Slashdot Mirror
India Shuts Down Mobile SMS For 'Security'
Hemant writes: "On Friday, March 15th, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in India surprised the cell-phone users by asking the mobile operators to block the highly popular short message service (SMS) for security reasons! The dorks at IB think that underworld dons (mafia and terrorists) within and outside the country were using SMS facilities to coordinate with anti-social elements to spark communal tension across the country.
The officials of IB, police and other intelligence agencies believe that SMS facilities should be withdrawn till they can tap a technology to monitor messages. It is easy for the police to 'monitor' a mobile phone, but almost impossible to check SMS. So if you from mafia, you can do email, voice chat, streaming video, anything you want but for sending out vanilla 160 character ASCII text messages!"
Did anyone else get an advert for "India's Instant Messenger" at the botom of the article?
And a time will come when a machine will be able read your thoughts. Stuff out of science fiction? Sure. but there is no reason to believe the task for creating such a machine is an N-Complete problem.
Would your government, your local police take a moral stand against such a thing, and refrain from using it? Do they refrain from tapping into the internet, listening to the phone networks? Is anything sacred?
The future seems darker with every step that governments take in injecting themselves into every aspect of peoples lives. And you better believe they'll want in your head f they ever get a chance.
Maybe it's time to start thinking about the future. And sure, this sounds crazy, and I certainly hope it always be that way. Just something crazy that will never happen. But there is no magic protecting the mind from ever beings visualized.
I think it's a possibility that should be considered. If such technology ever comes about it will slam the world into unimaginable oppression. A nightmare world of people pushed into schizophrenia.
If we're lucky, such technology will remain forever outside of the capabilities of the human race. But you never know. It certainly wouldn't hurt to enact some very explicit human rights laws. Use of such technology should be dealt with as harshly as possible. Make the penalties be the same as for murder.
Just a little insurance for those poor bastards who are living in the future at this very moment.
Contrary to popular belief, the recent rioting wasn't related to the usual illiterate, masses. Over 700 people were murdered in Gujarat, India and the ringleaders were often guided to minority community homes and shops by instant messages on their mobiles. The Government HAS to do something, especially since the State Government in Gujarat is viewed by most as at least uncaring if not complicit.
What is MOBILE number? What is your style number?
Ever use SMS to talk about hot babes without them knowing it?
Now try it again, only talking about a coordinated attack on a crowd. Voice "you take the out the guard by the east door, I'll take out the one on the south side" would warn anyone within earshot, but SMS wouldn't.
Other areas where SMS could be a problem is getting through airport security - if one of your co-hijackers was caught, the others could SMS each other warning them to avoid certain checkpoints, or by somebody outside of a bank robbery in case things go bad and the people inside need to know what the police are up to outside.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
In fact, such "legal interception" capabilities are often built-in to the SMS centers themselves. At least Nokia does this. If they didn't do it, they would not get sell in those countries where it is mandated by law.