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Iranian Police Tracking Dissidents Using Tech From Western Companies
chrb writes "A recent article at Bloomberg discusses Western companies supplying monitoring equipment to Iran. There are few regulations restricting the sale of intelligence monitoring systems to the Iranian government, and large corporations like Ericsson and Nokia have supplied the equipment used to identify dissidents and suppress anti-government protests. '[One such system from Creativity Software] can record a person’s location every 15 seconds — eight times more frequently than a similar system the company sold in Yemen, according to company documents. A tool called "geofences" triggers an alarm when two targets come in close proximity to each other. The system also stores the data and can generate reports of a person's movements. A former Creativity Software manager said the Iran system was far more sophisticated than any other systems the company had sold in the Middle East.'"
Hey, we're not in business to preserve human rights. In fact, we would be legally liable for failing our fiduciary duty to our shareholders if we failed to pursue the lucrative oppression-assistance market. We were incorporated to pursue profit and, by golly, that's what we're doing!
Now if we could just get our Western governments to stop using the same bullshit...
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Personally I'm more concerned about this tech being used to track people in Western nations.
Let me just say: fuck Creativity Software and fuck any programmer willing to work for them. There's this thing called 'ethics' and if they choose to violate the most basic premises to enable people to do shit like this, the outcomes are also on *their* heads. None of this "just doing my job" bullshit.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
FYI - I couldn't be more against despotic regimes, I don't fly because of the TSA... I'm not an apologist. /Syria was before this one)
I do; however, have the same question anytime this article runs on Slashdot (Bluecoat
If you are Ericcson/Cisco/Bluecoat/Juniper/etc, how do you ensure your tech never ends up being used for "evil"?
Who is evil? Should network filtering equipment be declared munitions and its export controlled? Should they include a killswitch so if it gets in the hands of an evil dictator it can be disabled? Should Nokia do background checks on all potential buyers to try to predict whether or not they are straw purchasers for evil entities?
Both of those ideas some either really far fetched, impractical, or inethical in themselves... so my question is - if you feel a hatin' rising up after reading this about Ericcson/Nokia - what should they do?
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
Most of the weapons that have flooded the third world come from Russia (or the Soviet Union in the past), China or a handful of other countries that routinely ignore international law and protocol on arms dealing. Where was the outrage when the Libyan rebels found all of those brand new Chinese weapons from the Chinese state-owned weapons makers in Gaddafi's posession? Ever notice the dearth of American weapons in all of the third world killing zones?
Frankly, I don't think the pursuit of profit is any more crass than the pursuit of political influence. Either way, you are putting your own good above doing the right thing.
Didn't past articles say they were smuggled into Iran by Dubai-based buyers?
I guess we can have a debate about how many degrees of separation is needed for effective export restrictions, but I don't know how we can ever draw the lines to be reasonable.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
You're praising EA?!?!? Did a brain slug land on your head right after your tin foil hat fell off?
If what I just said sounded like a troll, it was probably just a failed attempt at humor.
I think it means you lack the flexibility to interpret language in practice.
What, are you a computer? Deal with it, it wasn't hard to understand the intended meaning from context.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Your post is a bit incoherent - are you trying to accuse me of being paranoid?
Here's some reading for you.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/02/uk-military-iran-attack-nuclear
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/03/iran-nuclear-ambitions-secret-war
Come back when you have a clearer picture of your country's current political strategy.
You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
Back in WWII IBM's Brazilian division kept working with and suppling IBM's German division. The IBM's Hollerith punch card system was updated to be the workflow system for the holocaust. According to the author of the book IBM and the Holocaust when IBM USA found out IBM Brazil was still working with German division their response was a request no longer to be told of the activities. At the same time IBM was one of the few companies that knew when the D-Day invasion would be as it was actively using computer power to predict the best weather for the invasion.
Oh, I think I have a really clear picture of my countries' political strategy. Coinsidering I'm stuck with it, and no candidate I vote for makes a difference, and I am forced to pay into it (our military spending is 2 magnitudes bigger than what we spend on education), it's somewhat depressing to think about. Occasionally, I intentionally try to blind myself by making levity of the situation because it is truly depressing.
My comment was meant as a goofy side note, I don't want to water down your message - more power to you.
mov ah, 4ch
int 21h
You must be joking. The US is the world's largest exporter of weapons. Amongst the countries the US exports weapons to, Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan and Israel have recently been in the news for their "killing fields".
Of course, what the US govt does is make a list of evil doers and good guys. This list has little to do with killing fields or human rights, but rather political convenience and the lobbying of the arms industry. Then when someone sells to the side that the US govt doesn't like or couldn't sell to, there is much screaming about "international protocol" (ie. the list drawn up by the US and its rapidly dwindling allies).
Just because the US makes a list doesn't mean it's true or anyone else accepts it—don't be such a tool.
In fact, we would be legally liable for failing our fiduciary duty to our shareholders
This is not strictly true, though it is often quoted from someplace, usually someoneâ(TM)s ass.
A company has the responsibility to do what is best for the stockholders. There is NO law requiring publically traded companies to pursue profit above all other considerations.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Nobody, except the sickest, craziest Zionists and right-wing Republicans -- is that stupid. Like the Burmese junta, the mad mullahs of Tehran are a hydra-headed beast; cutting off a few heads won't destroy the beast. With this lot, change clearly has to come from within.
Or should I say, their system needs a few decades to rot from within; their ideological rigidity and zeal will ensure that they won't be able to adapt to circumstances, and they'll eventually be blown away by the winds of change before they even know what hit them.
So what, if these monkeys get nukes? If they ever dare to use them, they'll be obliterated, and they know it. Even animals have survival instincts. Why not just LET them waste the money and resources building useless weapons. A dollar spent building a centrifuge, is a dollar not spent on far more threatening conventional arms, or terror operations.
All we have to do is sit back, play the long game, and wait.
er... oops?
Still. If read aloud (physically or in your head) you should hear the same (or very similar) sound. This should not be very difficult to puzzle out.
I remember working through less easy issues in a first-year Spanish class, so there really is no excuse for being such a bitch about it.
We're not writing term papers or treaties, here.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...