Machine Learning with R

R is a powerful language used widely for data analysis and statistical computing.and has many provisions to implement machine learning algorithms in a fast and simple manner.  Born in 1990 R is getting prominence today because of its simplicity.

• R is data analysis software: Data scientists can use R for statistical analysis, data visualization, and predictive modeling.
• R is a programming language: R is an object-oriented language & provides objects, operators, and functions that allow users to explore, model, and visualize data.
• R is an defacto environment for statistical analysis: Standard statistical methods are easy to implement in R, and since much of the cutting-edge research in statistics and predictive modeling is done in R, newly developed techniques are often available in R first.
• R is an open-source software project: R’s open interfaces allow it to integrate with other applications and systems.
• R community: The R project leadership has grown to include more than 20 leading statisticians and computer scientists from around the world, and thousands of contributors have created add-on packages. 

Take an example to understand the power of R language in today's collaborative open source world. The picture below shows heat map of a volcano is a R program of 15 lines that uses multiple R libraries developed by the community. 







And here are the lines of  R code that produced the above visualization :-




I will post more about R and why is it my ( actually all data scientist) favorite tool for data analysis. Mean while I am sharing a small  tutorial for beginners to R that is available at https://www.analyticsvidhya.com

A Complete Tutorial to learn Data Science in R from Scratch

How to determine the value of your company's big data?

Every company has Big Data

Today’s companies are generating an enormous amount of data  including traditional, structured data, as well as unstructured data. The massive amounts of information companies collect today can become a valuable new asset if used strategically. Players seeking additional organic revenue streams should consider tapping their data trove to power a new information services growth engine.  Enterprises can capitalize on insights derived from this data to make  better decisions, evaluate risk, and understand the market. There is also a  huge amount of data being generated about your company on mobile devices and social media.      
                                       Companies that are sitting on large amounts  of customer data—including insurance carriers, retailers, transportation companies and communications providers—have a unique opportunity to make this type of information services play.  According to a study by IDC, the amount of data that companies are accumulating is growing at 50 percent per year -- or more than doubling every two years. Many organizations are rich in data but poor in insight. Data requires collection, mining and, finally, analysis before we can realize its true value for enterprise.  Overall US demand for information services had exceeded $600 billion by 2016.  As data-driven insights become an increasingly critical competitive differentiator, companies will use them to drive and optimize business decisions across industries. In the past, this market was largely limited to traditional market research and data specialists, but today, virtually any company with a large customer database can potentially become  a serious player in the new information game. So question is how does an enterprise find which data is valuable and which data is not valuable? 

 

URL - statista.com - Worldwide Big Data/Business Analytics Revenue

 

What data to target for maximum insight?                       

So how does a company identify which data is valuable and what value can be derived from the data even before investing into the Big Data program? Research companies like Accenture Labs have defined Information Value Pyramid to illustrate various  information service strategies.  The pyramid has three levels - raw data, insights and transactions. The potential value and profitability  of an information services business depends in large part on the condition of the data the enterprise owns. The base of the pyramid features raw, less differentiated and thus less valuable data. Moving up the pyramid creates larger revenue opportunities, although these tend to be more difficult to execute.  One approach to do valuation of  your Big Data is by creating a custom Big Data Value Matrix.  Value Matrix is an approach to classify the different set of data using a standard set of parameters and evaluate the reference value of each data set in context of the company and its business goals. Various factors can be defined to classify the type of raw data, the potential use of the raw data, who are the consumers - once the data is processed, the efforts and cost of processing the raw data & potential insights that can be derived from the unprocessed big data. Weight-age is assigned to each of these factors and the Matrix us used to prioritize the various big data categories within the company and this valuation becomes the input to companies big data program. Rather than processing each and every data that is being generated by the company, data valuation helps companies understand their data, define a big data strategy and roadmap and expect a realistic outcome to their big data processing.  
                                        In auto industry since many vehicles now feature GPS and telematics systems, some car manufacturers have been able to collect and monetize a wealth of data on customer driving habits. General Motors Co.’s OnStar telematics  system, for example, not only provides vehicle security, information and diagnostics services to drivers, it also captures telemetry data. OnStar and GMAC Insurance partnered to create an opt-in program that uses the telemetry data to offer lower insurance premiums to customers who drive fewer miles. Thanks to the program, consumers can save significantly on car insurance, which boosts GM’s customer satisfaction performance. This, in turn, helps GM attract new OnStar paying customers.

