BBG
Posted by admin on Jul 31, 2012
The US Broadcasting Board of Governors and the US organization Freedom House recently collaborated on a new study on mobile safety in 12 countries. The study, Safety on the Line: Exposing the myth of mobile security (PDF), sets out to investigate two distinct areas: 1. Testing of specific mobile applications (with a strong focus on circumvention tech) vis a vis their security and usability; and 2. a very small survey of users in 12 countries about their use and security challenges of mobile telephony.
The BBG, as the parent of news outlets such as the Voice of America and Voice of Asia, is, of course, keenly interested in delivering content to various countries without a free media, so the report emphasizes circumvention tools and barriers to online content, and focuses on countries of particular interest to the BBG.
The study is peculiar. It seems rather an internal assessment than one aimed at a particular audience (other than the US Congress that funds the coffers of the BBG) and there are a number of significant flaws with it. The findings such as this one:
"A study of the technical aspects of GSM and later mobile networks used for both voice, text, and internet access teaches us that there are significant flaws in the security of mobile networks that could be exploited for the purpose of blocking and monitoring"
are hardly revolutionary to anyone who works in repressive environments.
