TRAI chief dares hackers to prove Aadhaar misuse, know what happens next

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NEW DELHI: Alleged personal details of Indias telecom watchdog chief R.S. Sharma were leaked on Saturday after the TRAI chairman threw a challenge and tweeted his 12-digit Aadhaar asking if it had made him vulnerable to any security risk.

Along with his full Aadhaar number, Sharma tweeted, “Now I give this challenge to you: Show me one concrete example where you can do any harm to me!”

A French security expert, who goes by the nickname Elliot Alderson and uses twitter handle @fs0c131y, in a series of tweets caused ripples on the social media, leaking “personal address, DoB, your alternate phone number” and explaining to Sharma, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman, how risky it was to make the Aadhaar number public.

“People managed to get your personal address, DoB and your alternate phone number. I stop here, I hope you will understand why make your Aadhaar number public is not a good idea,” Alderson wrote.

Sharma, a known defender of Aadhaar, has been maintaining that the unique ID does not violate privacy and the government reserved a right to create such a database of residents since it gives subsidies on state-run welfare schemes.

Amid a debate on privacy concerns, which has also reached the Supreme Court, activists and people in general fear that the 12-digit biometric number was harmful to citizen’s privacy.

“My Aadhaar number is 7621 7768 2740. Now I give this challenge to you: Show me one concrete example where you can do any harm to me,” tweeted Sharma, whose tenure ends on August 9.

A twitter user had earlier asked Sharma to “walk your talk” after the TRAI chief tweeted his interview with an online portal in which he strongly defended Aadhaar and rejected apprehensions that one billion Aadhaar accounts were vulnerable.

Some Twitter threads to follow:

https://twitter.com/DeanOfJio/status/1023235450205601792