Every company is working on some initiative to exploit the data and big investments are being made without really having a clear picture of the outcome or benefits of the investment. The company that understands its Big Data will be able to target the right data, use the insight strategically and derive maximum value for its investments.

Could blockchain have prevented the CBSE Data Leak in India?

Could blockchain have prevented the "CBSE Exam Paper Leak in India" ?
Definitely yes!  I will explain how it will work and I have a picture that explains how 3 sets of Exam Papers set by 3 people are put on blockchain and they move across the 'Exam Paper Distribution Process'. The data/question papers is accessible only to those authorized users (those who are given access). No one else can access or hack blockchain and leak the papers except the authorized personal who will get identified and caught if they try to leak exam paper. The process is transparent, secure and has an audit trail which gives everybody confidence.

Blockchain was invested by Satashi Nakamoto in a paper he published in 2008.  Let me explain blockchain as I understand it.

1. Blockchain is a software program that runs on a network of computers  (for now this definition is good enough for newbies)
2. If a document is put on blockchain then blockchain allows AUTHORIZED USERS" to update the document but does not allow then to EDIT or DELETE any data. Its like a notebook in which you can write and notebook records the date and time of your writing but if you make a mistake and want to correct it it will not allow, you will have to add a next entry saying previous entry was a mistake and should be ignored. In short history of every transaction can be viewed at any point of time which makes the document trust worthy (of-course there is security that ensures that document cannot be tampered so don't worry about it for now)
3. Next aspect of blockchain is that every authorized user gets a copy of the blockchain record/ledger every time it gets updated. So if someone wants to tamper his copy of the document it is of no use because every other user will know what action you have performed this is 2nd level of trust.
4. Blockchain maintains all documents for ever and no one is allowed to delete any document  not even a hacker can do it. So any point of time any authorized user can view the document.

Now take our example of exam papers and how blockchain and a well defined process can prevent paper leak -

1. Lets assume paper setters, CBSE officials at center and in states & all school principals are authorized users of blockchain
2. Assume 3 paper setters create 3 sets of Mathematics exam paper and put them on block chain
3. Blockchain will record the transaction and inform all users that papers have been submitted and they will get a copy of the paper which is encrypted  with a password.
4. At this  stage only CBSE  officials have the password to view the papers and approve them to be used in exam. School principals come to know papers are set but cannot access them till password is given to them
5. On day of the exam CBSE will decide which paper from the 3 sets  has to be used for exam and 1 hour prior to the exam they will share the password with School principals. So far it is ensures that if paper leaks then it will be done by paper setter and he will get caught but less chance since he does not know which paper will be used for the exam
6. Once principal get the password it is their responsibility to take print, update the block chain as soon as they take the print so everybody in CBSE knows when the papers were printed and how many copies were printed. Next the principal is responsible to distribute ( with help of his staff who are not carrying mobile devices) papers in the classroom
7. Any student is missing and question paper is unused the school updates the blockchain that x number of paper are unused and they are being sealed and kept in principals custody.
8. From beginning to end each step, each transaction is recorded on blockchain and immediately all users on blockchain get informed over the internet. If there is any leak it can only be possible if the principal and his staff do it as no one else has a hard copy of the papers, not even CBSE.
9. This is a simple explanation of the process. Actual implementation can have more customization and security for example using GPS or RFID tags from the time  exam papers  are printed to track the Real Time movement of exam paper till they reach class rooms and many other security aspects can be added for additional security at the last leg of delivery.

