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Apple Disables Egyptian iPhones' GPS
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Dec 09, 2008 09:46 AM
from the just-extrapolate-a-bit dept.
from the just-extrapolate-a-bit dept.
floydman writes "Apparently the Egyptian government is paranoid about its community using GPS devices, to the degree that it demanded Apple remove any GPS functionality from its iPhone 3G.
They claim that 'GPS functionality should be limited to military purposes.' Egyptian blogger Ahmed Gabr brought this issue up in another article, and talks about how this does not make sense, since Google maps and the like can be used. I also happen to know for a fact that most of the modern cars in Egypt have built-in GPS systems."
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Your Rights Online: Indian GPS Cartographers Charged As Terrorists 269 comments
chrb writes "Following on from the discussion about Apple disabling GPS in Egyptian iPhones, we have a new case of the conflict between the traditional secrecy of government, and the widening availability of cheap, accurate GPS devices around the world. On 5th December, two software engineers employed by Biond Software in India were arrested for mapping highways using vehicle based GPS devices. Further evidence against the pair emerged when it was found that a laptop they had been using in the car contained some photos of the local airforce base. The company claims they had been commissioned by Nokia Navigator to create maps of local roads and terrain. Following an investigation by the Anti Terrorist Squad of Gujarat the cartographers have now been charged with violating the Official
Secrets Act and will remain in custody."
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Why do Egyptians need GPS anyway? (Score:5, Funny)
Can't they just look around and figure out which pyramids they are standing between and go from there?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Can't they just look around and figure out which pyramids they are standing between and go from there?
But they all look alike. This wouldn't be a problem if they had listened to my idea of bulding a square pyramid.
Re:Why do Egyptians need GPS anyway? (Score:5, Funny)
Pyramid based triangulation...? No, that will never catch on.
K.
Parent
Swell plan (Score:5, Interesting)
In a country that consists to a good deal of desert and other not too pleasant terrain where getting lost means dying it's a really, really good idea to disallow tools that allow you to find out where exactly you are.
Is it me or is this already beyond stupid and paranoid? What "advantage" could a terrorist/communist/boogymanoftheweek gain from knowing where he is? I guess those people are
a) knowledgeable enough of the area to know where they are.
b) Usually not interested in blowing themselves sky high in the middle of nowhere and
c) Not too picky of where they strike, as long as it causes enough people to get terrorized (hence their description).
So I'm waiting for a really good explanation why a potentially life saving function should be turned of for "security" reasons. I know, "national security" means "whatever keeps the government in power" these days, but shouldn't we at least keep the pretence up that it's about keeping the people safe?
Re:Swell plan (Score:5, Funny)
grab your iphone.. fire up urban spoon...
shake...
Choices are sand, sand, sand...
Hmmm.... I think we'll have sand today.
Parent
Re:Swell plan (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but let's imagine you have a car, a tank full of gas and are lost in the middle of some desert. You have enough fuel to reach anything within 100 miles but what is within 100 miles? More important, is there anything within 100 miles (hopefully you were clever enough to only use up to half your tank's contents...)?
But let's imagine your car broke down and you're in the middle of the desert. Let's also assume you were smart enough to bring along a sat phone for emergencies (like this one). What do you want to prefer to tell a potential rescue team? "I'm in the middle of the Sahara, try to find me" or "I'm at xxxx'N, xxxx'E, come pick me up"?
Parent
Re:Swell plan (Score:5, Insightful)
True, but let's imagine you have a car, a tank full of gas and are lost in the middle of some desert....
Full tank? Ask the guy at the station for directions.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
iPhone-style assisted GPS uses cell towers to help get a quicker fix but does not require anything besides the pure GPS signal from the satellites. It's just that the pure satellite signal will require ~30 seconds to get a fix instead of the 1 second you get when the cell network helps out.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but IIRC the location request on the iPhone Google Maps app times out long before a non-assisted GPS fix can be achieved.
And the point is moot anyway, until an application comes along with maps stored on the device, as opposed to being downloaded on the fly (the Google Maps app does cache its maps, but I wouldn't trust that caching with live-saving information).
