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

submitted 9 months ago by King@lemy.lol to c/technology@lemmy.world

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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.

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[–] Chup@feddit.de 15 points 9 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 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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 9 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 9 months ago (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] philpo@feddit.de 4 points 9 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.

[–] asbestos@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

…Wasn’t the conversation about SIM cards?

[–] cjf@feddit.uk 2 points 9 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 9 months ago* (last edited 9 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 9 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 9 months ago

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