Naavi.org

Naavi.org has often referred to individual security professionals losing their sense of proportion and turning into hacktivists and degenerating into  black hat hackers. While they often have a justification for their actions, “taking law into own hands” is not considered the right thing. This tendency has been referred to as “Technology Intoxication”.

Now we see organizations like Twitter being bitten by this bug which makes them feel that they are above law. First Twitter showed its arrogance by deleting the account of Mr Trump without a Court order. Irrespective of what Trump’s tweet meant, Twitter had no right to stand in judicial shoes to remove the account. It ought to have moved on its own the relevant Court and sought directions to take action. In the meantime they could have tagged the subject tweet as “Disputed” or “Unverified” etc and ensured that no person would take it as an authenticated news. But they went ahead and removed Mr Trump’s account and faced an exodus of Trump supporters.

Now in the case of India , Twitter has again shown its arrogance in a different way. Here the Government of India as per the law in force in the country had requested for ban on certain accounts which were blatantly inciting anarchy in India. This was a call for a war in a democratic country and deserves to be treated as such.

It appears that the celebrity twitter accounts are actually maintained by PR firms and the recent anti India propaganda has been launched by these PR firms. Twitter must be aware that these are proxy accounts and the messages are being sent by persons other than the projected twitter handle owners. Twitter is known to have  an anti India bias and they provide “Verified” tags according to their own rules. Hence even when they indicate an account as “Verified”, it is not reliable.

While responding to the Indian situation, Twitter has taken a stand to retain the accounts which are dishing out false and provocative tweets  and  rejected the Government of India’s request despite its legitimacy  as per law. This is plain and simple revolt against law and inconsistent with their stand in the Trump case.

Twitter may think that it has the fan following to indulge in such arbitrary actions and challenge the Indian Government, but this is more  than a show of any ideological stand.

If Twitter does not agree with the Government order and wants to disobey, the only option available to it was to approach the Supreme Court for a stay on the Government’s order.

This they have failed to do and now it is time for the Government of India to take appropriate action.

The first action that the Government has to take is to block Twitter from the whole of India. Let Twitter go to the Court and seek a remedy.

The second action is for all Government department and executives including Mr Narendra Modi and PMO to shift to an Indian competitor such as “Tooter”. Tooter may presently find it difficult to take up a high level of traffic and a consortium of Indian IT companies particularly companies like Zoho should support Tooter to stabilize its services.

Once Mr Modi and PMO withdraw from Twitter, the private individuals can also withdraw their accounts from Twitter and move to Tooter or other alternatives. We have seen how WhatsApp lost over 30% of its clientele within a week of its proposed change of Privacy policy. If Twitter faces a backlash, it is unlikely to survive.

Next, it is time for all Twitter advertisers from India to withdraw their advertisement support.

If these actions are taken tonight, Twitter will realize that its actions were not prudent either from the legal view point or business viewpoint.

I look forward to a firm and decisive action from the Government of India.

Naavi

[P.S: Immediately after the publication of this article, a representative from the Franchisee visited the premises and set right the connectivity. The problem therefore was resolved. The MD of the Franchisee personally intervened to resolve the issue. I thank him for his prompt action.]

Recently, BSNL has introduced FTTH services for Internet through Fiber a Bangalore. Based on a marketing call from BSNL offering conversion of the existing copper line connection to Fiber connection, I opted for the conversion. Since then it has been a nightmare leading to my asking BSNL to revert my service back to the Copper line status.

During the last one month the two departments of BSNL, the Copper wire team which is losing one account and the FTTH team which is gaining a new account are fighting with each other and my connection went dead just two days after it was activated.

Along with the Internet, even the telephone line also has not been working.  As an  existing telephone subscriber opting for this service, I have been subjected to a denial of even the existing services.

The installation was done by a franchisee who supplied the modem and completed the wiring at a cost of Rs 4500/-. I had to later also get my electrician and spend some money to get the wiring properly laid out.

