Mozilla Statement on Recent Reports of Aadhaar Data Being Breached

Mozilla has published a statement on their Open Policy and Advocacy blog about the recent report that it is possible to purchase a cracked software for as little as ₹2000 (US$30) to get ‘write’ rights to the Aadhaar database, allowing you to update any information in there without any kind of verification or checks.

The official Mozilla statement is as follows:

Mozilla is deeply alarmed by recent reports that it is possible to purchase editing rights to the Aadhaar database for a mere 2,000 rupees.

Mozilla has long argued that the Aadhaar lacks critical safeguards. With the demographic data reportedly compromised, it is hard to see how Aadhaar can be trusted for authentication. Access to myriad vital public and private services which require Aadhaar for more than a billion Indians is now at risk.

Mozilla calls for the UIDAI to close these glaring security loopholes, and to engage an independent firm to do a security audit of the Aadhaar. We further call on the Justice Srikrishna Committee and the Government of India to ensure that the forthcoming data protection bill strongly protects Indians, including from the privacy and security harms that they’ve already suffered from Aadhaar.

May 2, 2018 ✚ Permalink

Twitter Announces it will “Off-board” Advertising from RT and Sputnik

Twitter has made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, effective immediately. This decision was based on the retrospective work we’ve been doing around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government.

Hmm.

Also,

Twitter has also decided to take the $1.9 million we are projected to have earned from RT global advertising since they became an advertiser in 2011, which includes the $274,100 in 2016 U.S.-based advertising that we highlighted in our September 28 blog post, and donate those funds to support external research into the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections, including use of malicious automation and misinformation, with an initial focus on elections and automation.

Wow!

October 26, 2017 ✚ Permalink