Re:Swell plan (Score:5, Funny)
Preamble: English is not my native language
"Let's also assume you were smart enough to bring along a sat phone for emergencies (like this one)"
How can that be misinterpreted to read that he meant the iPhone was a satellite phone?
Simple substitution:
"Let's also assume you were smart enough to bring along a sat phone for emergencies (like the iPhone)"
Ahhh, so the iPhone is an emergency! Err, wait.
If he wanted things to read like the iPhone was a satellite phone, he'd write:
"Let's also assume you were smart enough to bring along a sat phone (like the iPhone) for emergencies"
However, if you unsubstitute that:
"Let's also assume you were smart enough to bring along a sat phone (like this one) for emergencies"
Then you'd have to scan around for what "like this one" would be referring to.. his post doesn't refer to any specific phone at all.. if this wasn't slashdot with its auto-domain-appendage bits, I would move my mouse over the "like this one" expecting to find it linking to a satellite phone.. I would not assume he meant the iPhone.
Going back to the original line, however, "like this one" easily finds context in "your car broke down and you're in the middle of the desert."
That's not to say the original phrasing can't be improved...
"But let's imagine your car broke down and you're in the middle of the desert. Let's also assume you were smart enough to bring along a sat phone for such emergencies."
But to think he meant the iPhone was an example of a satellite phone? hm.
Parent
Re: (Score:3)
English is my only language (UK). FWIW I read it as 'emergency', but I see how, at a stretch, it could be read as 'iphone'.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You deal with tourists at a regular base or are otherwise experienced in dealing with stupid people?
The second one.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think the answer is armed kids in knock-off Versace.
Don't forget... (Score:2)
This CLEARLY means that since they removed the GPS functionality from the Iphone that no terrorist will have ANY access to a GPS. It's foolproof! After all... any GPS system can be used to... umm... well, it makes bombs go where you want and stuff! TERRORISTS ARE BAD!!!!111!
Re:Swell plan (Score:5, Insightful)
GPS and GSM is the first thing countries like China cut off when a riot occur.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't really know the actual explanation, and I certainly don't discount sheer stupidity when it comes to the actions of the Egyptian government, but I suspect it has something to do with those vast deserts you mention. I think there's a fair amount of cross-border smuggling of weapons/contraband at the Libyan and Sudanese borders, and a cheap/portable GPS device like the iPhone 3G could give smugglers a huge technology advantage (or eliminate a disadvantage) relative to the border patrols.
Of course, smu
Re:Swell plan (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe the simplest of looters could find the coordinates of valuable archeological digs. Before GPS and Google maps, they would have needed maps, survey equipment and access to the journals. Now they could just surf the web and find the coordinates from a research paper.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
In the example, the danger is the bomb, not the GPS. In terms of procurement, the difficult bit is getting hold of the bomb, not the GPS.
On a more serious note, how do they know that you're in Egypt in order to turn it off? Perhaps they use GPS...
Re:Swell plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Because of course any terrorist who's planning to build a GPS guided missile to blow up a market will suddenly change his mind and start growing flowers and raising puppies when he discovers that GPS receivers are banned by the government.
Parent
Re:Swell plan (Score:4, Insightful)
"Other than, say the ability to drop a UAV bomb on government buildings or open markets from hundreds of kilometers away ?"
Please design and execute this plan, while delivering more destructive power than a suicide bomber with pockets full of hand grenades... or an RPG (for government buildings). Oh, and do that with the economics means and know-how of terrorists... and make sure no one knows about it.
There is a reason why UAVs are JUST getting into the fray in modern warfare. They are not EASY to build or guide. And even the most advanced UAVs, have a fairly limited payload... and we're talking about large craft, that cost hundreds of millions to design.
Finally, GPS is available to terrorists through a billion other sources. Apple's position here nothing more than a publicity stunt. Kind of reminds me of handgun bans.
Parent
Re:Swell plan (Score:5, Insightful)
Other than, say the ability to drop a UAV bomb on government buildings or open markets from hundreds of kilometers away ?