Initially, as soon as the request for the service was registered, before the new connection was provided, the earlier telephone line was disconnected. So for nearly 3 weeks the existing telephone went dead before the installation of the modem. The telephone line now runs through the modem and if there is any disruption of the cable, my telephone would also go off. Since this is an overhead cable like the TV cable operator, the possibility of cable being cut by some body is also possible. If it happens, it is not only the Internet which goes down but also the telephone.

The new connection which was activated after about 3 weeks worked for two days. By that time due date for payment of the telephone bill arrived and on receipt of reminder, payment was made through the BSNL portal as usual.

But now I find that the billing department of the Copper team has not accounted the payment and the FTTH team has promptly and without notice disconnected both the Internet and the telephone.

After speaking to the relevant persons, I get a feeling that this inter departmental rivalry will not allow this service to be effective. Any time in the future also, each month I need to check whether the bill payment is going to the Copper team or the FTTH team.

I have therefore asked BSNL to withdraw the connection and restore my copper line since I am interested in retaining the land line connection.

Though this would result in a loss of over Rs 6000/- to me for having tried to support the new service of BSNL, I would like every new customer thinking of a similar connection to carefully consider whether they need to avail of this service.

Even during the two days, the connectivity has not been great and there is no reason why the service should be preferred.

I think it is time for BSNL to stop marketing this service to avoid it being termed a scam.

I am forwarding this incident report to the BSNL top management as well as the DOT and see if there is any resolution.

In the meantime, I would request all customers not to opt for the scheme which is poorly designed and avoid switching over from their copper line to the FTTH line. I donot believe that even if the connection had been a new connection directly from the FTTH team, the service would have been better.

Naavi

The new law set to be passed in the Parliament as “Banning of Crypto Currency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Act 2019” is designed to ban Bitcoin and other privately managed crypto currencies.

However the law may permit the creation of an Official Crypto Currency called “Digital Rupee” and use of “Block Chain” as a technology for purposes other than creating “Crypto Currencies”. The law may also recognize “Official Crypto Currencies” if any from other sovereign nations as “Foreign digital currency”.

India already has a well developed Digital Banking system and hence the additional benefit that can be expected from the Digital Rupee is minimal.

While mining of Digital Rupee under record from the Central authority may ensure that no “Unaccounted Digital Rupee” is created,  the risk of a “Split Block” being created deliberately or by error continues to exist.

Before every new block is authenticated and appended to the core block, there is a time gap in which a transaction remains unauthenticated. This is the time when double spend can happen and unwary customers may get duped. Currently the “Virtual Banking Transactions” happen within a real time session and there is a certainty whether a transaction is through or not. Block chain concept may extend this window of uncertainty which is not desirable.

Also giving an opportunity to people to mine “Digital Rupee” will create a needless overhead on the use of computing resources, consumption of electricity, redundant data consumption as well as the possibility of proliferation of “unauthorized mining scripts” being implanted as a computer contaminant in user’s computers without their knowledge etc will continue.

Hence the concept of “Digital Rupee” included in the proposed law should be seen as an “Enabling Provision” and there is no need for RBI to jump into making use of this provision. There would be a need for a separate Risk Assessment to ensure that this does not pose a risk of “Fake Digital Rupees” getting into circulation.

Naavi

The budget session 2021 of the Indian Parliament is being eagerly watched for several reasons. While the traditional financial pundits will look forward to the Post Covid budget to take the country on a revival path, observers of the Data Privacy scenario are waiting for the PDPB 2019 to be introduced for final passage with the amendments suggested by the JPC. This bill is yet to be placed before the Parliament as it has to be cleared first by the Cabinet. This may happen during the end of week 1 of the session.

In the meantime, the much awaited bill to regulate crypto currency system and to more specifically, ban the Bitcoin and its brother crypto systems which are the “Digital Black Money” of India is being taken up in the Parliament for discussions and passage during this session.

