15 ms·
Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI
- maxxxxx 7y agoBy supporting Saudi Arabia the West really shoots itself in the foot. You can't lecture other countries about freedom while supporting this regime.
- sampo 7y ago> By supporting Saudi Arabia the West really shoots itself in the foot. Well, the West went and took down the regime in Iraq, but some think that didn't go so well, either. SA is ruled by a clan and king, so it's not a full theocracy at least. If you go and perturb things, there is also room to make the situation worse.
- ilikehurdles 7y agoOne could cut trade relations without violently attempting regime change.
- tehjoker 7y agoFwiw, the sanctions the US imposes on other countries often are brutal to their innocent population. One thing we could do is provide asylum for persecuted people, but appearently we don't do that anymore (and never have done it in great quantity).
- lostlogin 7y agoA lot of the early European settlers in the US were fleeing religious persecution. But I suppose it wasn’t the USA then... https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/rel01.html
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>A lot of the early European settlers in the US were fleeing religious persecution. What's your point? Some of them turned around and treated people who didn't fit in with them even worse than they themselves had been treated when in Europe. I can think of a couple groups who, in retrospect, the natives should have killed on day 1.
- lostlogin 7y agoMy comment wasn’t clear - tehjoker stated that the US had never let in a lot of persecuted people. The early European colonisers included a lot of small groups fleeing persecution. As you mention, formerly persecuted groups don’t seem to behave better when they get power.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- _bxg1 7y agoThere's a difference between overthrowing the government and not letting them invest in Uber.
- dannykwells 7y agoAlso different than selling them like 10Bil in arms. Europe, for example, has not invaded SA, but is not buddy buddy with MBS. Also, it's clear that sanctions are a much more powerful weapon than invasion. Western sanctions (or embargo) on SA oil would certainly put them in a tight(er) spot. No excuses!!!
- Cyph0n 7y agoWeapons sanctions are guaranteed way to hit the Gulf monarchies hard. They are extremely dependent on US tech as far as I know.
- sampo 7y agoYou just need to estimate to level of sanctions so that the monarchy will still be able to stay in power, without risking an Islamic revolution.
- beagle3 7y agoYou forgot the /s Or Are you not aware that the monarchy is already Islamic, of the kind least tolerant towards personal freedoms?
- lostlogin 7y agoWhat would an Islamist revolution risk for those that aren’t rulers in SA? Other Islamists regimes have done less harm than SA.
- justforyou 7y agoWhat's the net benefit of continuing to support the monarchy which exported wahhabism to the rest of the middle east?
- maxxxxx 7y agoThe russians would be very happy to help probably.
- 7y ago
- luckylion 7y agoIraq and Libya, both of which seemed moderate compared to SA (Saddam less so then Qaddafi). Neither Iraq nor Libya have, to my knowledge, ever been used as an argument for why "we" have to unconditionally support SA, though. Neither of them have been an ally before "spreading democracy", so they don't make good analogies either imho. Also, "unwavering ally" and "we'll remove their state and let the country fall into civil war" aren't the only options on the table.
- mieseratte 7y agoI believe the point is that sometimes a tyrant is worse than cutting off the head and seeing the hydra. Of course it’s possible Iraq would’ve gone different without the Coalition Provisional Authority’s early orders.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago>I believe the point is that sometimes a tyrant is worse than cutting off the head and seeing the hydra. If the last several dictators ousted from nations in the middle east teaches us anything it's that we do not want the hydra. It cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives to dump all the crap out of the Iraq vacuum. Egypt was teetering on the edge for quite awhile after the arab spring. Libya is still in ruins. Syria speaks for itself. Afghanistan is slipping back into Taliban control. Every time we touch it it gets worse. While I think we can all agree that totalitarian rulers are not the global maximum they seem to be a pretty clear local maximum in the middle east. The situations that develop in their absence are so much worse on a "suffering per time" basis that it's basically impossible to justify trying to oust them.
- mieseratte 7y agoOh that was a helluva a slip. I'd meant to write sometimes a tyrant is better than the hydra. I believe you're right on the money with your point about a local maximum.
- luckylion 7y agoSometimes that may be true. In these examples it certainly hasn't, and has destabilized the whole region. Even a bad ruler is better than anomie, especially for local minorities. The yazidis may not have been happy with Assad or Saddam, but I'm pretty sure they preferred them to ISIS and similar groups.
