Android and the Ingenuity of the Bright

Android and the Ingenuity of the Bright / Yoani Sanchez
Posted on June 14, 2013

They have graduated from the University of Computer Science or from some
other engineering school, but they make an independent living. They are
the new developers of applications for Android who are thriving in Cuba.
>From their keyboards a popular app has emerge with a database leaked
from ETESCA, the State phone company called — most appropriately —
ETECSA-Droyd. Simply installing it on your cellphone allows you to see
the name, address, and even the birthdate of the person calling you.
Nobody escapes scrutiny. At your fingertips you have information about a
minister, an ousted officials, and the children of the General-President
himself. Marvels of the underground, in a country where the forbidden is
more and more mixed with the desired and the possible.

Among these young digital natives, the best programmers already have
contracts with companies in other countries. They work from home in
Havana, Camaguey or any other province, but the final product goes to
Tokyo or Paris. These are the most successful. The great majority, in
order to obtain this so dreamed of long-distance work, first have to go
through a long stage of installing capabilities, at retail, in the
telephones of national users. If they're lucky, one day a tourist may
show up who needs their iPhone or Samsung Galaxy repaired. It's a chance
to show off their technological talent and entice the foreign visitor
into a partnership agreement or even to get an invitation to go work in
another country.

The path of these geniuses can also come with serious setbacks. Cuban
courts, in recent months, have tried several people involved in the
business of cellphones and software for Smartphones. Julio, one of those
arrested, was caught with a cargo of HTC phones, and GPS for cars, as
well as a workshop to create new versions of applications, among them
the illegal ETECSA-Droyd. He is now awaiting trial and a good part of
what he earned with his computer talent will go to pay an attorney.
Digital crimes are no longer just things in foreign film scripts.
Hacking, posting a website, testing tools that steal WiFi passwords,
have become a source of amusement for some young people with talents in
coding and programming languages. The new technologies add to the
illegal market, that area of our lives so primitive — almost medieval —
but also so sophisticated and innovative.

14 June 2013

http://translatingcuba.com/android-and-the-ingenuity-of-the-bright-yoani-sanchez/