Mass Mexican Protest Defeats National Cell Phone Database

William Booth of the Washington Post reports that millions of Mexicans -- in a remarkable act of mass digital protest -- are refusing to submit their personal data to the Mexican government despite the government's demand that the owners of every cellphone in the country register their names, numbers and addresses in an effort to combat organized crime, especially the phenomenon known as "virtual kidnapping." From the article: "The burgeoning Mexican cellular class -- which now includes city swells with thrumming BlackBerrys and peasants with cheapo Nokias out in the fields -- assumes that any personal information they give the state would inexorably flow into the hands of the very criminals the new law seeks to foil, creating a kind of White Pages for crooks and kidnappers." The protest appears to have succeeded: Since so many Mexicans declined to give their personal information and because the data could not be authenticated, experts believe the mobile phone registry will now be completely useless from a security standpoint.