- Cyph0n 7y agoI think the US handled the aftermath of the invasion quite poorly for a variety of reasons, one of which was the heavy exploitation of the sectarian divide.
- mahkeiro 7y agoCan you tell me what is worst between a theocracy and an absolute monarchy? In SA, the king is bound by no law not even the law of god. He wants you dead on spot, and then you die. Doesn't sound to me a better system.
- cr0sh 7y agoWhereas in a theocracy, the Ruler is bound by the law of God. God wants You dead on the spot, and the Ruler is his instrument on Earth - and then You die. The Ruler is now not at fault, because God told, and used, the Ruler to do the deed. The Ruler is absolved of responsibility - God's Will. ...do you see and understand the difference?
- a1369209993 7y agoThere is no difference, and the ruler is still responsible for not refusing the god's will.
- mikeash 7y agoApproximately nobody is saying that we should invade SA and overthrow the government. But could we at least stop selling them weapons and giving them nuclear technology and giving them defensive cover from our military?
- colechristensen 7y agoThere is a delicate game being played. If you are friendly with SA you can put pressure on them to improve. If you declare them an evil enemy would the outcome be better? There is a path to walk and it is not easy to find the right one when you have to deal with reality not just idealism. The natural resources in the middle east are important to the world and it is not so simple as an 'us vs. them' because there are many entirely separate interests in the region and we play them off each other. Maybe it would be better to do a Star Trek style prime directive of completely cutting off countries until they have a certain level of social development, but you would have to come to terms with knowing bad things were happening and actively deciding to do nothing.
- resoluteteeth 7y ago> If you are friendly with SA you can put pressure on them to improve. If you declare them an evil enemy would the outcome be better? > There is a path to walk and it is not easy to find the right one when you have to deal with reality not just idealism. The natural resources in the middle east are important to the world and it is not so simple as an 'us vs. them' because there are many entirely separate interests in the region and we play them off each other. > Maybe it would be better to do a Star Trek style prime directive of completely cutting off countries until they have a certain level of social development, but you would have to come to terms with knowing bad things were happening and actively deciding to do nothing. If the US was friendly to all countries in order to exert pressure on them this might make sense, but in light of actual US foreign policy with respect to North Korea, Iran, etc. it's completely absurd to pretend that the US is being friendly to SA as a means to effect change.
- dopamean 7y ago> it's completely absurd to pretend that the US is being friendly to SA as a means to effect change Agreed. Also, where's the change? It feels like I've been hearing the same thing about SA since I was a kid.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- leesec 7y ago>You can't lecture other countries about freedom while supporting this regime. Or generally doing any number of the malicious and horrendous things we do here in the U.S.
- Miner49er 7y agoThe fact is, the West (mainly talking about the U.S. here) doesn't care about freedom. They've made this clear many, many times. It's a buzzword, used when convenient. It sounds better to say you're invading a country to bring freedom to its people then to say you're invading to take their oil.
- swebs 7y agoIf you had to chose between supporting Saudi Arabia and supporting fracking, which would you chose?
- Shivetya 7y agowell the same should be said about China but we have many companies producing product there and I can guarantee most here have a phone, tablet, or computer, made there. there are many undesirable countries to do business with, so what is the distinction to be made? To be honest businesses that work in either should be challenged both at investor meetings and online.
- codedokode 7y agoI think the main reason is military cooperation. West supports dictator regimes and in exchange they allow to have military bases there. If USA doesn't support such regimes then they will turn to other countries who are not so picky like China or Russia.
- thiagoharry 7y agoThey can, as they always had done. Foreign relations are about trade and military cooperation. Only after these things you use the ideological arguments about "fight for the freedom" to better convince the people about who are the enemies.
- Chris_Chambers 7y agoYes you can.
- pkaye 7y agoNow that they know, they can try to swap out for a burner phone along the way.
- rolltiide 7y agoI've been thinking about having a service that lets someone else randomize the location of your phone. That was the primary goal and it evolved to food delivery couriers having additional services where they charge people's phones in a lockbox while they run around all day. Result: Many people's location is erroneous data. No single person's use of the service is suspicious and merely reflecting a societal sentiment for privacy. Maybe some of the charging is done with renewable energy.