I don't have knowledge of the system used by education institutes to deliver examination papers and there could be minor changes in the process. What is required is the transparency, security and trust that blockchain or similar solution can deliver so that students have faith in the system. Diamond merchants face challenge of fake or over valued diamonds and they use blockchain to trace the journey of each diamond from the mine to the stores and all the way to final buyer. Every diamond sold by DeBeers has a complete audit trail of every person who had handled each diamond and there the transparency in the process builds trust. Blockchain promises trust in your business process.

Does my company need a BPM software to implement business process management?

Please answer these questions in yes or no

1. Does your company implement continuous business process improvement ?
2. Do you think there is scope to improve company's productivity, collaboration, efficiency & QoS?
3. Do you think there is scope to improve customer satisfaction?
4. Does your company implement innovative changes to the way you do business?
5. Does your company spend too much time in modifying software to adhere to changing process?
6. Does your company face challenges in adherence to the defined process? 
7. Does your company want your employees to have simplified process management & removing redundancy in existing process?
8. Do you think your company can leverage big data to make smart decisions?
9. Does your management expert a dashboard view of your business process management including insight about the performance across departments?
10. Do you think there is scope to improve collaboration across distributed groups and partners ?
11. Does your company want to reduce the dependence on software engineers to manage your business process? 
12. Do you think a change is process should be tested in simulated environment before implementing the change?
13. Are your competitors already using BPM ?

                                                                           

If the answer to all these questions is yes than your company needs a state of art BPM product to automate the business process management . In the next post we will take an example of a business process and see how you can achieve the above goals.

What you should know about Artificial Intelligence (AI) ? Why are some people worried about AI?

When people talk about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to revolutionize the game they fail to tell you that AI is as old as computers, well almost. AI is as old as the first computer program way back in 1940 when programmer Ada Lovelace tried to write a program to do something which is normally done by people and that is the simple definition of AI. Garry Kasparov, the chess Grand Master who was defeated by IBM’s Deep Blue Computer in the 90’s.  Garry's reaction to the defeat was that he realized that he would have performed much better if he had access to the same chess programs that Deep Blue had.  Deep Blue had huge storage and was fed thousands of detailed chess game moves data' from which it was able to anticipate opponents next moves and plan its moves and coupled with it's CPU computing power Garry was no match to him!

Over the years as computers and related technologies have evolved we see evolution in AI capabilities.When you buy a laptop from Amazon and amazon web-page suggests relevant laptop accessories for your product that's actually a low level AI program that has processed your purchase data in real time to smartly predict what accessories you may require. Few others examples of AI implementations that you might already be using are Apples Siri, Google's Assistant and Now, Microsoft Cortana and IBM's Watson. We will discuss narrow AI & general AI , strong AI & weak AI at a later stage and for the moment you should know that these are just advanced concepts in AI implementation.
                So why is there sudden surge in implementation of AI over last 4/5 years?  As the info-graphic by digitalintelligencetoday.com shows research on developing smart programs has been going on since 1950 and we have seen some working examples over the years. Over last 10 yrs we have seen cost of storage decreasing drastically, the cost of internet decreasing and internet speeds are improving. We have seen technologies and software like Big Data, Social Media, Mobiles, Sensors, Cloud, Hadoop are enabling creation & consumption of huge amount of data. This huge amount of data created every second and the technologies that make it possible to store and process the huge data are helping AI evolve and become smarter. Don't let some hi-fi techie tell you that AI is a new born and its going to make your job absolute. Like any other successful technology AI is being used for few years and it will help drive data driven intelligent automation to make our lives simpler. Way back computers were supposed to take away the job of millions of workers and though some jobs became obsolete, computers actually created many more new jobs and improved & simplified the way we do business. Today no one seems to blame computers for rendering them job less and in few years people will accept AI (which is nothing but a smarter computer program) as an invisible entity that is integral part of their life.

AI - Its about machines/computers learning from Data from Everywhere

Learning from mistakes is human nature but humans have finite memory and processing power as compared to a computer. From mid 1950s research is being done on machine learning, since machines can access data storage and learn from the data to continuously correct the mistakes and improve. The latest advances include self-driving cars, IBM Watson, a computer that can beat humans at Jeopardy and real-time machine translation that  seem quite like the universal translator in Star Trek.

