You MUST read this: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-us-can-learn-from-indias-move-toward-cashless-society-wadhwa?trk=eml-email_feed_ecosystem_digest_01-hero-0-null&midToken=AQGN_uvUyT7mWw&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=1EdC3LATEUeTE1
As most of you know, I am a smidge resistant to Big (Bhai) Brother, personal information collection and modern tendencies to surveillance and loss of privacy. I am not freaked out. I jut don’t like it. (I do not even like being controlled like cattle by airports and BC Ferries so I am a bit odd). I just don’t see the point of it and I can easily envision the misuse of it. The second book even has a bit about that sort of thing in it. I advise, for instance, using cash instead of credit cards as much as possible. But I won’t bore you with that right now. There are volumes written on that kind of thing. To my mind, there is nothing to be gained and everything to be lost when Big Brother gains greater influence in your life.
And now India has taken it to a whole other level. It’s scary.
We, in Canada/USA, are registered at birth and given a social insurance number. That number does a lot of things for us but it also is a way in which Big Bro tracks you, knows you, taxes you and controls you. The SIN number is a tool for government control. But India couldn’t do it because the people weren’t born with the numbers issued automatically. They were too disorganized, too many people, too much bureaucracy – over 1.1 billion people. They just never got it together.
Not til last year. Then Modi (the PM) changed everything…he eliminated the 500 and 1000 rupee notes (85% of the nation’s commerce is conducted with those bills) and implemented a retinal scan and finger print system so that people could be registered with a bank and get ‘electronic’ currency in exchange for the old bills. Now they are registered. Now they are in the data bank. Now they can borrow.
Whooppee.
Now they can be taxed, too. They can be tracked. They can be found. They can be controlled. Within a single generation every single Indian will be scanned, printed and in the oh-so-very-trustworthy Indian system. The Matrix, Indian style.
We, of course, are in denial about that sort of thing. The same system is being implemented here except more subtly. We started with simple SIN numbers and passports. Then driver’s licenses and credit cards. Dental records, DNA, medical records, credit checks, police checks. Lately, we have added IP addresses and cell-phone SIM cards plus more and more surveillance cameras. For the most part, Big Brother can find you anywhere, anytime and for any reason.
“But we have laws limiting their access to our information.”
Yes, we do. Those are the very same laws that the governments violate all the live-long day. So, we have the laws and we have the government in place to enforce them but, of course, the government rarely polices itself. Nor do they catch hackers that access the same information. So, we do NOT really have the laws nor do we have the enforcement. Don’t kid yourself.
“Dave, you are being paranoid. If you got nothing to hide, you got no worries.”
I am not paranoid. Nor do I have anything to hide (thus I can afford this rant on the blog). It’s just that Orwell predicted Big Brother in his novel: 1984. He was a bit early (by say, 30 years) but, by 2014, he was almost 100% right.
“Dave, is this OTG stuff?”
Yeah. I think it is. Living OTG does not get you truly off the radar but it does lower one’s profile. The bastards know I am here and they can come and get me anytime they want to but, as I am hiding nothing, they probably won’t. And, if they choose to do it anyway, it will cost them much less to go collect up others already corralled up nicely in the city first. Jus’ sayin’…..
Our Off the Grid Home 
According to on-line sources 600 million persons in India since 2010 have voluntarily signed up for iris identification. All 500 and 1000 rupee notes were taken out of circulation but those possessing such notes had fifty days to put them in the bank. Ill gotten notes from crime and counterfeit rupees were no longer in circulation. The informal economy in India took a big hit. Canada has money laundering in the form of casinos and lottery tickets. The Big Brother thing is a worry of course but in Canada some of it can be aswagged by getting rid of cell phones and lowering one’s on-line activities. It’s the electronic ‘trail of bread crumbs’ that will cause the most trouble. If one crosses the boarder to the USA they put one’s face through facial recognition software. Got a passport then its face has been scanned.
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True. I have been meaning to get a better face. Maybe now is a good time?
