Police In Mumbai Shutting Down Open WiFi

from the blame-the-technology dept

Fri, Jan 16th 2009 12:38pm — Mike Masnick

Perhaps it's no surprise that, following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, people are freaking out and blaming technology, as if that will prevent another terrorist attack. First, there were the calls to ban Google maps and now a large number of police are sweeping through all of Mumbai to find open WiFi networks and get the owners to shut the networks down. Of course, there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons for offering an open WiFi network, but it seems that no one is even considering that. Because such networks were used in the past by terrorists and possibly could be again, they all must go.

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Filed Under: attacks, india, mumbai, wifi

22 Comments

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Red, 16 Jan 2009 @ 12:52pm

Funny
They finaly did a street view for my hometown.
Can you guess what I found? A view of my old car, in front of my old apartment from back in March/April of 08.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 1:07pm

Terroists used cell phones
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 1:08pm

Terroists used cell phones
They need to ban cell phones, telephones, guns, boats and lavatories.
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2009 @ 4:26am
  
  Re: Terroists used cell phones
  You forgot to mention Hotels, they have to ban Hotels. No Hotels - No tourists - No targets.
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 1:18pm

Put a few WiFi Routers hooked up to nothing but leave em open :D
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 1:28pm

terrorists win again
this is what they want. us to change our ways, turn into a big brother society.

yup, the terrorist just won again.
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ebaysniper, 16 Jan 2009 @ 1:30pm

India needs to spend $80 Million on homeland security instead of probing the moon! Stopping people from using open wifi is pointless!
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 1:41pm

Retards
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 1:45pm

shoes
The terrorists wore shoes, we should ban them. The terrorists wore clothes to diguise who they were we should ban those everyone now be nudist the government says that anything terrorists used must be bad. You live in Siberia, tough luck no shoes no clothes because terroists use them.

This makes the same amount of sense as banning Wifi or lighters.
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Cipher-o, 16 Jan 2009 @ 3:31pm

Remember...
... if you're sharing wifi you're sharing TERRORISM!
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Anonymous Coward, 16 Jan 2009 @ 5:46pm

The terriers are people !
Ban people !
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Mumbai, 16 Jan 2009 @ 10:05pm

Wifi
I think it's a good move. It's high time the govt used the resources of the highly skilled tech force in India to proper use
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shaman, 17 Jan 2009 @ 12:33am

Waiting ...
... for the inevitable ban on flight schools and aeroplanes ...
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Jadey, 17 Jan 2009 @ 6:21am

Hmmm...
Sounds like the US fetish with shoes in airports. One failed attempt and everyone goes barefoot for years.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2009 @ 9:20am

I think we should ban letters. They are used far too often in communication terror plans.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Jan 2009 @ 8:28pm

terriers?
Nice #10. Terrorist sleeper cells masquarading as terriers. Ban dog shows and pets?
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Sumit Mittal, 18 Jan 2009 @ 12:03pm

Government, in order to save their face, have to take some action. So guess what technology suffers - no one is going to crib about it right!!
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Varun Avashia, 19 Jan 2009 @ 3:07am

Police In Mumbai Shutting Down Open WiFi
Obviously its just a drill for a day, come next week and access open Wi-Fi all you want.....
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Micheal Jordan Shoes, 29 Sep 2009 @ 12:42am

oh, just so that
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hi, 22 Oct 2009 @ 6:36pm

hi
[url= http://s.tradetang.com/terrierlady/]jordn shoes[/url]
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hi, 22 Oct 2009 @ 6:38pm

hi
http://s.tradetang.com/terrierlady/
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Wicko, 23 Mar 2010 @ 12:15pm

What is Open WiFi ?
Hey Friends!
Do you really know what is Open WiFi.
I think terrorists on a side but hackers, spammers and your neighbor would love it.

I am to setup so many WiFi Free hotspots in my town but I am to make all of those hotspots secure. Simply I place my Cell Phone Number in "Free-***-***-****" SSID.
Free WiFi is Fun but keep it secure.

Thanks
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