Ubiquitous technology

Modern technology is ubiquitous in not only obliterating all inequalities but also in literally linking our fingertips to the world, even bringing governance, choice foods and daily needs at our doorsteps. At the same time, when abused, it plunges our values down the abyss and causes immeasurable harm. The alarming reports of incidents of Tik Tok, snooping into private lives, like the nascent WhatsApp scandal, etc., are all manifestations of such evils.

India tops the world in selfie-deaths. Finding out that his semi-literate wife got addicted to posting private videos on Tik Tok, a husband in Andhra clubbed her to death. For gaining instant fame, youngsters upload videos of their sexual exploits on Tik Tok, making children vulnerable to contamination of their minds and to sexual predations.

But, more alarming is the propensity of governments to abuse technology as has happened in the snooping on phones of an IPS officer of Chhattisgarh and his family members. It is all passé in a dictatorship but is an anathema in a democracy. Without mincing words, the SC said, "No privacy is left for anybody. What is happening in this country?" But, behind our backs far worse has been happening.

WhatsApp disclosed that there are some Indians who are among the globally spied upon diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and activists, using an Israeli spyware Pegasus. The facts are out. All those who represented the arrested in the Bhima-Koregaon case, including the Nagpur-based lawyer Nihalsing Rathod, Maharashtra-based activists Anand Teltumbde and Rupali Jadhav, were targeted. Similar was the case of Bela Bhatia advocating the rights of Bastar tribes of Chhattisgarh, who was subsequently branded as a 'Naxal sympathiser.' Degree Prasad Chouhan is a Dalit rights activist and lawyer, working for the rights of poor and Adivasis in Central India. There are others who are in dissent against the Modi government. It is alleged that even Priyanka Gandhi was snooped on as if she was a terrorist or a sympathiser.

It is all a revelation. Since instant message service providers like WhatsApp usually have end-to-end encryption services, no one suspects that they may be vulnerable to spyware attacks. The Pegasus software has proved this presumption wrong. Experts say that it takes advantage of the buffer zone in the systems, where temporary memory allocations happen in order to provide quick run-time experience for a user. Within a buffer allocation, which runs on RAM memory, a malicious payload can be dropped through a video call into the handset without the user ever knowing it. Even a simple missed video call is sufficient for a hacker to penetrate and change the source code of programmes. Then, applications can be changed and controlled. Thus, once the phone is exploited and Pegasus installed, it begins contacting the operator's command and control servers to receive and execute his orders and send back the target's private data, like passwords, contact lists, calendar events, text messages and live voice calls from popular mobile messaging apps. The operator can even turn on the phone's camera and microphone to capture live activity in the phone's vicinity.

When the scandal had erupted, Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad reassured that "The government is committed to protecting privacy of all Indian citizens. Government agencies have a well-established protocol for the interception, which includes sanction and supervision from highly ranked officials in central and state governments, for clearly stated reasons in the national interest." But, notwithstanding his denial, people are sceptical in view of what has been happening in the country.

With 430 million Smartphone users; half-billion using the Internet; 300 million Facebook; 200 million sending messages on Whatsapp; 30 million using Twitter, the BJP has been aggressively using technology and social media to influence public mind. It is, thus, not believable that such sensitive spyware has been sold to India without the involvement of the government. This is especially so given that the Israeli NSO Group vehemently says, "Pegasus has been sold only to 'vetted and legitimate' government agencies to help them combat terror and crime".

Their phone-hacking software has been notorious for a series of human rights abuses across Latin America and the Middle East, including the espionage scandal in Panama and an attempt to spy on an employee of the London-based rights group of Amnesty International. Furthermore, its role in the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, is also familiar. WhatsApp says, "Tools that enable surveillance into our private lives are being abused and the proliferation of this technology into the hands of irresponsible companies and governments puts us all at risk." Indian Government cannot plead ignorance of all this. More recently, the friendship between Netanyahu and Modi has also raised doubts about Israel helping Modi with this spyware.

