Technology

59377 readers

3673 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

The Taliban’s curious love of SIM cards. (restofworld.org)

submitted 10 months ago by King@lemy.lol to c/technology@lemmy.world

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Ai generated TLDR:

The Taliban is distributing free SIM cards to Afghan refugees, likely to collect biometric data for tracking and surveillance purposes. SIM cards are valuable to governments for controlling communication networks and monitoring populations. Despite economic uncertainty, Afghanistan's telecom industry has reported positive growth, with plans for building new towers. The Taliban's regressive policies have barred women and girls from working, being educated, or visiting parks, and the value of tracking them is higher for the Taliban than the risk of giving them access to the world's information. Internet shutdowns and government control over communication networks can cause economic and civilian harm, yet they are becoming increasingly common worldwide.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Chup@feddit.de 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

As you didn't read the article:

“This move seems driven by the government’s interest in collecting and centralizing biometric data for identification, tracking, and surveillance purposes,” he said. Omar agreed: “Probably to keep track of the refugees.”

They hand out SIM cards to track those SIM cards. Using a certain messaging app on the phone or not doesn't change SIM card tracking within the network.

[–] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Surveillance purposes

Can include the contents of messages you’re sending. So if they’re using Signal, then at least they can’t see what they’re talking about.

[–] anlumo@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They’d still see that they’re using Signal, which is probably good enough for the whip.

[+] dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] asbestos@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

…Wasn’t the conversation about SIM cards?

[–] philpo@feddit.de 4 points 10 months ago

You are aware how fucking easy it is to link metadata from devices, no matter what connection they actually use once you have access to a countries backbone, especially if you are a low income country with just a few exchanges, a service that solely exists with centralised servers outside the country and no privacy laws? It's extremely easy. Devices fingerprinting,etc. is a thing.

The only benefit of Signal would be the fact that the man in the middle has no idea that you what you actually write. But considering that it's easy for them to just claim someone has done something and punish them it's no help here.

There are designated messengers for situations like that, briar is one example. But Signal is a really bad choice here and Wifi doesn't change a thing.

[–] cjf@feddit.uk 2 points 10 months ago

Would be awesome if they somehow ended up using signal as a means to facilitate remote learning. Mind you they’d have to be very careful and hide it from any potential snitches…

[–] stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Signal doesn’t require a SIM card… it can send with wifi…

So yes, signal would work just fine and they wouldn’t need a “free” SIM card.

Next I want to see someone send a flock of pigeons or hawks with free sims

[–] YMS@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you don't want to communicate with non-Signal users and are always within range of a public or known Wifi network where ever you are in Afghanistan, then I guess this is fine.

[–] stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub 2 points 10 months ago

Right, so if you’re sending non-encrypted messages, you are indeed still sending non-encrypted messages, which defeats the whole purpose