Swiss to Name Mobile Phone Users

elmacho writes "In what is surely a knee-jerk reaction, the Swiss parliament has banned anonymous mobile phone usage following the revelations that Al Qaeda members were using the phones in other countries. Wasn't it established the other day that, considering they were caught, the anonymity provided by the phones is limited? What purpose will this serve, assuming that any terrorists who need a mobile phone will simply purchase one in another of the many countries that do provide anonymous mobiles?"

Comments

Actually, they are doing criminals a service...

[stienman]

Think of it this way - there are lots of stupid, yet successful criminals out there. These criminals may not yet know or understand that they can be tracked via anonymous phone usage.

By illegalizing anonymous cell phones, the Swiss Gov't is simply saying to the criminals, "Hey, we know what a tough business it is keeping up with all the cloak and dagger stuff you guys have to do to stay free. Rather than letting you fall on your sword, er, cell phone, and get caught, we'll keep up with the latest technology others are employing against you, and ban common thieving tools which are vulnerable, thus saving you valuable time which you can spend in more productive pursuits, such as larceny, or our favorite, GTA 3."

The upside for criminals is that they'll have to work a little harder to get an anonymous or fake identity phone, but echelon will now have to check a much larger pool of phones for suspicious activity, instead of focusing most of its efforts on anonymous phones.

The upside is that switzerland != the world, so anonymous phones are still available elsewhere.

-Adam