My favorite AI info-graphic is the one below and it is owned / created by www.digitalintelligencetoday.com

Next post -  So where is AI being used by today's businesses?

What's wrong with Aadhar? My blog posts in chronological order

Here are the links to my posts on #Aadhar in chronological order

1] Why you should be concerned about #Aadhar being made mandatory for citizen of India?

2] Burning questions about #Aadhar that we want answered

3] Whats is wrong with Aadhar Software System ? (Part-1)

4] Whats needs to be fixed in Aadhar Software System ? (Part-2) 

5] Open letter - Could we not have implemented Aadhar System in an inclusive manner? (Part-4)

6] Aadhar Data - How much would the enemy pay for Aadhar data of armed forces? (Part-5)

7] Linking Aadhar to Bank is a redundant exercise & bad software design 

8]  It's high time we have an IT Strategy & Data Strategy for India

                                                          

How Blockchain could have prevented the 'Great Indian 11000 Crore PNB Bank Fraud' ?

Blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that enables and records the secure transfer of data and documents through a public or private peer-to-peer network. Blockchain allows secure management of a shared ledger & transactions are verified & stored on a network without any governing authority.  Blockchain configuration can be on a public open-source network or a private Blockchain network that required explicit permissions to read/write.

The best example of how #Blockchain can prevent fraud is the 14th Feb 2018 news report about The Great Indian INR 11000 Crore PNB Bank Fraud.

1. A businessman #NiravModi allegedly bribed couple or more bank officials of PNB (Punjab National Bank) and managed to get a fake letter of Undertaking or LOU from PNB Bank, without providing any collateral to the bank (providing collateral is the standard practice).
2. Then #NiravModi allegedly used the FAKE  LOU to fool few more banks and businesses ( which basically means that PNB bank is his guarantor as per the fake LOU and if Nirav is not able to pay his creditors then PNB Bank would be responsible for paying his creditors, to an amount of INR 11000 Crore or more. Holy Flying Cow!)
3. The Fraud was not detected for years because the fraudster issued a fake LOU but did not record it in the bank account so bank was not even aware of the LOU (apart from the people who were involved in the fraud)
4. Whats also  surprising is that none of the business associates or banks cross checked with Punjab National Bank for 7 years to verify that the LOU was authentic.

Core issue of PNB Fraud is poor implementation of BPM process :

Before we discuss blockchain lets make one thing clear that the main issue in the PNB Scam is poor definition and implementation of business process regarding LOU. If the business process management software does not implement tasks of review and approval for critical process like LOU then this calls for a immediate review of the BPM system of PNB Bank (and other public sector banks) as there could be other issues in implementation of other critical processes. The other issues is banking process defined by RBI does not seem to have a task of crosschecking with issuing bank to verify the authenticity of LOU or similar  documents issued by a bank.  As a matter of fact if on bank official can forge a document and the banking does not have process to validate the authenticity of the document then tomorrow some outsider can also forge the document and bank would not be able to identify the fraud! Some serious software process audit is immediately required by PNB and would be ideal if other banks also audit the software implementation of their business process management and seek expert guidance on how to fix/improve the BPM implementation and have an audit trail which can help trace any anomaly or attempt at fraud .


So how could blockchain prevent a similar fraud? Before we begin discussing blockchain let me remind you to not confuse blockchain with Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency Bitcoin is one implementation uses cases of blockchain technology. The following image shows typical steps in working of  #blockchain.

