Beaming Up

Any desi born and raised in India would know that anything that is worth stealing (or not) can and will be stolen in India unless you take steps to prevent such theft. Small wonder then that it would be a desi company that comes up with an idea to deter cell-phone theft. Who else but a desi to could concieve such a thing. While I can't imagine that the solution they propose is hacker-safe or fool-proof, some of the reader comments on the article are pretty amazing :

yes, it’s a beta wiretapping system. The Indian government is trying to plant these phones throughout the United States, so that they can monitor your consumer behavior, then advertise you to no end. These damn sovereign wealth funds are trying to infiltrate our capital markets, our research Institutions, and the upper uschelons of government.

Some days ago one of a friend was showing us her brand new flashdrive with some ungodly number of gigs on it. A neighbor had bought it for her on his trip to China. We all looked at it with undisguised gadget lust when she joked that there may be a tracking device hidden inside it that was beaming back data from the drive back to severs in China. It would not be long before the Chinese had access to the world's data and become the lord and master of it. I thought at the time she must be off the charts paranoid to even think such a thing. I guess she is not alone.