Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
.... solution is more registration?
'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.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
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.
Body found, no fingers and cell phone missing.
'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.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.