                                       
                                                                        
The Great Indian 11000 Crore PNB Bank Fraud is in-reality is a very basic type of fraud!  This kind of fraud is so basic that it needs brain of a 5th grade school kid who hides his mark sheet from his parents when he gets poor grades! The bank officer who gave the forged LOU to #NiravModi did not document in bank record that he had issued a LOU. As there was no record of issues LOU in the bank computers, no one in the  bank was able to detect the fraud for years. The LOU was allegedly used by  #NiravModi to commit more frauds of which details are not available in media as of today. Its a huge scam because if #NiravModi (assuming the fraud is proved) did not honor the creditors then PNB bank would end holding the sack worth INR 11000 Crore! This fraud was successful  because in the banking process there was no process to restrict a corrupt employee to issue a LOU and neither did the bank define a process for other banks to validate the authenticity of LOU issued by the bank.
                                                          At at business process level one would call this a very poor implementation of a business process. Any letter of credit issues by any bank should not be valid unless it is cross verified by the bank with PNB but here the letter was used for many years without any creditor ever bothering to check the authenticity of the LOU with the provider bank! Frankly I can't believe this fraud actually happened but I guess there are many fools in the business world who don't even bother to check a bank guarantee is authentic or not! So how could we have a software system than can prevent such fraud irrespective of how many foolish bankers are involved in the process!

How blockchain could have prevented the PNB Bank 11000Cr Fraud?

1. In a blockchain world , all the steps in the 'Letter Of Credit' process would have been recorded in a blockchain ledger database
2. Notification of each step in the process of  'Letter Of Credit' process would have gone to all approving bank officials and it would be impossible for any employee junior or senior to issue a letter of credit without knowledge of the bank officials.
3. Even after 'Letter Of Credit' is issued when the customer shares the 'Letter Of Credit' with any bank or business entity, they would be able to view the process trail of the blockchain which is fool proof because blockchain ledger database it is like a database which only allows insert and does not allow update or delete
4. Since 'Letter Of Credit' entry in database cannot be deleted from a transaction ledger in blockchain it is not possible for anyone to HIDE any information or UPDATE any information without knowledge of the approving bank authorities.This means the LOU could not have been issued at all if a system similar to blockchain was implemented.
5. When the LOU is shared with another bank or business entity the guarantor bank (PNB in this case) would get notified when the blockchain transaction gets updated. This would ensure that same LOU is not shared with multiple banks or business entities to commit fraud.
6. The following figure shows transactions in a sample business process flow

 


1. A bank officer initiated a LOU , thus creating a transaction in the blockchain
2. How approving authorities are automatically notified by the blockchain system
3. How the approval transaction is inserted in the same block and becomes an immutable entry in the database
4. How the issuing bank keeps getting informed when the LOU is submitted to another bank to get credit or to a business associate to ensure there is a immutable chain of life-cycle of the LOU that is only accessible to authorized personals
5. For the life-cycle of the LOU the entire chain of transaction are attached to the LOU and all concerned people would be able to see the history and authenticate the LOU  

• In summary, blockchain or a similar software design that creates an immutable log of a bank process flow foe ex. LOU ensures that a ''log' of all activities or transactions is maintained in a secure ledger database  and is through the life of the document and even after the document validity expires. The immutable log helps build a trust relationship between partner entities and and it also helps speed the business process as all entities get copy of entire transaction log' as updates in real time this facilitating transference. 
• For those who did not understand the above example of business process, imagine a tamper proof paper register (from which pages cannot be removed!) in which all banking transactions have to be recorded in sequential order, using a permanent marker pen (so entries cannot be erased). A copy of the paper register is sent to each supervising  bank official (sounds redundant but this is just an example) Since a copy of register goes to every official within seconds of transaction being done, there is no way a official will not know about a transaction. Now when borrower submits this LOU document to another bank, a copy of register is again sent to the issuing bank officials and also to the receiving bank officials  - so all authorities get a copy of updated register every time a new update happens ( This is only an example in reality an entry is made in a 'Write only database" for every transaction, from which data cannot be deleted nor updated) . 
• The rule of the game is to build trust of participating parties, each transaction is recorded in a 'write only immutable database' and participating parties get a copy of transaction log every time a new transaction happens. So at any point of time every participant has the latest  transaction ledger. There is some amount of redundancy in the process because the ledger gets sent to all participants every time there is a transaction but it helps to ensure absolute trust since there is no one person managing the central database and there is no change of manipulation of data without knowledge of other concerned parties and as mentioned earlier all participants have their own copy of database which is immutable and tamper proof.

