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

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Sounds like we need to push Signal in Afghanistan!

[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago

Signal won't do much when they're able to triangulate your position with cell tower data.

They're also "phone-only SIMs" which I'm guessing means voice only, no data.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 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…

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 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

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

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

[–] Imgonnatrythis 22 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Fuck the Taliban, fuck religious extremism and the agendas it thinly masks. But I really came to say that looking at that photo I really feel like I am about to start a new runner video game playing as that kid in the top left.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

The original Prince of Persia, you mean?