- Scoundreller 7y ago> I've been thinking about having a service that lets someone else randomize the location of your phone. It’s called putting your old phone on eBay and buying a new (to you) one. It really confuses the Saudi intelligence forces when they find a random dude instead of a Saudi runaway. What I would like is to take advantage of some European mobile providers that have excellent roaming rates in Canada. Prices so good that a local Canadian could only dream of. I’d have 2 SIMs and put one in an rs232 interface each month that interfaces to a phone in EU so they don’t ban me for not spending enough time in the home country.
- pkaye 7y agoCan't the cell towers triangulate the phone location anyway.
- rolltiide 7y agoyes but it won't give them your location, it will give them the courier's. the location history would put your device in totally random locations during the time you want to be anonymous, but it wouldn't look like you just left your device at home either in a way that didn't fit your pattern.
- 7y ago
- binarymax 7y agoI remember back in the 90's, when Intel was going to introduce a unique identifier in their processors that could be used for authentication purposes, it caused a huge uproar and Intel backed down. [0] Having a hardware embedded unique ID that can be (is) used for tracking a known persons location at all times is probably the most intrusive privacy violation we've ever had. That we willingly carry these things around and naively throw the repercussions out the window is the result of the death by a thousand cuts. We've long lost the war on privacy. [0] https://www.wired.com/1999/01/intel-on-privacy-whoops/ https://www.wired.com/1999/01/intel-on-privacy-whoops/
- NotPaidToPost 7y agoThe IMEI identifies a device. It is, or should be, useful to lock stolen phones, though it can obviously be used to track someone who keeps the same phone even if they change SIM card. The IMSI identifies the subscriber (and/or the SIM card) even if you change phone. As long as people are able to call and be called and as long as people need to be billed there has to be a reliable form of identification. This is not an "intrusive privacy violation", it is, as you point out, a technical requirement of our willingness to be reachable and most people think that the benefits far outweigh the very limited drawbacks.
- salawat 7y agoUsername checks out. Unfortunately, truth is spoken. This is the danger inherent to full enumeration of the technologically enabled envelope. This is also the danger of the "market"; as it incentivized the ability to clearly specify the "who" of the customer. It's why I've been getting increasingly uncomfortable with the economic push away from cash as the primary medium of economic exchange. The death of the payphone marked the beginning of the end for infrastructure that wasn't in some way dependent or useful as a means of user surveillance.
- mindslight 7y ago> As long as people are able to call and be called and as long as people need to be billed there has to be a reliable form of identification. Secrecy of user nyms is trivially solved by existing mix networks (eg TOR onion services). Network access/billing could be solved by blinded signature tokens or some other untraceable bearer instrument. Implementing latter would take cooperation from the network provider, or at least an MVNO and SIM manufacturer, but it is indeed possible.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gesman 7y agoEngaging security forces to chase women. Do they also give medals for bravery for that?
- neilv 7y agoI share your concern and anger. This particular phrasing could sound like reinforcing a historical perception of women as innately weak and needing protection. I prefer to think of it as people needing help due to circumstances, and the circumstances in this case perhaps due in part to such historical perceptions.
- dusbajd 7y agoHmm 200 lb Sudanese fully armed mercenaries vs 120 lb “people” First, the “people” are being prosecuted because they have vaginas - they are women. Second, given the Newtonian consequences of 80lb of fully armed soldier, I think the OPs original sarcasm at their cowardice is not out of place.
- neilv 7y agoI don't think we're disagreeing in what either of us said, but only in whether it's the best idea to invoke historical sexist ideas (by saying simply "women", as if all else is implied) unnecessarily. Especially when we're talking about tragedies that could be direct effects of those kinds of historical ideas, so it should be on our minds.
- threffer 7y agoHeadline: > Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI Parent: > Engaging security forces to chase women I'm sorry, what's the need to rephrase?
- noselasd 7y agoIt might not be a rephrasing of the headline - it might be a summary of the article - that summary seems pretty correct after reading it.
- walrus01 7y agoThe astonishing thing to me is that due to oil money and the Saudi royal family, the US and UK have gone all-in with their support of the Saudi regime. When in fact the situation for womens' rights, while for from ideal, is significantly better in Iran. Historical reasons about the Iranian revolution, cia supporting coups, etc.