Meh it's cheaper to have a true believer strap explosives to himself and guide himself there. When you have that kind if resource at your disposal why would you pay for iphones and predator drones.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Swell plan (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, that explains it then. Cruise missiles and other long-range delivery methods are easy and cheap to obtain, while a GPS navigator is the nigh-legendary top-secret techical marvel only rumoured to exist...
GPS + terrorists = terrorists who can locate themselves.
Most countries don't have the capability of detecting bombs taped into the bottom of a random car, set up to go off during rush hour.
Yeah. And with a GPS-enabled phone, all they are lacking is the flying bomb.
I truly hope you are trolling. Otherwise I'm starting to get a bit scared, and not of terrorists. Maybe we should start a war on stupidity next ?
Parent
Re:Swell plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe we should start a war on stupidity next ?
No point. We would not stand a chance.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently you don't have a hobby store down the street.
There's been this whole hobby of building and flying UAVs that's been around since at least WWII.
Location, location, location... (Score:4, Interesting)
If the above is the case, it's a pretty dumb approach, since a GPS-enabled iPhone could just be smuggled in. Either way, it would be interesting to know what the real motives behind this ban are.
Re:Location, location, location... (Score:4, Interesting)
That sound like a more logic reason, but bluntly, it's not like building a GPS device is in any way rocket science or requires any kind of "monitored" hardware. Actually, the iPhone would be a rather poor choice for such a device, not only for its price. And it makes little sense to build such a bomb in the first place unless you plan to send it through FedEx or postal service.
Parent
Re:Location, location, location... (Score:5, Informative)
There are other options. The comparison with car GPS is interesting - ok, they don't mind people navigating and mapping roads, since they are public anyway. But small GPS devices that look like mobile phones - could these be more of a security risk? It is possible to walk to many more locations than can be reached on the public highway. It is possible that they could be used as trigger devices, just like in the Madrid train bombings [wikipedia.org]. Consider that the phones are used as timers, and that one of the standard protocols in use in security sensitive areas now is to jam RF and cell phone frequencies to block this kind of trigger. It's not a huge leap to realise that a GPS device could be similarly linked, and would provide an accurate non-blockable trigger for a vehicle based bomb.
It sounds as though Egypt bans or disables all personal GPS devices. I guess it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that a government is concerned about the military implications - remember that the United States only turned off Selective Availability [wikipedia.org] 8 years ago, and this was only after they developed new technology to actively jam GPS signals in targetted regions. And don't forget the political fallout [allacademic.com] after the EU decided to implement the Galileo M-code overlay [findarticles.com] inside the same frequency band as the US military GPS in order to ensure that there was no way to block one without blocking the other. GPS technology has traditionally been militarily and politically sensitive, but at the same time we are now seeing the rise of a new world where most human are going to have cell phones and GPS devices. This is inevitably going to cause some social conflict as societies adjust to the new reality.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
It's far easier to do that with nokia phones that are plentiful and easy to hack or [GASP] a easy to get and ready to hack GPS, than a freaking iphone.
It's called very uneducated diplomats and "leaders" freaking out over nothing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Note, I'm not affiliated with SparkFun in any way. I'm also not condoning terrorist action, just pointing out how easy it is nowadays with cheap and easy access to the necessary technology.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
If the above is the case, it's a pretty dumb approach, since a GPS-enabled iPhone could just be smuggled in.
Besides, there's no way Apple would allow that software into the app store.
I don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't most governments generally prefer that their citizens be trackable? I can't imagine the Egyptian government is somehow a beacon of light in the world of internal spying, so what gives?
Military Use (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is why there is also other existing or proposed GNSS
Beidou
Galileo
GLONASS
IRNSS
QZSS
So the USA cannot "just shut it off" .....
They're afraid of something (Score:3, Funny)
and they're afraid to say what it is that they're afraid of.
Interesting.
I'm sure it has something to do with the Pyramids and geo-caching. :)
The Egyptian black hole (Score:2)
http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2005/05/09/black-hole [hrw.org]
Interesting (Score:2)
Given that OpenStreetMap Cairo [openstreetmap.org] looks pretty complete I'm willing to bet that there are plenty of GPS devices already out there.
