http://www.cio.com/article/610064/Freed_Journalist_Tricked_Captors_Into_Twitter_Access?source=rss_news
A journalist who was released over this past weekend was able to send communication to his family and friends while he was being held captive through none other than his twitter account. Kosuke Tsuneoka had been held for 5 months until his release and no one had heard a word from him until just a few days before he was freed by his captors. The two messages, written in English, stated:
"i am still allive [sic], but in jail," and "here is archi in kunduz. in the jail of commander lativ."
Having not heard from him over the course of his captivity, his family and friends very quite skeptical towards the tweets. First of all, they were not written in his native Japanese, second, the tweeting seemed improbable if in fact he was being held hostage, and third they came from an unknown source (not his usual cell phone). After his release, Tsuneoka was able to clear up the facts and explain how he was able to get access to the Internet. Basically he was able to tweet using his gurds new cell phones while teaching him how to access the internet through his cellular account.
In a country where it can be difficult to find clean water, it is amazing to me that people are using technologies like cell phones with Internet access and on top of that, TWEETING! If the journalist had not been so cunning while teaching the low ranking soldier about the Internet capabilities of the cell phone, then he would definitely not have been able to send a hopeful message to his loved ones. Who new twitter could be part of sending hopeful words from behind enemy lines.
This really speaks to the changes taking place within technology today. The amount of connectedness we have with people around the world is incredible and it is slowly making the world a much smaller place.
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