of our online lives entirely. In the same way Anonymous Cowards are culled from our discussions by default, we'll find our time is too valuable to spend it interacting with someone who can't be bothered to identify themself.
Umm...no... (Score:2)
Not only is Hindu literature filled with explicit sexual trysts, but sex between appropriate partners has always been acceptable there, even outside of marriage. This is one reason why prostitution is so common in India and much more open than it is in most of the West--it's socially acceptable in most circles to visit prostitutes.
This is why India's desire to censor net porn from its citizenry is so puzzling. That, and the fact that they have so much poverty, child slavery, and other severe problems that it's just absurd to waste precious resources filtering porn.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
Cyber Policing - Clarifications by Author (Score:2)