Writer: Gawaya Tegulle. PHOTO/NMG
Let me guess: you’re still one of those who are comfortable that as long as they use WhatsApp, their chats and conversations are “end-to-end encrypted” and therefore safe, right? And you presuppose that just because you have a password, your email is safe, right again?
If it be so, you, my dear friend, are naive! First, two short stories. Or maybe three, since lawyer and journalist Ivan Okuda called me last week, after reading this column on SMS messages being intercepted. Here we go.
One: I got a rude awakening when, on March 7, now acting Defence spokesman Col Chris Magezi published that audacious tweet, which carried an audio of a tapped telephone conversation between former blue-man-turned-yellow Dr Patrick Wakida and I.
Being very busy makes you miss things hidden in plain sight. I had, for a while, rather absent-mindedly, noticed that every time I opened my official email, none of the mails were in bold lettering, meaning they'd been opened – even the newest.
I get in the neighbourhood of 50 emails daily, so I only open what seems urgent and important. Distracted by so many things, I didn’t put two and two together until that tweet was brought to my attention. That’s when I came to my senses. I checked carefully, only to find that all my mails, even those I hadn’t opened a year or two back, had been read.
I contacted a cybersecurity expert in New York. He quickly established that whereas all my phones and laptops were in the United States, there was someone, in Kampala, who even at that very moment, was deep in my mail.
He pinpointed the device, its make, model, and precise location and, what’s more, he suggested names, given the person’s digital history.
Two: earlier, while still in Kampala, I’d had to temporarily abandon my known WhatsApp numbers, after noticing unknown codes flying about. When I contacted a cybersecurity expert, he checked and advised that my accounts had been cloned or duplicated, or my phones had been linked or looped.
Whatever the jargon, the short of it was that any message sent to me was being read. Now I know what goes through a woman’s mind, when she wakes up and establishes that someone raped her while she slept. She doesn’t know who it was, but is positive a rape did take place.
Three: when Ivan called, it was to inform me that he was dealing with a similar problem - his WhatsApp messages had been printed out and distributed to certain circles. Who’s behind all this? Hard to say, because the Ugandan intelligence spectrum is byzantine.
My analysis, from long interactions with intelligence agencies is this: even within each mainstream agency, no one really knows what the other is doing and they even fear each other. But they have good budgets and can afford certain technologies. What’s the way forward, therefore?
One is obvious: we need to invest in cybersecurity at both individual and institutional level. That should start with your personal initiative to ensure that your digital world is secure.
If you take trouble to protect your home, putting high walls, solid bronze gates, strong metallic doors and windows, and with all manner of burglar proofing, then you add big dogs and even guards, you'll need the same approach when it comes to your cyber world. The world is in advanced stages of digital migration; we need to read and grow.
Folks, the world is on the move! Even our dear Taliban in Afghanistan, who had shunned modernity and ‘Western civilisation’ as evil, have since moved to embrace digital migration. They have shown a sophisticated understanding and use of digital technologies.
The Taliban are leveraging platforms like X, WhatsApp, and whatever else to spread their messages. Beyond social media, the tech revolution is moving so fast, in all likelihood, the next superpower (politically, militarily, and economically) will be the one with technological supremacy. The biggest wars in the near future will be fought and won in cyberspace.
Star Wars which were the utmost and ultimate in fiction, are soon becoming very real and commonplace.
As Ugandans sleep on, worshipping the ruling party, and being fed on claptrap about “the revolution”, the world is past such backward, backroom banter. The revolution that matters is the tech revolution: invest in it.
Gawaya Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda.
