this battle between good and evil will contnue. You will come up with solutions to close one door, the corrupt elements will come up with more creative ways to open more. The fact this battle can never be won doesn't mean one should stop trying. Besides, Dr. Sajjad's solution is not something that is going to put this issue to rest once and for all. Human creativity and especially evil creativity has no bounds.
There have been numerous other proposals submitted to relevant authoruty to address the broader problem of corruption like:
1. Tax evasion detection through analytics
2. Electricity theft detection
3. Shared "Fraud/bad elements" database for customers across telecom operators
4. Fraud detection within banking transactions
5. Centralized claims database within insurance
etc.
Not one has been piked up or generated any excitement in the public or private sector. Executives are as oblivious to the power of analytics as the government. May be R&D projects like the one highlighted by Dr. Sajjad is exactly what we need. SIMs are issued against CNIC but it seems that same CNIC information is used over and over. New connections have some tighter controls but grandfathering the SIMs issued over the lasy 10 years is a pain.
The trick would be to tie Telecom Operators' commercial interest in such initiatives and then they will do it. For example, which pre-pay customers can be very good post-pay customers would require a similar usage analysis needed for detecting abuse or illegal activity. If the telecoms are inetrested in finding more post-pay customers, as a by-product they will find these "suspicious" SIM users as well.
I would highly encourage poeple like Dr Sajjad to keep up the good work and adopt innovative approaches to our specific problems that western research institutions may not be directly interested in.
Regards
Nauman Sheikh
On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 2:37 PM, Syed Abbas K Zaidi
<szaidi2@gmu.edu> wrote:
Dear Dr.
It seems the newspaper did you a favor by not publishing your letter. Why do you want to attract unnecessary attention of these same anti-social elements towards you or your institution? A more pertinent approach may be to reach out to the people of authority in the government (i.e., law enforcing agencies) with your services. And, if in the process (or attempt) of doing so, you find that they are also part of the problem, then save your hide and keep publishing research papers.
With best of wishes and prayers for your safety!
An old acquaintance
----- Original Message -----From: Sajjad Haider <shaider@gmualumni.org>Date: Thursday, November 15, 2012 12:34 pmSubject: [pakgrid] Monitoring of Suspicious Mobile Phone SIMs> Dear All,>> I wrote the following piece as a "Letter to Editor" but I am not> sure if> this would ever get published. Nevertheless, considering the> interests and> affiliation of the members of this group, this is probably the most> relevant forum for discussion on this theme.>> Best regards,> Sajjad> -----------> Dr. Sajjad Haider> IBA, Karachi>>> > *Monitoring of Suspicious Mobile Phone SIMs *
>>>> In the past couple of months, the government has resorted to an
> extrememeasure of blocking mobile phone SIMs to thwart potential
> terroristattacks. Despite the fact that the government must be
> praised for taking a> preemptive measure in public's interest, no matter how naive it may
> sound,this cannot be a long term and permanent solution. Instead,
> what we need is> an analytical framework that aids competent authorities in identifying> suspicious use of mobile phone SIMs. It is worth mentioning that
> illegalSIMs are not only used by terrorists for suicide or remote-
> controlledbombings; they are also used by extortionist and
> kidnappers to run their> illegal activities.>>> Artificial intelligence (AI) based techniques can help in identifying> mobile phone SIMs that are being used for illegal activities. We
> alreadyhave precedence in the form of Anti-Money Laundering Act
> that requires> banks to report suspicious activities to a Financial Monitoring> Unit (FMU)> that may initiate further investigation against the beneficiary or
> executorof a suspicious transaction. To comply with the Act, all
> banks have> deployed artificial intelligence and statistical reasoning based> tools that> help in the identification of suspicious patterns. In a similar
> spirit,automated tools that can identify suspicious usage patterns
> of mobile phone> SIMs need to be deployed by mobile network operators and their
> findingsshould be reported to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority
> (PTA), Interior> Ministry or any other competent government body.>>> It is worth mentioning that AI techniques have been used throughout
> theworld by the telecommunication industry to develop churn models
> that help> mobile network operators to predict customer attrition. One can deploy> similar AI techniques to predict if a particular mobile phone SIM> is being> used in a suspicious way. It can also be argued that learning from the> experience of banking sector in tackling suspicious activities> would also> be very useful in developing the proposed analytical framework.> Implementing rules that are similar to the existing banking> procedures can> result in the deactivation of many unwanted mobile phone SIMs. For> instance, if a person does not use his bank account for 6 months> then the> account becomes dormant. In a similar way, a (prepaid) mobile phone> SIM not> being used for few months should be deactivated and a personal> visit should> be the only mechanism for its activation.>>> There is no doubt that a successful implementation of such analytical> framework would require research and development efforts by both
> academicand industry but it is the only long term viable solution
> to the volatile> law & order situation in which we are living.>
------------------------------------
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