:: Shekhar Bhatia

Want to beat terror? Get tech savvy, not wary

By Shekhar Bhatia

Two days into the terrorist attack on Mumbai I was browsing the Net for some stories for my blog when I stumbled upon this minute-by-minute account of the siege of the Jewish centre (Nariman House) in Colaba.

11:42: At least eight shots have been fired by what sound like assault rifles at Nariman House as the attackers seem to continue to repulse the Indian Army’s best efforts to defeat them.

11:38: Another heavy explosion has shaken Nariman House.

11:30: Two more heavy blasts have echoed from Nariman House, with no accompanying sounds of gunfire.

It was a New York Times correspondent sending updates to his newspaper on his BlackBerry.

BlackBerrys were also used by many hostages trapped in the Taj and the Trident hotels to send frantic messages to their family and friends — and by the terrorists to coordinate their attacks.

Sure, the terrorists would have used more sophisticated and expensive equipment like satellite phones and global positioning systems to navigate their way and execute a project of this magnitude, but, according to reports, they also used software that millions of people (including me) use as a routine — Google Earth or Google Maps to check directions, Internet telephony such as Skype to chat with family and friends abroad and the BlackBerry to do a lot of things on the go.

These are just some simple end-uses of modern technology. But there is a downside: in this digital age the bad guys, too, have access to technology.

Let me illustrate my point: I am fairly familiar with Colaba but was not sure where Nariman House is located. So I logged into Google Earth — a site I often use to get directions, or when I visit a city I am not familiar with — and there it was, straight down from Regal cinema, past Leopold Café towards Colaba post office, just before Sassoon Docks. It’s a crowded area, and the image wasn’t sharp. I could not see the details of the building, but I did get a fair idea of its location.

Reports say the terrorists, too, used Google Earth to get the coordinates of the area and plan their attack. Going by the map of Colaba on my computer, they would definitely need a sharper image, which, I believe, is quite easily available for a price from many satellite mapping agencies.

In three months the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) will launch its own satellite imagery site, which it says will be much better than Google Earth. Called Bhuvan (Sanskrit for earth), Isro claims it will give more detailed and sharper images than those provided by Google. I do not know if Bhuvan will be in open domain — meaning, if you and I will have access to this technology. I hope we will — because it doesn’t make sense to create something so useful and limit access to it. And if we have it, so would the terrorists.

During the siege of Mumbai, both hostages and terrorists relied on cable television in the hotel rooms for information. Once the hotels switched off the TV feeds they were able to get news only through text messages on their cellphones. Had a technology called 3G (third generation) that is available in most countries of the world been launched in India, they would not have had to rely on television sets; they would have been able to get live video feeds on their cellphones.

The good news is last week the public sector phone company BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) launched a 3G service dubbed Jadoo (magic) that provides a range of choices to its subscribers — Internet on mobile, video-calling and live TV.

In any case if you have a laptop handy and an Internet connection, you don’t need 3G to access a live TV feed. I log in to an Indian news channel on my MacBook all the time. So do my friends living abroad. And if they can, so can the people who controlled and, perhaps, even guided the terrorists through the attack on Mumbai.

And then there is this technology called Twitter. I had heard of "Twitterers" and thought what they did was complete self-indulgence and a waste of time — till I browsed the Net that morning and read one of the hundreds of rapid-fire updates called "tweets": "Hospital update. Shots still being fired. Also, Metro cinema next door".

I also read about a blogger named Vinu "who grabbed his camera and headed out onto the streets of the city, taking a series of photos showing mangled cars, bloodstained roads and fleeing crowds". Within the hour he had uploaded over a hundred photographs. I downloaded one for my blog.

I still do not know much about their world but going by the massive media coverage they received they must be doing something fantastic. However, according to a blog I read on Wired, even harmless Twitter can be a weapon in the hands of a terrorist: "The miniature messaging software could be used as an effective tool for coordinating militant attacks".

So what should the government do? Stop use of a particular technology? Restrict its access? Monitor like a police State?

Two years ago, a few days after the Mumbai train bombings that killed over 200 people, the government blocked access to some websites and blogs. If I recall, no reason was ever given for this knee-jerk response. Earlier this year there was a long-drawn controversy about BlackBerrys.

Technology has no boundaries. Putting restrictions on its use in India will not prevent it from being accessed from a remote corner of Afghanistan. The answer lies in keeping pace with it, in using it to improve intelligence gathering. Taking technology away will not take away terrorism.

Shekhar Bhatia can be contacted at shekhar.bhatia@gmail.com