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I have not checked into your URL notices , I am slothful and prefer hyperlinks,
on the topic of India, you and your six might enjoy a blog called ‘riding the elephant’ you get it by googling that and ‘blog’
I’m enjoying Elliotts’ book right now, it’s very up to date and informative, India and it’s history are so complex I have always put it aside, this book and blog is a compelling beginning, albeit at the risk of me sounding pedantic .
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Pedantic ? You? Never.
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The Indian 500 and 1000 rupee($15 -20 can $) notes were the “bills of choice” for bribes and kickbacks.
The govt discontinued them virtually overnight and then announced that you could bring in your notes to sanctioned govt “exchange centers'(banks, post offices,etc) for the new cash.
Apparently many govt officials(the so called “License Raj’s” who demanded bribes for everything from a new telephone to a drivers license) drinks hit the ceiling that particular Friday night upon hear the announcement.
Seems that thousands of people showed up with suitcases full of unexplained( insert untaxed) money come Monday morning. No problem. The govt honored the exchange and now they know who has excess, untaxed, cash….my heart bleeds for corrupt officials caught with their ill gotten gains.
As for the electronic identification cards.
Its expected that this will save billions of dollars due to the same govt officials being now unable to issue pay cheques to nonexistant employees.
Or illiterate peasants and “untouchables” who’s only cheque cashing sources were money traders demanding exorbitant fees thus perpetuating their misery.
Big Brother has been here for years. I noticed that my cell phone was blinking furiously last weekend as I walked along the North Van shoreline. Several minutes later I was inundated with Pattison Group Car ads….
You are being tracked whether you like it or not and other than carrying a “throw away” phone and paying cash everywhere(which I notice fewer and fewer people are doing) .
Its the new “reality” in todays Matrix
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You have got it right this rupee move hits the black economy the hardest. Many Canadians what to live in a buckshee country, whereas in India many had their hands out for some palm crossing just for fulfilling a function that Canadians want for free collecting such as collecting one’s pogey ,
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I agree. The ‘excuse’ Modi used is legit, I suppose. They were targeting ill-gotten gains and counterfeiters, that sort of thing. Plus, being able to get credit in a capitalistic system is a basic essential – I suppose – if you wanna ‘play’. It’s NOT the good that they might do (altho for every move they make, criminals dream up new countermoves), it is simply the massive control that is exerted on every one in every way all the time. It’s like airport-security-itis expanded. I am concerned. I really think that Jefferson said it best: “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Mind you, I am in Arizona…..
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The horse has left the barn long ago. I suppose only in failed states is true freedom possible if one happens to be a warlord collecting tribute backed by a private army. Given America’s spiral into facism there might be some future warlordism. But with the ubiquitous spyware on nearly every building in town your home appliances will soon be reporting on you. The game is already fixed, the dice are cast and you rolled snake eyes. The caged bird sings a beautiful song in vain. You should be able to keep the privacy of your thoughts as long as you do not try to act on them.
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….it’s a bit like gun control in the US….it is so far out of control that getting that Pandora back in the box is impossible. The only viable alternative to that is NOW to be armed yourself. Insane but…I think, true. And with this new ‘security’ craze, I suppose the only viable response is what people do in El Salvador, they have razor wire everywhere, armed guards and Dobermans. Soon they’ll be marketing personal retinal scanners….
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You mean like US Customs?
http://www.google.ca/url?url=http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/19/8259591/us-customs-iris-scanners-airports-border-fingerprint-biometric&rct=j&frm=1&q=&esrc=s&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwi0-vqYw53SAhUX_mMKHXdaDgEQFggUMAA&usg=AFQjCNEgWDeHP0qVS6ae1iHM9cQ1yTpOAg
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OMG! So it’s here already. Damn.
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Re OMG A Western fiction was that police state tactics were only in the land of tinpot dictators but now that we have entered ‘fake news’ and presidention stream of consciousness continual lying many folks will be willingly voting to suspend the American constitution and. Civil rights. Have noticed a chill in the air? Remember the evil in Canada of a PM who took a helicopter ride to a private island and defended NATO talk about high crimes. My skin crawls thinking about it, eh!
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