This is not a problem just for Aadhaar but also for any enterprise.
Data has multiple challenges in quality - consistency, completeness, accuracy, precision, missing and unknowns, validity, timeliness, right linkages, conformity and reasonableness.
Once you have overcome those challenges, you will have ensure security, audit, management.
The problem with Aadhaar and anything that happens in India on such a huge scale (e.g. Demonetization) is that while a number of genuine people benefit from the programs, the side effects cannot be ignored - significant percentage of people suffer (sometimes immensely) and other times non-genuine people take advantage.
The solution for any such programs are for all data challenges, there should be a strategy led with right investments and executive support.
Politicians are mostly blamed for not doing enough and now a days blamed even more for doing things wrong. I think the intent of the Aadhaar program is right however there is more to be done by the Indian government on ensuring money support is given to the program to solve these problems.
I was once on-call working for one the leading organizations. I got a call in the middle of the night that some critical job had failed and due to the significant data load, it was imperative to restart the processing.
I login to the system with a privileged account. Restart the job with new parameters and since I wanted not to see the ugly logs, I wanted to redirect the output to /dev/null.
I run the following command
./jobname 1>./db-file-name
and there is -THE DISASTER-
For some reason this kept popping in my head - "Bad things happen to Good people"
We recovered the data but there was some data loss still as the mirror backup had not run.
Of course, we have come long way since then. Now, there are constant sync between Prod/DR and multitude of offline backups and recovery is possible for last 7 days, the month or any month during the year and the year before.
I was doing a favor to a friend and on a refferal talked to a guy who didnt have anything but weekly backups and had a corrupt database due to some drive failures.
I was able to determine that the corrupt data was repairable if we had a copy of the old db, and since it was a tiny machine system I asked "Would you mind restoring the backup side by side with production and I can do what I need?"
"Sure thing!"
I wait for a minute, and then my connection to the production database dies.
I refresh the client, and now the one database available is restoring from a backup...
I called him and asked if he meant to overwrite his production copy with his backup instead of do it side by side, and he says petulantly, "I didnt do that!"
I ask him to check again, and he responds with "I will call you right back!"
Five minutes later I get the call, "How do I roll back my restore partially through the restore process?"
Google's project Loon has done an amazing feat that they will achieve full internet coverage for the entire country Sri Lanka by end of next month using 4G LTE network.
There is a lot of bureaucracy in getting anything done with BT/OpenReach. Most of the contracts have to go through BT first who sub-contract to OpenReach even though they are the same company.
The partnership where OpenReach does everything for the infrastructure and BT adds absolutely no value. The split of the partnership would have been what the consumers wanted.
Th decision falls short of bringing much needed change in the industry. There is still huge number of people who have super-slow internet which is a HUGE shame for ofcom for not having been able to get this problem sorted.
In my area, I get internet speed of 2MBps. I cannot get even basic things done. To put things into perspective, to download 100 photos, it would take 10 minutes.
Ofcom - This is the twenty first century and you are still living under a rock.
I don't think, he is a hacker. People with poor technology skills also pirate whereas becoming a hacker, it is expected to have a decent amount of technology knowledge and skill-set.
> The firms, which included Microsoft, HBO Europe, Sony Music and Twentieth Century Fox, estimated that the financial damage amounted to thousands of pounds, with Microsoft alone valuing its losses at 5.7m Czech Crowns (£148,000).
> But the Business Software Alliance (BSA), which represented Microsoft, acknowledged that Jakub could not pay that sum.
In addition to the financial settlement, the 30-year-old was also given a three-year suspended sentence.
If you're just an average user concerned about your privacy
1) Use Tor when browsing.You don't have to use Tor all the time (it does slow things down considerably and some sites will also block Tor traffic). But if you are looking at or for something that you feel is sensitive, then either set up your browser to work with Tor or use the Tor browser.
2) Use an ad-blocker. Says Snowden: "As long as service providers are serving ads with active content that require the use of Javascript to display, that have some kind of active content like Flash embedded in it, anything that can be a vector for attack in your web browser – you should be actively trying to block these."
3) Use a password manager. It doesn't matter how many surveys and reports come out that tell people to use different passwords and complex passwords, a huge percentage of us maintain borderline idiotic approaches. The simple answer is: get a password manager. It will protect you.
4) Use two-factor authentication. Many services such as Gmail, Twitter, Dropbox, Hotmail, and Facebook offer this now for no charge. So even if your password does get exposed, you still have a backup such as a text message to your phone to secure your information.
5) Use apps that protect your information. Snowden suggests the smartphone app Signal, which encrypts both your phone calls and texts. It's free and easy to use. Although of course, following a high-profile argument with the FBI, it would appear that Apple's messaging service is also pretty secure (although Snowden would probably have doubts).
6) Use the HTTPS Everywhere browser plug-in. This comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and will try to force all browser communication to be encrypted.
7) Encrypt your hard drive. This is comparatively easy these days but you have to be careful to do two things: one, have a longish phrase to make it worthwhile; and two, make damn sure you remember that phrase. There will be a slowdown in performance but nothing too bad if you have a modern machine.
8) Be smart with your security questions. Stop using your mother's maiden name for everything. Likewise your first school. The key is to mix things up as much as possible so if someone does get into one of your accounts, they can't use the same information to get in everywhere else.
Medical services is one of the worst sectors with very poor 'right' investments in technology.
There are many gaps while some significantly standout compared to others.
* As highlighted in this article, Security is a huge issue. Given the sensitivity of the data, the sad state of infrastructure does not do any justice.
* A lot of the infrastructure is still paper based. The digital revolution is way behind its time in this sector.
* Medical sciences which is supposed to revolutionize has most of its spend in regulations rather than technology. The advancements in science are excruciatingly slow. Drug discovery has slowed down tremendously.
Not to mention, the poor patient-experience and lack of reach of medicine to the poorest of society.
It's pretty funny that on one hand you say security is a big issue but with the other you are frustrated they haven't moved away from paper fast enough. Paper based systems when used correctly can be very secure. That being said they aren't without their issues e.g.
http://www.databreachtoday.com/800000-penalty-for-paper-reco...
Security is of paramount importance however never at the cost of digitization.
Imagine two scenarios
1. Patient diagnosis delayed or incorrect, if doctors cannot view the blood reports for next 21 days or doctor makes mistake since he cannot process data like a computer would.
2. The icu system got hacked on which someone's life depended.
I don't think you could choose one over the other.
A lot of the time, we trade off between convenience and security. However that is a prudent and deliberate choice.
What I see more and more happening is a reckless and inadvertent choice.
Data has multiple challenges in quality - consistency, completeness, accuracy, precision, missing and unknowns, validity, timeliness, right linkages, conformity and reasonableness.
Once you have overcome those challenges, you will have ensure security, audit, management.
The problem with Aadhaar and anything that happens in India on such a huge scale (e.g. Demonetization) is that while a number of genuine people benefit from the programs, the side effects cannot be ignored - significant percentage of people suffer (sometimes immensely) and other times non-genuine people take advantage.
The solution for any such programs are for all data challenges, there should be a strategy led with right investments and executive support.
Politicians are mostly blamed for not doing enough and now a days blamed even more for doing things wrong. I think the intent of the Aadhaar program is right however there is more to be done by the Indian government on ensuring money support is given to the program to solve these problems.