ｻ Isn't time to get rid of the pre-paid terror cell (phone)? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com
The story describes how such phones are sometimes purchased in large lots and then stripped of their prepurchased air time (which is worth more than the phone) for resale at a profit and how terrorists have probably been trained to use that scheme as their excuse if they get caught with a cache of phones.By the way, this isn't the first time this has happened. Practically the same thing happened in Southern California last December. Regardless of which reason it is (terrorism or funky reselling scheme), it seems like the downsides of allowing pre-paid cell phones far outweigh any benefits.
Well, David Berlind either has no innate ability to detect sarcasm or his critical faculties have deserted him; he seems to have actually bought the idea that prepaid cell phones represent a massive security threat.
What possible terrorist plot could involve 1,000 cheap phones from a pay-as-you-go network? Cell phones (and many other electronic devices) are used as detonators for explosives. A thousand cell phones, absent some kind of explosive, isn't evidence of anything.
The truly stunning thing is that a van with 1,000 cell phones stripped of packaging makes complete sense if you're in the gray market phone business. Buy the cheap phones in bulk, unlock them from the carrier, and sell them to a distributor for a markup. The distributor then places them with small retailers. It makes even more sense for the buyers to be Arab (particularly in Michigan)
Instead of seeing the obvious explanation as the likely one, Berlind goes through the looking glass and sees plausibility as evidence of a conspiracy. Sure, these guys say they're just reselling these phones, but isn't that exactly what a terrorist would tell you?
Turns out, these guys were probably just going to resell these phones (which, incidentally, was the case in the California incident Berlind mentions).
So, no, it isn't time to get rid of prepaid mobile phones. Then again, maybe I've lost my ability to detect sarcasm.
