Pakistanis Must Provide Fingerprints Or Give Up Cellphone

schwit1 sends this report from the Washington Post: Cellphones didn't just arrive in Pakistan. But someone could be fooled into thinking otherwise, considering the tens of millions of Pakistanis pouring into mobile phone stores these days. In one of the world's largest — and fastest — efforts to collect biometric information, Pakistan has ordered cellphone users to verify their identities through fingerprints for a national database being compiled to curb terrorism. If they don't, their service will be shut off, an unthinkable option for many after a dozen years of explosive growth in cellphone usage here.

Prompted by concerns about a proliferation of illegal and untraceable SIM cards, the directive is the most visible step so far in Pakistan's efforts to restore law and order after Taliban militants killed 150 students and teachers at a school in December. Officials said the six terrorists who stormed the school in Peshawar were using cellphones registered to one woman who had no obvious connection to the attackers.

Comments

Terrorists steal registered SIMs

[IamTheRealMike]

.... solution is more registration?

More of this ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

More of this ridiculous "if you can't get hold of the terrorists, carpet-bomb the innocent with surveillance". Hey, we are talking of terrorists, who regularly buy assault rifles and explosives, who happily will die in a suicide bombing or in a shot exchange with special police forces. Surely they'll find it very difficult to get an unregistered SIM card.

Re:More of this ridiculous

[Meneth]

Surely they'll find it very difficult to get an unregistered SIM card.

No, but they'll find it difficult to get unregistered cards to work, at least once the networks start blocking all cards that are not registered.

The counter to that is to steal registered cards. The counter to that is to report the cards as stolen. Counter: kill the card-owners, so they can't report the cards. Counter: police de-registers cards belonging to dead people. Counter: kidnap/disappear the card-owners. Only works until the authorities catch on in each individual case. Mitigation: keep kill/stealing. That's what terrorists do anyway, so no problem there. Problem: you're now switching numbers often. Gonna be difficult to keep your address book up-to-date.

Re:More of this ridiculous

[lkcl]

Gonna be difficult to keep your address book up-to-date.

that's not a problem if you only need a one-time (or limited) campaign. or a IED remote trigger device for example. or you have a dead-drop location (online or otherwise) with up-to-date numbers. or a whole number of other scenarios that are probably and have been standard practice *anyway* for decades.

tell me... how come in a simple public discussion slashdot readers can come up with simple practical scenarios why mass-surveillance "solutions" like this will be completely ineffective, yet the people considering (or actually) deploying them cannot? and: why can the pakistani government not see that this knee-jerk response will have the terrorists celebrating the success of bringing awareness of their campaign to every single mobile phone user across pakistan in a very personal way.

Re:Not very effective.

[CreatureComfort]

'Cause stealing someone else's cell phone and using it would be totally Inconceivable!

/ I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Re:this does nothing, systemically.

[Chrisq]

The longterm solution to Pakistans terrorism problems is largely structural and political. Increased education funding, crackdowns on government corruption, increased employment, and most of all a more vocal and political opposition to the United States drone war.

Wishful thinking. Its time to realise terrorism is motiveted by Islam, not poverty or lack of education. The BBC let slip this morning that girls going off to become "ISIS brides" were above average intelligence, straight A students and they did not grow up in poverty. The same for the 9/11 bombers.

Re: Not very effective.

[PlusFiveTroll]

Body found, no fingers and cell phone missing.