Live data from Hacker News

Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

businessinsider.com

81–90 of 162 posts

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#81
post #77
post #2

By supporting Saudi Arabia the West really shoots itself in the foot. You can't lecture other countries about freedom while supporting this regime.

If you had to chose between supporting Saudi Arabia and supporting fracking, which would you chose?

That’s a false choice.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#83
post #59

Clearly 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.

It'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.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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]

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#85

I 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…

Looking back, it was unbelievable to see how huge the storm caused by Intel's "processor serial number" in Pentium 3 was, that even forced Intel to withdrew it. Meanwhile, nobody has ever said anything about the serial numbers of hard drives, GPUs, motherboards, RAM modules, Ethernet MAC address, etc, etc, etc. Nowadays, basically everything comes with one UUID. Pretty illogical, isn't it? > We've long lost the war o…

Would love to see a YouTube channel or blog where somebody systemically takes apart their computer and starts reflashing every serial number in flash/EEPROM with 0x00.

It’s not like any of these are phoning home (I hope), or married together, so there’s nothing to kill clones.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#86
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I 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.

Headline: > Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI Parent: > Engaging security forces to chase women I'm sorry, what's the need to rephrase?

It might not be a rephrasing of the headline - it might be a summary of the article - that summary seems pretty correct after reading it.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#87
post #59

Clearly 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.

This 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.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#88
post #76
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The primary reason we care about Saudi is oil." This is true. "US policy makers seem to view them as a necessary evil until we transition to renewable energy." This is false. There is nothing at all necessary nor evil, relative to the United States. We use the middle east to establish a protection racket on oil flows to the rest of the world . The United States gets zero, or near zero, oil from Saudi Arabia. The sam…

I had always heard that it was because it enforces the denomination of oil trade in USD, and so enshrines the USD as global reserve currency.

I agree, but also they provide a huge amount of corporate welfare in the form of arms sales and political welfare in the form of lobbying.

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#89
post #54

QQ: 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

IMEI 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?

Re: Saudi Arabia tracks runaway women by cellphone IMEI

#90

I 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…

I also still cannot believe that people question the need for privacy so much. There is always the assumption that only people up for something evil are supposed to have something to hide. But data can always be abused and obviously privacy advocates have been repeating over and over again what bad things could happen.

And then people go to extremes with Tor, Noscript, Bitcoin and the like which would be completely unnecessary if the basic privacy requirements were fulfilled.

Post reply on HN