How could Sensors, Social Media, Call data, Intellegence Data & Big Data help prevent terror attacks on Indian Borders?

As we hear the news of another terror attack in Jammu & Kashmir in India, I wonder what kind of software driven intelligence is used by Indian Army to predict and prevent terror attacks. I was in discussion with an army officer from intelligence department and we discussed how these technologies are being used by telecom, bank & insurance companies to prevent frauds, by power and oil companies to predict and prevent power outages and the army gentleman was amazed at the use of big data, sensor, predictive analytics, artificial intelligence technologies by industry verticals.

Software architects are trained to identify scope for innovation by using existing infrastructure coupled with latest technologies. We can sit with a bottle of beer or a cup of coffee and tell you a incredible story that may seems fantastic and surreal but quite easy to implement. The army men promised me that he would discuss the case studies with his boss and hopefully set a meeting with him! What could be better than being invited to share ideas with the guys from army intelligence and do my bit for the country. I am going to post some usecases that can be used to build a Border Security solution using Sensors, Predictive Intelligence & historical data. I am not familiar with the technologies in use by border security forces so I am going to assume certain facts.


What I think can be achieved in a short time is a Multi Dimensional Intelligence Dashboard (we love buzz words!) that can give various insights into potential security breaches on border and real time alerts.

Intelligence Dashboard can give intelligent insights for example :


1) What are the locations around the border where enemy may try to sneak in on a particular time on a particular day?

2) What is probability of an intrusion at various locations on border based on human movements on both sides of the border

3) What is probability of intrusion based on weather condition and day/time of the year

4) What kind of intrusion strategy can be expected on next D-day

5) What are the support groups that could be working within the border to support the enemy  intrusion and how to track their movement

6) What is the synergy between social media, telecommunication and messaging application and enemy activity

7) How to auto detect events that indicate potential enemy activity in near future

The following sample illustration shows different data sets being collected, processed in real time and predictive analytics being performed on data at rest. Data sets are collated and analysed to derive insight into potential incidents and displayed on user friendly dashboard

Aadhar Data - Aadhar Data is worth more than most expensive substance in the world (Part-5)

Did you know the most expensive material in the world is Antimatter and it valued at $62.5 trillion per gram.approximately.

A software engineer mind is devils workshop. Every time we see a new software we start reviewing the software for quality, usability, scalability, availability, security & performance without even getting access to the software code.Over the time as we came to know about different implementation of Aadhar services,for example Aadhar being used to log daily attendance of Mumbai BMC (Bombay Municipal Corporation) employees, my concern was how many hits would the Aadhar server withstand if we use #Aadhar authentication for 'services that don't really need Aadhar validation'  If every Municipal Corporation across #India starts accessing #Aadhar Server every time employees enters and leaves office, I wonder how many servers would be required ?
                                     It also made me wonder if  we ares misusing the Aadhar services for everything sundry just because we have a new gadget in hand! Using Aadhar for services that don't really require identity verification is bad design and we need to be concerned about it. BMC employer attendance is an example of misuse of Aadhar verify the identity of an employee everyday in fact 2 times a day? is the next step tp use Aadhar to take attendance of school children from kg to post-graduation? What purpose is Aadhar identity verification serving? Would it not be simpler to continue with a local automated attendance service (most companies already have had it)  instead of hitting the Aadhar server? I won't repeat the 'Misuse of Aadhar for BMC attendance' example as I have explained the issue in another post on my blog (Whats is wrong with Aadhar Software System ? (Part-1))
            The other point we should worry about is hackers, simply because no internet based service is safe from hackers. The alleged data leaks are concern for most Indians because UIDAI has not been able to arrest the guilty and since they have not arrested the Tribune reporter as of 6th Feb 2018 there is reason to believe that the data leak incident was REAL. From the facts reported by media I have done an Virtual-Technical-Analysis ( no there is no such term as VTA, I just coined it myself and I am laying claim to the IP rights) of what could be wrong with Aadhar System and I would be more than happy if someone can prove my analysis wrong. Assuming a data leak has happened or can happen if a expert hacker group decides to target Aadhar database. After all if hackers could breach the security of Pentagon intranet, what in TODAYS AADHAR IMPLEMENTATION makes us so confident that Aadhar security cannot be breached? We have honest gentleman politicians in India so I will not go into the use-case where a political party decides to access financial data about certain individual or group of individuals because that would be an illegal activity yet its a potential risk we need to consider. What if a future government decides to use the Aadhar data to target a group of people?
        For a commoner like me the worry is that if my data is leaked, the personal data can be sold to marketing companies and I will lose my privacy. Some entity with access to my Aadhar data can easily associate the Aadhar data with my financial data (banks, stock, insurance, credit card purchases etc) and I could be subject of blackmail or kidnapping or even corrupt government officials - Tribune report exposes that it was corrupt officials who breached the data and UIDAI was not even aware till Tribune published the news report. So enough reasons for a civilian/commoner to worry. Right?

