Before I start
I want to call out TheDailyStar on their use of
this crappy technology that inserts a link to their website when I try to copy/paste its content. It's stupid, childish, easily circumvented, is nothing more than a pain in the ass and goes against the holy unspoken Internet Etiquette of how to treat your visitors. If TDS wants to be a leading online publication like it claims to, I strongly encourage it to stop using these crappy gimmicks.
As a result, I will share other links to base the debate on. These links are far more relevant since they come from the Minstry's website directly. Feel free to read them
in English or
in Arabic. Note that the Arabic version is more exhaustive.
Summary, for those of you who don't read
First person to talk was the head of the project at the Ministry:
- Devices concerned by this project are any device operated by a SIM card
- Anything in circulation will remain valid after June 2013
- (I'm not 100% sure I got this one, it's a bit unclear) if your device hasn't been connected to the network since 01/01/2011 it will be treated as a new device starting June 2013
- Free SMS services will be put in place for IMEI registration/deregistration purposes (if you sell your phone for instance).
- Foreign phones can be registered at the airport, bring a receipt or something
- You can only bring 3 phones per person every 6 months
The head of customs talked next, but he didn't say much except for praising the different actors of the project and reminding everyone that we're working to help the country and its citizens by fighting piracy. Then he said that it's our civic duty, to all of us, to snitch on anything we might know about this traffic.
Next came the Minister of Finance. Not much here either if only to say that the country has been cheated of a lot of money because of the piracy issue, this measure will bring us a lot of money. Then he said that Sehnaoui rocks as a Telecom minister.
Finally the Minister of Telecom talked. He gave some more interesting info:
- The project was approved by the government
- 70% of the phones available in Lebanon are smuggled into the country
- This solution will deal with the piracy/trafficking problem once and for all
- It's all good because it won't bother consumers, resellers and will give the government an extra 60 million dollars
- The consumer should test a phone before buying it. The test is to insert a SIM card. If the phone is legal, it will get coverage
- Also, he's a victim of some mean rumors
- His whole work is dedicated to improve the Telecom here so that people stop emigrating
- Safadi is a pretty cool dude as well
A small word about IMEI
I'm not an expert, but a quick search on the web can reveal a few things.
- The IMEI number is just a unique ID. It doesn't show anything more, especially not any kind of validity
- IMEI is meant to identify a phone, not an individual. It was not thought to be nominal
- You can know the IMEI number of your phone by dialing *#06# on most mobiles
- IMEI was meant to locate and blacklist stolen phones
- It's impossible to prevent phone users from modifying their IMEI
That last one made me smile.
What I think
They really think we're stupid. Honestly, they're not even hiding it. I am the first one to believe that this phone trafficking is bad, and we should put an end to it. What I don't like is when politicians use it as an excuse to pass some bullshit regulation on a network that is becoming less and less free. The technology they are putting in place is bogus. You
can change your IMEI number. It may not be easy to do, but someone with high enough budget and interests will be able to pull it off. All you need is a whitelist of IMEIs.
So why oh why are they bothering to do this? Here are some theories, not necessarily contradicting:
Reinforcing the duopoly
It's bad enough that Alfa/Mtc have a complete control over our communication, they will now have control over circulating devices. I would not be surprised if a few years down the road we'll get some Alfa-exclusive or Mtc-exclusive phones. We're giving these overpowered people more power over us. How's that a good thing? It won't be long before phone resellers will start complaining about the "Alfa/Mtc tax".
It's a PR stunt
It shows we're "working". We're caring about the consumer and the citizen. We're fighting bad guys. We will bring money.
Also, how arbitrary this value of $60 million is. How did they come up with it?
They assumed that by maintaining a whitelist of allowed phones, now all the 70% of pirated phones will turn into profit for the government? Really? That's naive at best. If piracy is so high, it probably means we have a real issue here. Putting a bogus tech limitation is laughable.
What about the consumer?
That's probably the most important part. They keep repeating that the consumer won't be bothered by it. Wrong. They just took one use case and assumed that this is all that's needed.
@nuclearcat gave a perfect example of a use case that they didn't consider. What if I want to start building my own tablet. What if I want to plug a SIM card reader into my Raspberry Pi? We are being limited in our freedoms with no apparent benefits.
I'm all for fighting piracy. But I'd rather we focused on improving customs by giving them the needed funds and fighting their corruption rather than implementing stupid and harmful measures that won't help.