It looks very strange that the government's anti-terror activities are often linked to plots to assassinate Modi. Years ago, when he was the CM of Gujarat, encounters were conducted by police with the same ruse. It was the same alibi that was employed in the Koregaon-Bhima case. In 2018, the cross-country arrests of five intellectuals, who are academics and activists and the dramatic way they were charged and then deprived of their liberty in violation of Standard Operating Procedures and Human Rights by Pune Police, heightened the fear of abuse of law of criminal conspiracy by this government. The arrested dissenters, each with a long record of working with the poor, were even labelled as 'Urban Naxals'. It was openly suggested through print and electronic media that evidence was gathered by the investigating agencies through files obtained from their computers and phones. How did they collect such unimpeachable evidence? Now, the WhatsApp scandal has provided answers to such mysteries.

At the same time, new questions arise about the agency of GOI that has purchased and deployed the Pegasus surveillance software and about who exactly in the government authorised its purchase. Since no private players can buy it, the Centre cannot plead its innocence.

Thanks to the SC, it has thwarted the attempt of the Centre to set up a multi-crore surveillance structure, at least temporarily. But, the government has again come up with the same story of a conspiracy to kill Modi and Shah. Curiously, it appears, the name of Virat Kohli has been added to the list to add credibility to their story so that they can snoop on citizen with impunity.

Dissent is a crime for this government and one that it wants to crush at any cost. It is like the 'thought police' of Orwellian Big Brother and also reminds us of the actions of Mussolini and Hitler. They dismantled all democratic institutions and terrorised the executive, judiciary and ever other organisation of governance into submission. Then, monopolising the information dissemination systems, they reformatted the minds of people with 'nationalism'. Dissent of any kind was dubbed as 'anti-national' and was stamped out using captivated government machinery. Media was used simply as a tool to promote their agenda. Demagogic charisma, casting a spell with religious rhetoric, outright lies and distortion of history and science were the mantras of those fascist governments. And, they ensured the disappearance of freedom of speech or expression. Does present-day India sound all that different?

If people are sceptical about the words of Ravi Shankar Prasad, it is solely due to the making of BJP all these years. When demonetisation was imposed on the country, people were assured that black money would be wiped out. On the contrary, it is the BJP that is driving with such money, as seen in election after election. They use such ill-begotten gains to engineer defection after defection; they spend Rs 27,000 crore in general elections; Yedyurappa gives Rs 1,700 crore to its leaders and now a viral video showing crore of rupees offered to MLAs of Opposition Parties in Karnataka for horse-trading and of late, bags of money offered to MLAs of Shiv Sena as alleged in their mouthpiece, Saamana among many others. People are only left with a shattered economy, closing down of small businesses and industries. In place of two crore jobs every year as promised, crores of jobs and sources of livelihood have been lost. Of late, Moody's have snubbed the claims of Modi by changing their rating of our economy from 'stable' to 'negative', saying it reflects on the government's policy ineffectiveness in addressing the economic weakness.

How can anyone trust the minister when earlier even Gadkari said that they were all made to make false promises to people, like statehood for Delhi by Harshvardhan and then Rs 15 lakh cash in each account by Modi himself? Gone are those days of Vajpayee when values were given value. Now, it is only lust for power, even by breaking promises, like their deal with Shiv Sena in Maharashtra. In the process, every institution in the country, right from the RBI to the CBI, has been trampled upon, reducing India into a shambolic democracy.

Under these circumstances, the future appears scary. Already, there is an irritating onslaught of calls and ads on phones from business establishments. There could be a new Pegasus that can read our minds and souls and finally, even hack our hearts. What has been protected as 'private' all this time would become the sole 'proprietary property' of the government. Every moment the tax-payer would be under watch. This would be done in the name of 'governance', 'national security', and 'anti-terrorism', similar to the 'imaginary' war conceived and constantly reminded to people by the omnipotent and omnipresent Big Brother of Orwell.

Dr N Dilip Kumar is a retired IPS officer and a former Member of Public Grievances Commission, Delhi. Views expressed are strictly personal