According to the New York Times, Apple willingly disabled the GPS functionality in all iPhone’s being sold in Egypt. The change was apparently forced on Apple by the Egyptian government should the company wish to sell the 3G iPhone in the country. Egyptian blogger Ahmed Gabr, the name behind gadgetsarabia.com, outlines the political reasoning prompting the change:
“The point is that using a GPS unit you can get accurate coordinates of any place and thus military bases and so on could be easily tagged.”
Fair enough. I don’t think that any government isn’t concerned with national security these days, but consider the faulty logic in the thinking of the Egyptian government:
- finding sensitive locations in Egypt can be accomplished using Google Maps, available to all Egyptians
- a fully functional iPhone–GPS and all–can be purchased online and used on telecom networks in the country
- authoritarian rule has and will likely continue to perpetuate discontent among Egyptian citizens, in essence the most dangerous security concern the country’s government could face
So with all of the loopholes in the iPhone security conundrum, why did the Egyptian government even bother? Furthermore, why does Apple refuse to discuss the country-specific modifications?
(Image Credit: kramchang)
