Nothing wrong in govt intercepting SMS, email for security purpose – Expert

A bill that seeks to intercept personal communications of Nigerians sponsored by the Federal Government had passed second reading at the House of Representatives.The bill essentially empowers security agents to intercept and record electronic communications between individuals and seize usage data from internet service providers and mobile networks as well as ask telecommunication companies to […]

A bill that seeks to intercept personal communications of Nigerians sponsored by the Federal Government had passed second reading at the House of Representatives.
The bill essentially empowers security agents to intercept and record electronic communications between individuals and seize usage data from internet service providers and mobile networks as well as ask telecommunication companies to conduct surveillance on individuals and release user data to authorities.
But Engineer Titi Omo Ettu, told Daily Trust in an interview that there is nothing wrong in this if it is in the overall interest of the country.
Whenever it becomes necessary especially for security purposes government may monitor personal electronic communications of people the only thing that will be required is that a court must have given approval for such access to be legal, he said.
He however added that security operatives may abuse the law thereby trampling upon the rights of Nigerians.
“(But) that is the theory of it. The practice of it is however a different thing. Most government operatives may find themselves unable to wait for a court to pronounce authorisation before they go ahead to intervene. It is in building this short course into the law to legalise it that abuse easily sneaks in and faults may be contained even in the draft. In order words, the law may not be bad but the draft may be faulty.   
“So the intervention under reference is normal. The only thing that will be required is that a court must be seen to have given approval for such access to be legal. However the details of the law they are drafting has to be studied to determine whether what is being drafted is not open to easy, complex or extended abuse”, the telecoms engineer said.
Engineer, who was one of the NITEL engineers during the company’s bright days before he retired into private practice, said monitoring of communication is not new even in Nigeria as it has always been in our laws, adding that the advanced economies also practised this.
“The subject is not new my brother. It has always been in our laws. What is changing is the manner of exercising the legality because of modern technology and how it has changed our behaviour and capabilities.
 “I am reminded that as a junior telephone maintenance engineer in the late seventies, I exercised the right routinely to go clandestinely into conversations of some telephone conversations in which anonymous callers terrorised phone users. In order to detect where the calls originated from and to be sure of which call whose source I needed to trace, I must interfere with the calls. That is to say I must listen to the conversation.
 “I did this routinely but usually on a request from the Police and I reported on several cases. Many were interesting finds and were useful for the purpose they served. One was actually the case of a son who was anonymously using the father’s telephone in the house to terrorise his father in the office in order to extort money.”
But he said the worries now are about individual rights and the need to protect them.
Besides, he added, the requirements for responsibilities of service providers are usually the difficult aspects of the drafts.
“I have never seen a fair one. That is what makes it a very complex subject.”
Reusable paper book that lets you upload scribbles to the cloud underway
Tapping away on a laptop or tablet may be a handy way of recording your thoughts, but there is something satisfying about scribbling away on paper – especially if you’re drawing a picture.
Now there’s a notebook that allows people to write in it with a pen, then digitise the notes and save them to the cloud, using just a smartphone app.
When the Rocketbook is full, users heat the book in a microwave to clean the pages so they can begin to fill them again.
Joe Lemay, of Cambridge Massachusetts, is raising money on crowd funding site Indiegogo to put the book into production.
The notebook and app will work together to enable notes and drawings to be uploaded to the cloud, where they can be stored.
The notebook is the size of a traditional sheet of paper and is compatible with any pen, but by using Pilot FriXion pens, notes can be erased by heating the book in a microwave.
Using image capturing technology, the Rocketbook app will be able to ‘accurately and quickly convert’ handwritten notes and drawings into digital images.
It will then store written information in predetermined cloud locations using seven icons on the pages.
The app will be available for Apple iOS and Android and will come free with any notebook.
It will also be able to be used to scan any piece of paper but performance in deciphering the information and storing it may be limited.
Instead of the usual lined pages, the sheets in the Rocketbook have a dot grid pattern ‘that allows for true creativity and are great for writing text notes, sketches, and designs,’ according to the firm.
There are seven icons at the bottom of each page, described as the ‘magic buttons’ which can be used to organise notes in the cloud.
‘You assign each icon to the place of your choice, any folder inside Dropbox, Evernote, Google Docs, or your email address,’ the company said.
‘When you mark that icon on your page, Rocketbook automatically files your notes in the right place.’
People will be able to use the accompanying free app to ‘accurately and quickly’ convert handwritten notes and drawings into digital images.
They will hover their handset above a page so the app can use image capturing technology to register words, images and the chosen icon.
The app will first be available for iOS devices, with an Android version due in August.
It will be able to be used for scanning non-Rocket book pages, but performance may be limited.
The book can be pre-ordered via Indiegogo from $25 plus $15 international shipping (£27 for those living in the UK) and each one comes with one black FriXion pen, with others colours on sale too.
The firm set out to raise a modest $20,000 on the site, but has so far pulled in $194,982, which is 975 per cent of what it asked for.