Kenya working with Interpol to fight hate SMS

By Paul Wafula

Kenya is working with Interpol, an inter-governmental organisation that facilitates international police co-operation, to trace people sending hate text messages from across Kenyan borders.

This comes as a follow-up move to deal with a racket that has crafted a new way of sending messages using computers over the internet.

Information Permanent Secretary Bitange Ndemo also said that network providors will also be held accountable over hate texts messages emanating from their network.

“We also want every hardware to have the unique public Internet Protocol (IP) address. What the IP address helps with is traceability. Internet Service Providers (ISP) are required to assign each gadget on their network with an IP address (this is why we were moving from IPV4 to IPV6),” Ndemo told The Standard in an email interview.

This week, The Standard unearthed a racket where technology gurus have crafted a new internet text message system to help politicians beat recent stringent measures adopted to curb the spread of hateful messages using mobile phones.

This is making a joke of a joint Government initiative with local mobile operators to prevent a repeat of the 2007 post-poll violence.

“Unfortunately, most ISPs are unaware when they assign a common IP address to multiple gadgets. The day a good lawyer seeks answers as to who exactly sent a hate message from an ISP assigned IP number is when they would understand what is referred to as intermediary liability. So +254 000000 can be traced to some IP address and its owner would have to explain,” Ndemo said.

Tracing mechanisms

“There are those generating these messages from foreign countries deceiving themselves that Interpol will never get to them. But this time round, we are more prepared to deal with the menace. Further if the problem gets worse, we may have to filter some key words. It is fairly easy to get these criminals because we have improved mechanisms to trace,” Dr Ndemo said, adding: “Mobile operators bear the greatest responsibility of avoiding to get into trouble with intermediary liability,” he said.

Multiple sources across the mobile industry said their responsibility is limited only as far as the message is emanating from their network or is being redistributed on their networks by licensed bulk SMS providers.

“It is possible to use messaging services such as Google where one can block their number or use a shared number to send the messages which are at times free of charge,” another source familiar with the workings of the bulk message services said.

A highly placed source within the mobile industry also said networks do not have the capacity to block messages sent through computers from users using bulk messaging services over the internet, especially if sent from outside the country.

“We cannot stop inciters sending messages on our network using the Internet messaging services. But we can monitor who is resending them if they are registered and where they are doing it from,” the source who works in a techincal department in one of the four mobile companies told the Standard in an interview.

Inappropriate nature

Safaricom has been at the centre of a joint campaign between mobile operators and the government to ensure that Telcom companies are not used to incite Kenyans in the run up to the next General Election.

The mobile operator said the initiative that it recently launched in partnership with the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) is aimed at ensuring that bulk SMS from local PRSP/CSP companies of an inappropriate nature are not sent through its network.

This is now set to pile fresh pressure on the sector regulator, which in the recent months issued guidelines restricting sending of bulk unsolicited messages in a bid to fight cases of hate speech and incitements. Consumers were to only receive messages from sources they have accepted and can opt out when they want.