Technology Focus on Both Sides of the Indian Hostage Crisis
December 10th, 2008
Submitted by: David Caldwell
It seems as if a firestorm of coverage has erupted from India in the past few days: headlines like “Indian Official: Terrorists Wanted to Kill 5,000” and “India Ends Mumbai Rampage After 60 hours, 195 Dead” seem to bring the visceral carnage straight into our living rooms and onto our coffee tables from 13 time zones away. Since the development and distribution of modern satellite and fiber-optic communications matured in the 90’s, information has been pouring back and forth in ever increasing volumes over our tiny blue planet as quickly as relativistic speed limits have allowed. With this ever increasing capacity, we’ve begun to push entire industries abroad to take advantage of lower costs and greater production capabilities. Indeed, even our military has started pushing GPS and communications technologies into the forefront of its offensive and defensive capabilities - replacing battalions of troops and stockpiles of nuclear warheads as its primary deterrent.
On the flip side of this coin has been the quick and cheap dissemination of communications tools to more unscrupulous characters. It came as a shock to Indian commandos that the terrorists involved in this week’s attack were found to be using “Blackberries to Monitor the World’s Response to Their Actions“. According to CNN, “the gunmen were as brazen as they were well trained, using sophisticated weapons, GPS technology and mobile and satellite phones to communicate….they were constantly in touch with a foreign country.” It goes without saying then that access to cheap, ubiquitous communications technology can come as mixed blessing.
Update: Apparently Twitter has gained some popularity in India, and it was used extensively by the people present at the event: Mumbai: Twitter’s Moment
Entry Filed under: China, Guangzhou, India, Mumbai, Pre-Departure
10 Comments Add your own
1. Chris Carr | December 10th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
As the proverbial preacher once proclaimed, “there is nothing new under the sun”. Hence, here we have another example that technology such as Blackberry “can giveth, and [such technology] can taketh away” ….
This is also an example of how Twitter now breaks world news. Think back to what Dr. Hodge said about the Twitterer in China who broke the news to the world about the Sichuan earthquake, and did so well before the major networks could even pull out their maps to find where the Sichuan province is located.
The tragedy of Mumbai aside, there are also several business lessons here we can all learn from — the smart business managers and firms of today and tomorrow will learn how to make use of such social media, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, applicable blogs, etc., to their strategic advantage. Companies like Blackberry have also learned how their product can appear in the media in a negative way, and one lesson is to have a damage control team and plan in place that can effectively deal with such issues.
2. Jason Larocco | December 11th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Developing countries have always benefited from the technological advances of developed countries, using those technologies to build/create infrastructure such as communication networks. This article brings to light a different twist… terrorist using the technology to build their infrastructure. As we continue to develop these technologies and make them available to consumers, we run the risk of these technologies being used against the betterment of society. The interesting thing will be to see how people and the media will respond to articles like this one. As discussed in this blog post, Andrea’s earlier post, and The Post American World, fear is what the terrorist are looking for and in this case they used their smart phones to track it. If society gives it to them by stopping business in India, people’s travels to India, or by placing too much blame on Blackberry’s technologies then the terrorist have succeeded. At the same time this does not mean that we don’t learn from our mistakes. New markets may have just opened up for technologies that help local authorities to shutdown or track satellite communication efforts by location during a time of crisis (assuming this technology doesn’t already exist).
3. Andrea Muntzel | December 11th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
I couldn’t read this post without thinking about the TV show ‘24’. I don’t know how many times I’ve marveled at the things that Jack Bauer’s PDA can do… those familiar to the show know exactly what I’m talking about. The thing to remember, though, is that the show 24 is fiction. As much as Blackberries are capable of, they can’t be responsible for orchestrating a terrorist attack. As Dr. Carr mentioned in his comment, there is a dichotomy between the advantages of technology and its associated perils. Apparently, Blackberries have just made the list alongside nuclear weapons and polluting automobiles.
One thing I thought was interesting in this post is that the Indian government has come under substantial attack for not stopping the terrorists at a faster pace yet the article “Indian official: Terrorists wanted to kill 5,000” infers that the terrorists were apprehended long before they reached their 5,000 person target. Whether this is true or whether this is an attempt to shake the blame from the government is up for debate.
The last thing I wanted to comment on was something touched on by Jason and heavily discussed in the post below: media sensationalism. The concept of thwarting terrorism by refusing to be terrorized comes full circle in this post. The terrorists were watching the world ‘freak out’ while they enacted their plan. Although it’s easy to say we could have made their attack unsuccessful by refusing to be terrorized, I don’t think that’s a realistic request. Unfortunately, for the people in Mumbai at the time, refusing to be scared is not only a ridiculous idea, it’s also somewhat dangerous. Along those same lines, I think there runs a fine line between continuing to visit India because not visiting would be giving into terrorism and not visiting India because it’s dangerous for us to be there until the government gets things under control. I’m not advocating either position but I don’t think we can all so quickly jump onto one bandwagon because otherwise terrorism would win. Terrorism is—unfortunately—naturally terrifying. Not being terrified of terrorism is kind of like going against nature.
4. Victoria Rodriguez | December 11th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I think the idea of not letting terrorism “terrorize” you is not describing the the initial reactions to the act, but instead – how do people cope with the long-term effects?