Considering the high stakes of political parties in Bitcoins and crypto currencies, we may expect a fight to scuttle this bill in this session much more than the fight on the farm bills. However, it is our hope that the bill will finally be passed and one of the long fought battles of Naavi.org will come to a welcome conclusion.

The Bill is called “Banning of Crypto Currency & Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill 2019” (Crypto bill). It has 27 sections.

According to the Act,

Whoever directly or indirectly mines, generates, holds, sells, deals in, transfers, disposes of or issues Cryptocurrency or any combination thereof or

Whoever directly or indirectly promotes, issues any advertisement, solicits, abets or induces any participation in any activity involving the use of Cryptocurrency

shall be punishable with imprisonment which may go upto 10 years and a fine upto Rs 25 crores.

The second schedule makes consequential amendments to the Money Laundering Act 2002 and brings mining, holding, selling, dealing in, advertising, soliciting etc etc of Crypto currencies within the provisions of this Act under which an imprisonment of upto  10 years is provided for.

The definition of Crypto currency as per the Act is

―Cryptocurrency‖, by whatever name called, means any information or code or number or token not being part of any Official Digital Currency, generated through cryptographic means or otherwise, providing a digital representation of value which is exchanged with or without consideration, with the promise or representation of having inherent value in any business activity which may involve risk of loss or an expectation of profits or income, or functions as a store of value or a unit of account and includes its use in any financial transaction or investment, but not limited to, investment schemes;

The Act at the same time introduces the concept of an official crypto currency which may be called a “Digital Rupee”. The Act recognizes “Foreign Digital Currency” as “any class, category or type of digital currency recognised as legal tender in a foreign jurisdiction;”.

The prohibition under the Act is that

” No person shall mine, generate, hold, sell, deal in, issue, transfer, dispose of or use Cryptocurrency in the territory of India.”

Exception are available for research, education and does not affect the use of blockchain technology.

The possible recognition of a foreign digital currency is an enablement which requires specific notification.

Prohibition also extends to use of Crypto currency as a medium of exchange or a store of value or a unit of account and as a legal tender or currency in any place in India.

It may be noted that

Where a violation under this Act has been committed by a body corporate, every officer of the body corporate who at the time the violation was committed, was in charge of, and was responsible to, the body corporate for the conduct of the business of the body corporate, as well as the body corporate, shall be liable for the commission of the violation;

Provided that an officer of a body corporate shall not be liable to be proceeded against for a violation committed by the body corporate under this Act, unless such violation is, – (a) shown to have been committed with the consent or connivance of that officer; (b) shown to have been committed with the knowledge of that officer, attributable to such officer due to the internal processes of the body corporate; or (c) attributable to the gross neglect on the part of the officer.

The passage of the bill will bring the long standing demand of Naavi.org to a conclusion. We hope the passage of the bill goes through without a problem.

We would like to point out the authorities to however include in the rules an exception that the definition of “Crypto Currency” as per Section 2(1)(a) does not include the value of Non Personal Data proposed to be unlocked in the “Non Personal Data Governance” regulation as envisaged.

P.S: The explanation that may be added could be as follows:

Explanation : The definition of “Crypto Currency” above excludes value assigned to any set of data  representing an inherent right such as a domain name, trademark, copyright, patent or other right classified as an Intellectual property, and also any valuation of “data” or “personal data” as defined under Information Technology Act 2000.

Naavi

(Earlier articles on this site on Bitcoin may be accessed here)

I have been informed by some alert observers that some persons are contacting the visitors of Naavi.org who post comments and soliciting business of there own.

While building a network based on the interactions on a website outside the activities of the website cannot be objected to or prevented, Naavi.org cannot be an instrument to be used for spamming the persons who post comments or using the comments for unfair business gains.

I would request visitors to refrain from such practice.

I hereby give notice that Naavi.org is not associated with such persons and is not liable for any of their activities.

Naavi

To mark the international privacy day of 2021, Foundation of Data Protection Professionals in India (FDPPI) launched a journal titled “Data Protection Journal of India”.

The journal will be available at www.dpji.in

Naavi