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Submitted by Mike Grenville on Tue, 25 Jul 2006 12:44 |
All sides in the Middle East conflict have taken up text messaging: from donations, to co-ordinating evacuations, rocket alerts and alarmingly even as "propaganda bombs".
Swedish Holds Model Evacuation
According to foreign ministry spokeswoman Nina Ersman, text messaging has been a major tool in the Swedish evacuation operation of its citizens from Lebanon.
"In the last week we have sent out five text messages to everyone in Lebanon who is registered with a Swedish mobile network," she told The Local.
Telia's Jan Sjöberg explained that its mobile subscribers who were in Lebanon were sent an SMS which told them that an evacuation would be taking place. Further messages have told people to get to a certain hotel at a certain time, depending upon their priority status.
"We have roaming agreements with two operators in Lebanon. Around 300 of our customers who were in Lebanon would have got the message as soon as they turned on their phones. We also told them that all calls and text messages to Sweden would be free."
Similarly the French embassy have been sending SMS to its citizens several times a day to keep them updated. Australians by contrast have complained that they have had no such communication from their Embassy.
Fundraising
A campaign operator through Batelco in Bahrain is calling on its citizens to help fundraising efforts for Lebanon by simply sending a text message. By sending a message with the word "support" to 99088 they will donate BD1. "The entire amount will be donated to the people of Lebanon," said Batelco corporate affairs general manager Ahmed Al Janahi.
In Syria, companies including Syria’s two mobile phone operators, as well as a bank headquartered in Lebanon, have sponsored a billboard campaign with the Syrian Red Crescent to encourage donations.
Residents of Damascus have also been receiving SMS messages urging them to give blood and host Lebanese families with no place to stay.
Rocket Alerts
Across the border, the inhabitants of northern Israel can sign up to SMS warnings of missile attacks. The service from Cellact is deployed in small communities and Kibutzes. Each community council is in-charge of operating the system and subscribes its inhabitants to the service.
It is used to issue warnings of a missile or bomb attack, shooting or other emergency announcements. The system also provides ongoing communications when people are indoors or in air raid shelters, and can be used to relay information such as the opening hours of specific bank branches, or other important announcements.
Propaganda Bombs
A report in The Guardian says that mobile phone in Lebanon users are receiving messages sent to their phones which appear as news updates, attempting to discredit Hizbullah leaders. One message titled "News", reported that the Hizbullah leader had prepared a secure bunker for himself and other senior Hizbullah officials to flee to in Syria.
A local official in Tyre says he received an early morning phone call on his landline and heard a voice say "This is the Israeli Army. We are about to increase our military operations in south Lebanon and you are advised to leave immediately to north of the Litani."
Other reports claimed that these voicemail messages were sent in the night directly to mobile phones.
Residents of Tyre are reported to have been woken by a recorded message on their mobile phone voicemails, warning all those living south of the Litani river to leave immediately or risk being killed. The voice reading the message signed off: "the state of Israel."
It is not clear which technology is being used to send these messages. Options include using cell broadcast which would deliver messages to anyone in the region of that cell. However this would probably need to be sent from within the Lebanese operator's network.
However technology may not be the solution. It may just be that an educated guess has been made as to the phone number range of Lebanese phones or intelligence research may have identified the phones of individuals in the area.
Mobile Telephony Is a Service Not a Weapon
"These reports indicate how the range of applications available via mobile telephony is only limited by imagination and time" said Mike Short Chairman of the Mobile Data Association.
"Some of the more disturbing stories strike one as propaganda and abuse of the need for trusted and reliable communications, whichever allegiance is held."
"We are fortunate in the UK to have licensed competing mobile networks, where neither the operators nor the government are "judge and jury " over Content or Applications transmitted. We also have strong consumer protection through competition, and through Data Privacy, Communications and general law, that should prevent the same sad abuse and damage of networks that appears to be happening in the Lebanon."
"Let's not forget that a breakdown in Communications (including networks) is a slippery slope to a lost Democracy" said Short.
However with everyone carrying a mobile phone, it is seems inevitable that they are set to become an integral part of the war on words.
A Spanish version of this article at canalpda.com: Los SMS entran en la guerra
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