By Graham K. Rogers

A release from the US Department of Justice announces the extradition of Lim Yong Nam (also known as Steven Lim) to the USA from Indonesia to face conspiracy charges related to the export of thousands of radio frequency modules from the USA to Iran.

It is reported that from 2008 - 2010, some 16 of these modules were found in unexploded improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq:

. . . the "modules include encryption capabilities and have a range allowing them to transmit data wirelessly as far as 40 miles when configured with a high-gain antenna. These same modules also have potentially lethal applications. Notably, during 2008 and 2009, coalition forces in Iraq recovered numerous modules, all made by the same Minnesota firm, that had been utilized as part of the remote detonation system for IEDs."

The indictment alleges that those in the conspiracy shipped 6,000 of the modules to Iran from Minnesota.

More information is available in the release from the Justice Department

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.