Take a use case of a enemy country that buys the leaked data thought multiple intermediaries so the Corrupt Patriot who sells the data to a marketing company would actually be selling it to an enemy like Pakistan. Now why would Pakistan buy Aadhar data? Well soon #Aadhar number will be linked to
1) SIM number
2) Bank Account
3) Credit card
4) Land purchase records
5) Children School and other services

So from Aadhar data and Credit card company data I can write a book on an army officers daily routine.
Where does he live?
What did he study? What is his skill set? Is he a fighter pilot or a grenadier?
What toothpaste does he use? What flavor of corn-flex does he like ( his wife's credit-card is also linked to Aadhar and card is linked to man's bank account - Damit! Everything financial is linked!)
Does the person take a bus or car to office (from credit card used at tolls)?
Where is the address of the person's office? What time does he return home? (time from toll plaza where you used credit-card to pay toll, his mobile tower data)
How many hours does he speak on cellphone? Who are the ppl on his mobile call list?
If he is an army officer is he on leave or at work? What is his current posting? (credit-card usage location)
What brand of clothes does he wear? Which restaurant does he  usually eat at? Can he afford the clothes? Does he have expensive taste and is he in debt and hence easy target for honey-trap?

Imagine if enemy gets the #Aadhar data of a security personal they will have all details about each army personnel  including

1) Count of service men in armed forces
2) The current posting of each service men
3) How many men are deployed at a given post?
4) What is age of each service man.
5) What is his credit history
6) What are his vices if any
So practically everything that is linked by Aadhar and everything required to profile and lay a honey-trap, can be pulled out if you get access to a persons Aadhar data. Now that could be a big risk for the armed services. By linking Aadhar to financial transactions we are creating a rich data-bank that is bloody valuable and magnet to hackers and enemy and services should introspect if they need to raise their concern with the government. I am sure armed forces cannot be excused from Aadhar but if the government understands the risk it can revisit its Aadhar Vision and use Aadhar for extending social benefits as was the original plan and not make it a Hop On Hop Off Bus.Other examples of using Aadhar for school admissions and hospital admission are glaring lapses in the Aadhar vision. These are basic services that citizen has right to and you cannot force people to use Aadhar to get heath care, especially when they are not using government sponsored health care. The aim of government in making Aadhar mandatory for getting health seems to be to keep a tab on the expenses which is unfair and invades privacy and recently a woman lost her life when hospital refused admission as she could not produce Aadhar card.
                                    So how do the progressive nations protect this data-bank? They don''t have to protect any bio-metrics data bank. Every nation that has some kind of UID never use it to link financial data of a citizen and they do not capture bio-metrics because of the huge responsibility to protect the identity of a citizen. USA thought of using bio-metrics in early 40s and the parliament ruled against it. There are couple of countries that use blockchain for e-governance but even these countries   (eg Estonia) do not have Aadhar like system. Instead they have a chip ID that holds UID of the person and if you lose the chip-id you can block it within seconds (something like losing a credit card.) Chip is used to verify that you are you and no data is shared with service providers . The Estonia chip-id is not used to validate your personal details like Aadhar uses to verify the address and other details when you buy a cell sim card. Since the chip id is a card that is not linked to internet, it can be used to validate your identity but cannot provide access to other financial transactions of the citizen. India should have thought on these lines before hurrying to extend Aadhar to sundry services.

