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

EXPLOSIVE cell phone use!

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is exactly the point in Pakistan.

Terrorists steal registered SIMs

[IamTheRealMike]

.... solution is more registration?

Re:Terrorists steal registered SIMs

[abhisri]

Indeed it is. If you actually thought about it, if getting a new sim card mandatorily required biometric authentication, there will be a fool-proof system that the said terrorists cannot get SIM card using someone else's name. And since now I cannot blame a flawed system, I will take more care to report a stolen/lost SIM card to authorities and get it disabled.

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:More of this ridiculous

[Totenglocke]

More of this ridiculous "if you can't get hold of the terrorists, carpet-bomb the innocent with surveillance"

That's because you (possibly?) foolishly believe that the goal is to stop "terrorists". It's not, the goal of all of these spying programs is to control the population, terrorists (especially the government trained and funded ones) are just a nice PR tool to achieve that goal.

Re:More of this ridiculous

[BronsCon]

but it does mean that the terrorist has to improve his security hygiene to remain undetected.

And what happens when they do? Why actively encourage them to make themselves harder to catch?

Re:Not very effective.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well no, its not a magic cure to the terrorist problem, but i can see how it would significantly hamper the terrorists and criminals. Its not like you can use a sim card registered to your name for dastardly deeds. You could for example use foreign sim cards, but you can bet authorities will be watching these with extra care.
Anyway i don't know about where you live but over here biometric passports and id cards are used, meaning that you give your fingerprints when you apply for an id. So names and fingerprints are already tied. Prepaid sim cards are sold, so in principle you can have a cellphone with nothing linking it to your name, but most people just get contracts with service providers so by and large cellphones and identities are tied.

Re:Not very effective.

[peragrin]

what gets me is how is having an illegal sim card not be traceable.

a cell phone is a portable tracking and identifying device. You don't need fingerprints, just force everyone who accesses the local networks to have registered sim cards, linked to registered contracts. no prepaid sims.

if you can't track cell phones without fingerprints then you are doing something wrong.

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: Not very effective.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know whether to be angry about the incursion against freedom or happy that dem Mozlems be doing something to clean up terrrism.

Where's Fox News to feed me an opinion when I need them?

this does nothing, systemically.

[nimbius]

Its worth noting this enforcement is largely designed to target terrorist attacks against the Pakistani government. 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. Nawaz Sharif is kept in power by coup and crackdown, not free election, while the united states basically shovels money into his political fund. The fingerprint system is, conveniently, also an excellent means by which to deter active protests and dissent.

people are terrorists due to a combination of desparation, isolation, and doctrine. Once a person becomes determined with nothing to lose, then theyre not easily dissuaded from terrorist acts. Having your village razed by foreign aircraft you could never see is one thing, but for your government to turn a blind eye just adds insult to injury and paves the way for neurotic warlords and clerics to fill the void.

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:this does nothing, systemically.

[DNS-and-BIND]

Are we completely ignoring the fact that the Pakistan government has encouraged Islamism in its territory since Prime Minister Bhutto in the 1970s? It's America's fault now?

What does the word 'Pakistan' mean?

Re:this does nothing, systemically.

[dave420]

I knew you'd make a post like this. I simply knew it when I saw the headline. Does the plethora of intelligent Irish terrorists in the last few decades show that Catholicism causes terrorism? Of course not. You just have a handy excuse to blame Islam for things you don't like, which you seem to revel in every single time this discussion comes up.

You probably don't realise that your opinion is just as dangerous as the opinions held by the terrorists themselves - you are willing - no, actively trying - to paint nearly 2 billion people with the same hateful brush, and simply refuse to look at the actual evidence.

Great idea

[nospam007]

Why not use the same logic with guns?
If a person who asks for a gun license and enters 'armed robbery' as reason for obtaing one, just refuse it.
Presto, no crime anymore.

Re:Great idea

[blind biker]

Why not use the same logic with guns?
If a person who asks for a gun license and enters 'armed robbery' as reason for obtaing one, just refuse it.
Presto, no crime anymore.

Why, that's exactly how the US visa application reads like. There is a series of questions in the form, asking whether you are a terrorist, whether you plan on a terrorist attack on the US soil, etc.

Re:Yet another victory

[rmdingler]

I found myself on the fence here. Though it is shrinking, there has been a great deal of support in Pakistan for the extremist Muslim crusades by Al Qaeda and ISIL. Case in point: the Americans didn't notify Pakastanis before the raid on bin Laden's compound, even though they were allegedly allies at the time.

I believe this represents a turn from the tacit support of recent Pakastani leadership, as the actions of ISIL have become less palatable to many of their former support bases.

So yeah, it's a restriction of personal freedom imposed by a heavy-handed government, but I don't think most westerners have any idea what the average citizen's freedom is in an Islamic Republic.

Re: Not very effective.

[PlusFiveTroll]

Body found, no fingers and cell phone missing.

Re:Not very effective.

[jd2112]

'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.

Vizzini to girlfriend: "You're Pregnant? Inconceivable!
Girlfriend: I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Re: Not very effective.

[TigerPlish]

Body found, no fingers and cell phone missing.

I know you're probably going for Funny (which it is!) but sadly chopping fingers off to fool biometrics has been done before.

Problem with using the machete technique on the iPhone is that it requires a live body.

Re:Not very effective.

[ColdWetDog]

Anyone going into Pakistan (or any other foreign country) would need a visa (and probably a Visa). So the government would have ample opportunity to set up tracking / notification / surveillance or whatever they deem appropriate. Killing or kidnapping foreigners for a SIM card seems a bit overwrought as other Slashdotters have quickly discovered several other loopholes (give a random kid $20, kid gets cell phone, kid disappears into the slums .... )

  I doubt this will be terribly useful but it might help track phones to some extent.

Re:It should be obvious by now

[ColdWetDog]

'm fairly certain the median IQ ( not to mention ethical and moral standards ) of those who peruse Slashdot are a few standard deviations higher than those who run governments.

I think the median deviation of those that peruse Slashdot are a few standards higher than governmental officials, but not so sure about IQ.

Re:Not very effective.

[BitZtream]

Taliban warrior walks into a cell phone store in Pakistan.

Tells the clerk he wants a phone

Clerk does all the various bits of things required ... asks for a finger print.

Taliban member lays down someones finger on the counter, says 'use this one'.

Taliban sympathetic clerk says 'Okay!'