Double-edged Swords
Durable mobile phones that can keep users in remote areas connected, allow for money and airtime transfers among handsets are a current hot topic in the ICT4D community. While we talk about putting them in the hands of the poor and disconnected, however, the same technology is being used literally just up the road for the opposite ends.
John Robb points to a post today from Alex de Waal at Making Sense of Darfur about the Thuraya phone, the communications weapon of choice of Chadian and Darfuri troops who, along with roving teams of Toyota Landcruisers, move fast and coordinate on the fly using these satellite handsets in superempowered nodes that plan and attack on the fly in the contested region. While a villager many miles away may be checking weather or arranging taking goods to market, military commanders using Thurayas are negotiating deals with local warlords, says de Waal. We've had mobile revolutions in other parts of the world—de Waal asks if Darfur is "the first Thuraya war".
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