Apple Disables Egyptian iPhones' GPS

floydman writes "Apparently the Egyptian government is paranoid about its community using GPS devices, to the degree that it demanded Apple remove any GPS functionality from its iPhone 3G. They claim that 'GPS functionality should be limited to military purposes.' Egyptian blogger Ahmed Gabr brought this issue up in another article, and talks about how this does not make sense, since Google maps and the like can be used. I also happen to know for a fact that most of the modern cars in Egypt have built-in GPS systems."

Comments

Swell plan

[Opportunist]

In a country that consists to a good deal of desert and other not too pleasant terrain where getting lost means dying it's a really, really good idea to disallow tools that allow you to find out where exactly you are.

Is it me or is this already beyond stupid and paranoid? What "advantage" could a terrorist/communist/boogymanoftheweek gain from knowing where he is? I guess those people are

a) knowledgeable enough of the area to know where they are.
b) Usually not interested in blowing themselves sky high in the middle of nowhere and
c) Not too picky of where they strike, as long as it causes enough people to get terrorized (hence their description).

So I'm waiting for a really good explanation why a potentially life saving function should be turned of for "security" reasons. I know, "national security" means "whatever keeps the government in power" these days, but shouldn't we at least keep the pretence up that it's about keeping the people safe?