Some will say you are scaring the common man with you examples of what could happen but do you know whats wrong and do you have a solution? Yes as a software professional I do know whats wrong or at least I think I know what is wrong with Aadhar. I know why we have faced certain issues that were reported and by reasoning I can tell you what are the potential issues of the future that Aadhar 'seems' to have overlooked and how to build a robust UID.

As I posted in my earlier blog post,  'Open Letter to decision makers', the first thing to do is to accept that Aadhar is a revolutionary system that needs to onboard all political parties. We cannot have new
Aadhar vision every 5 years as & when there is political changes at the center and we cannot have political parties fighting on Aadhar Vision. Once you have a documented Aadhar Vision then hand it to the IT guys to finetune the Aadhar Vision (what is doable) and then define a Aadhar Roadmap (What to implement 1st and so on) and then create a solution that takes care of 1.3 billion Indian and growing.  Once the vision is decided there should a a well defined change management process to do any change to the vision, one smart pants should not be able to change the vision without approval of change control board. Change control is how we maintain sanity in the software development world or else we would never stop accepting changes from the business that gets ambitious bright new ideas every week!
                 Final words of advise, like a civil architecture, well designed foundation is the most critical element for the success of a software. If you have laid a foundation to build Taj Mahal and after a year you decide to erect a Burj Khalifa instead of Taj Mahal then you need to start from zero and design and build a new foundation or else the Burj Khalifa will collapse even before the 10th floor is laid down. When we build software for fortune 100 companies they have best domain experts and software architects working for them to advise them and ensure that the IT service provider has designed a good system. Change in governments usually changes the entire setup of governance and I think that's why governments miss the services of IT experts with huge experience of architecting large complex software using proven Software Development Methodology (Whats that!). When you are embarking Digital Journey make sure you hire experienced architects who have developed software for Fortune 100 companies and have burnt their hands few times. Let the architects drive the vision or else when you go in production the lack of vision will drive everybody crazy. Before implementing anything new make sure you know the risks and have a risk mitigation plan. When I read about Aadhar glitches and see  UIDAI get into a huddle, I wonder why it was not documented as a risk and why there was no risk mitigation plan to counter the risk! Purpose of this post was to share some thoughts with personals from services and then let them as questions. My worst fear is Aadhar data of our armed forces in the hands of a enemy country and we should not let that happen just because some ambitious politicians ranting Digital Mantra and with no understanding of Software Development Methodology (process followed to build software) implements some crazy Aadhar services to earn some browny points with the voters.

If Estonia can have a blockchain based e-governance why can't India have it too?

When Estonia started building their information society in 1999, there did not have any citizens digital data. The general population did not have the internet or even devices. It took great vision and foresight to invest in IT solutions and take the information technology route to reach a stage in 2008 where they implemented blockchain to provide solutions like egovernance ,eHealth, eResidency, eTax, eVoting, eID and ePolice.

eGovernance - 99% public services are available on line

eHealth          -  95% medical records are online

eResidency   - transnational digital identity

eDatabase     - all state data is stored on open source distributed database

eTax              - 95% tax filling is done electronically

eVoting         - 1st country to offer internet based voting

eID                - chip based id, 2048 bit public key encryption, unlike Aadhar it stores personal ID

ePolice          - helped reduce crime & accidental deaths by 50%

eSecurity       - blockchain technology to ensure data and systems integrity and combat insider risk

eReporting    - cut-down on business reporting by intelligent automated reports 

Do visit https://e-estonia.com/ to read more about their vision and implementation. What a country can do with right experts on the job! I salute their vision, planning and implementation.