It's interesting to watch the trickle down effect of technology and grassroots efforts to harness it, coming fact to face with traditional government regulation, such as amateur cartography being illegal in Russia [lwn.net]. I guess personal GPS devices and the internet are pretty subversive.
What about tourists? (Score:2, Interesting)
I was on vacation in Sharm el-Sheikh last April, and wandered around like a stupid tourist with a Bluetooth GPS and a Nokia N800 around my neck. Nobody seemed to care. We even went through a military checkpoint.
Um, was I doing something illegal?
My only explanaintion (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that this is due to "leadership minds'" ignorance of the current state of technology. Someone thinks that by doing this, he has acclaimed a certain power to himself only (the government) in this case.
Is he is totally unaware, that most phones (HTC, I-mate, some nokia's) have GPS's in them, and if not, it didn't cross his mind that a simple wifi connection (quiet common in cairo, lived there for a couple of years) would be more than enough to act as a GPS look alike.
Dinosaurs in control if you ask me.
Someone mentioned above that he was walking around with a bluetooth GPS device, well you are not the only one, I was for a couple of years, a lot of other people I know also did.
The question is, how come Apple obliged...thats what does not make a lot of sense to me.
Wags finger at Egytptian Government. (Score:3, Funny)
Tut. Tut. Tut.
Whose our sun god?
Ra! Ra! Ra!
Thank you, I'll be here all week.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
Non sequitur. There might be very few new cars, but most of that few might have GPS.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I think you're missing his point. The majority of people with major budget issues cannot afford cars. Hence, most of the people who can are not so financially limited, and thus go for the luxury cars.
Again, I don't know; I'm just clarifying his argument.
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Insightful)
Motre or less. Plus it's not uncommon for poor countries to have a very uneven weath distribution (yes Zimbabwe, I'm looking at you). Top of the range Mercedes with all the extras for the ruling clique, and nobody else can afford a car at all.
In that case 100% of new cars have GPS, climate control and gold-plated ashtrays.
Parent
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Informative)
I'd like to illustrate your point with superbly beautiful moving graphs! It is TED so you must click it.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html [ted.com]
Parent
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Interesting)
You should visit a few poor countries and note the amount of GPS devices there. I mean even in India there more than just commonplace.
Even on many things you wouldn't consider "cars" you find gps devices these days.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:fr1st pst (Score:5, Funny)
their nefarious plot is most transparent. by banning GPS the Egyptian government clearly means to induce a perpetually lost state in the population. this in turn would emasculate the entire civilian male population by forcing them to ask the military for directions, in essence surrendering every shred of their manhood to the Egyptian government in the ultimate act of sexual submission. the government, meanwhile, would have their throbbing virility cemented by their exclusive control of GPS technology--their GPS antennas standing fully erect, thrusting skyward as a potent symbol of their dominance over their now gelded population.
oh, such cruel tyranny. if only they'd gotten the G1 instead...
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re:DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Any software or hardware creating an artificial limitation on what your hardware can technically do, locking the user out, could conceivably constitute DRM--it's not just about copyrights, it can also be about limiting the "right to tinker." The article says "disable" GPS, not "remove the hardware entirely" which would presumably be a much more expensive demand. Consequently, Apple is probably being asked to make the iPhone defective by design, arbitrarily disabling its inbuilt features.
Er, even more so than they already do.
(FWIW to the Apple fanboys who want to mod this down, my wife has an iPhone and she loves it. I personally avoid carrying a cell phone whenever possible, and have nothing against the iPhone in particular. Just answering a question here...)
Parent
Troll? (Score:3, Insightful)
Troll. Seriously? Troll? Even with my disclaimer?
The question was, is feature-disabling about DRM?
The answer is, yes. "Digital Rights Management" is a way of digitally restricting what is normally possible with a given device. The "rights" involved are usually copyrights, but not always.
The iPhone is loaded with DRM, forcing you to pay extra for ringtones, preventing you from installing unapproved applications, etc. At least some of this is for your device's safety, but of course profit is king