- m23khan 7y agoFrankly speaking, when it comes to Muslim countries and women, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Turkey and perhaps Indonesia among some others have a great record (relatively). But biggest improvement seems to be coming from Pakistan of all the places. Saudis and other strict regimes should look into changes that enforces protection and rights and freedom for women. The more well educated and economically integrated women are (along with men), it is better for society.
- selimthegrim 7y agoWhat laws has Pak government passed recently?
- m23khan 7y agoNot much needs to change in terms of Pakistani law -- laws have always favored liberal views and freedom for women in Pakistan. Its just last 20-30 years have been bad socially for Pakistan. Things have started to turn corner now - media and social activists have rightly pressed case for empowering women and there are number of influential Pakistani female politicians now. Government have started silencing hardliners and have started distancing themselves. I hope that soon Pakistanis start pushing their girls for better education and to start females to work at all levels of Pakistani economy. This is one thing that is really killing Pakistani economy and is prime reason behind our high population growth. As a Pakistani man, I see good things hopefully for women in Pakistan.
- forkLding 7y agoSmells a bit similar to the Handmaid's Tale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale
- negamax 7y agoQQ: Can we not make mobiles without IMEI? Surely in today's time WiFi is ubiquitous and that will only increase with many cities installing city wide free WiFi. A simple Internet only phone with built in Tor support can push the envelope. Most of my communication is through apps. I don't think not having a number would make a huge difference
- Scoundreller 7y agoIMEI is the phone’s unique serial number, not a phone number. But everything you said still applies: why does my phone need a serial number that it phones “home” with?
- bad_alloc 7y agoProbably for the same reason many technical horrors arise: It seemed reasonable at the time, it was the simplest solution, somebody added it to the spec for some reason. Then things like this get used in such a way.
- saulrh 7y agoFor the same reason your Ethernet card and wifi chip have MAC addresses, except the cell network is a single giant address space spanning literally the entire planet. Even better, it's paid-access you wouldn't gain anything by periodically randomizing it unless you also anonymized payment. On top of all that, it's all the way down at the hardware level, and I bet that cell network equipment is sensitive enough to tell what model of phone you're using by looking at the features its silicon supports and then deanonymize you based on deviations from that model introduced by your phone case and which pocket you carry it in and how you hold it.
- Scoundreller 7y agoIs this where I admit that I change my MACs whenever I can to something random when I find the option in my device config?
- 7y ago
- rdiddly 7y agoClearly the solution is to leave the phone at home. It's not like you need it. (Crazy talk, right?) Or for added flair you can try dropping it off at the wrong airport or leaving it in a cab or on a train or something, but that seems riskier.
- azernik 7y agoIt's very useful for logistics when you're on your own - finding your way to the next safe place, calling a contact, etc. The real solution is to buy a burner phone, but I don't know how easy that is for a woman in the KSA.
- rdiddly 7y agoI didn't say it wasn't useful, I said it's not essential. And since burner phones can be traced too, I would lean toward simply planning ahead, memorizing things or writing them down, and showing up to things in person. That covers everything you need. That's how things were done for the first 40 years of my life, and it worked, and all of those things still work now. Then when you reach asylum you can think about the nice-to-haves.
- codezero 7y agoThis also assumes they know that this technique is being used. Seeing this news here doesn't mean it's common knowledge or reported on in Saudi Arabia.
- gspjj 7y agoReally if you're running away from something and you keep your cell phone on you're an idiot anyway. Call it natural selection.
- zxcvvcxz 7y agoGood for the Saudis. It may sound bad to you, but this actually helps social cohesion and strong family units.
- droithomme 7y agoWell gosh now, if we don't track down and capture runaway slaves/women/etc, won't society completely collapse? How could we have a modern enlightened society without this policy? Also, very important we support Saudi/US war on Yemen and Iran. Gosh those folks are simply barbaric cavemen types!
- Romanulus 7y agoIt's just to keep track of them to make sure they are safe... some even like the idea of being tracked at all times because it's so comforting and leads to a feeling of security!
- sriram_malhar 7y agoIs there a black/underground solution for this? I can imagine supplying some needy soul with a phone kitted out with a different country's international roaming plan, so that that IMEI was never registered locally, nor associated with a Saudi citizen.