I agree with Andrea that the Indian government needs to work on responding quickly and effectively to these acts of terror. This can be one way for all governments to combat terror.
Maybe, the world will begin to see terrorism as a global issue and “fight back” together. This is not to sound idealistic, but if everyone works together then maybe these terrorist groups cannot hide so easily.
5. Michael Mossman | December 11th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
This world is getting smaller everyday. As communication technology improves and becomes less expensive, it brings more people into the 21st century and allows them to share information around the world instantly. It is not new for terrorist to use communication devices such as BlackBerrys while executing a terrorist attack. Even though BlackBerrys assisted the terrorists; BlackBerrys also created a great amount of detailed evidence for anti-terrorism investigators. Investigators can now look at call records and see who these terrorist were collaborating with to execute the Mumbai terrorist attacks last month. Technology may assist terrorist as they plan and execute attacks, but I see it assisting anti-terrorism investigators even more in investigating and preventing attacks.
Regarding the Indian government handling this terrorist attack, they managed to greatly reduce the number of deaths if the terrorists had really planned for 5,000. The Indian government has not disclosed detail information regarding the terrorist’s goals. It will take a while for that to come out and when it does who knows how accurate it really is. My point is the Indian government was caught off guard by this attack. They managed to get it under control in a few days and root out the remaining terrorists. I was concerned about the OCOB MBA trip this summer when I first heard of this tragic event. Then I thought to my self how air travel security has improved in the United States and around the world since 9/11. I believe the Indian government will be able to learn from this event and their security will be better than it was before the attack. I am still looking forward to traveling to India this summer to get a taste of Indian culture and business.
6. Logan Travis | December 12th, 2008 at 11:40 am
I find the terrorists’ use of BlackBerry mobile phones to monitor their impact rather disturbing because it raises two questions: 1) In countries of social unrest, how many incidents like this does it take before the government begins to take control of cellular and other means of communications? 2) What does such instant information dissemination do to inflate a terrorist’s motivation?
Does anyone doubt that Indian officials are currently considering methods for cellular communication blackout/control? I certainly would; limiting coordination during an attack increases one’s ability to stop it quickly and save lives. However, the same tools meant to control the dissidents in a population could easily be used to manipulate the masses. Another consideration is the non-discrimination of a communication blackout: it affects terrorists and hostages alike.
As for a terrorist’s motivation, I can only guess. However, given the popular definition for terrorism as ‘actions intended to instill terror in a populous’ the increasing speed of media coverage will act as an accelerant to such abhorrent actions. We’ve moved from a day for news to reach print to a few hours for television broadcast to mere minutes (seconds?) to post on Twitter. The impact - the terror - only increases as time to audience decreases.
I don’t know the answer to either of these questions. Yet, their affect on global hot-spots is something we must monitor as future business leaders if not just concerned members of humanity.
7. Jason Larocco | December 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I agree with both Andrea and Victoria… terrorism is terrifying, hence the name. And the idea that people will not be terrorized by acts of terrorism is not realistic. It’s like being told to just ignore a bully. You can try, but it is typically hard to ignore a person when they are punching you in the face!
The way we handle business and make decisions after an attack is something we all need to deal with both as individuals and as a global community. We have to be intelligent in our decision making process, which includes deciphering over exposure from media to true threats. Obviously, the attacks in Mumbai and how we recover from them are deserving of attention. We can even track our recovery efforts on our Blackberries!
8. James McMillan | December 12th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I agree with Andrea in the above posting. I have also been amazed by all the life saving transactions that Jack Bauer’s PDA can pull off. Terrorists have always and will always use technology to fuel their cause and promote fear among the general public. It is up to the Government to stay ahead of the technology curve and battle terrorism to the best of their ability.
9. Justin Miller | December 12th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
While it sucks that the terrorists used blackberries to communicate, I think it must be assumed that they could also have watched the news unfold on a TV or computer. This is actually a great example of escalation. As the technology improves to fight terrorism, so does the technology used to commit terrorist acts. Of course the news agencies would focus on the negative effect that modern technology can have. I think it would be interesting to know about all the lives that were saved by the same technology. I’m sure people found out about the attacks and were able to get to safety before being affected by the attacks. Also, I’m sure people were able to communicate on their phones with people on the outside to let them know what was going, the terrorists locations, whether or not they were safe, etc. Dr. Carr makes a good point though, this is terrible publicity for blackberry. If I were that company I would try to play up how our devices held in the tragedy as much as possible.
10. David Caldwell | December 13th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
I’m happy to see so may responses! I don’t think that RIM (the company that makes Blackberries) is at all responsible for the events mentioned any more than the DoD is responsible for developing our worldwide GPS architecture (which is used by hostile armies and “unsavory characters” all over the world).
While it’s probably important for RIM to have some sort of plan to keep their image from tarnishing, you have to remember that there really is very little new under the sun - people have used technological innovation for good and ill for thousands of years, and they will probably continue to do so for years to come.
Andrea, your comment about the terrorists wishing to “kill 5,000″ reminded me of a recently thwarted assassination plot where two white supremacists had planned to kill 102 people: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3271895/White-supremacists-plotted-to-assassinate-Barack-Obama-in-top-hats-and-tails.html My point in bringing up this article is to show that a lot of terrorists’ plans are intentionally over-ambitious; it’s not just the violence that they want people to be afraid of, it’s what they want people to think they were capable of.
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