Sysadmins Restore Iraqi ISP

Hen3ry writes "Brian McWilliams of Wired News reports on the dedicated staff of Iraq's State Company for Internet Services, or SCIS, and how they built, maintained, and rebuilt Internet access before, during, and after the war. Ba'ath Party loyalists still run SCIS but their dedicated employees continue to press on. Fascinating stuff about how one sysadmin managed to keep the country online up until a US missle struck the roof of the Ministry of Information building."

Comments

How did they get the gear?

[Wyatt Earp]

I read the article and it said they did go around the UN embargo to get the equipment, but my question is who sold them the gear?

I'm not trying to troll or anything, I'm really interested in this paradox.

There were embargos put on Iraq following the war from the UN.

Everyone violates the embargos.

US goes around the UN.

Everyone bitches about the US.

No one bitches about the people who broke the UN embargo and thumbed thier noses at International Law.

Re:How did they get the gear?

[zakezuke]

.... my question is who sold them the gear?

I'm not trying to troll or anything, I'm really interested in this paradox

While many nations did partisipate in a trade embargo, some nations did not.

While I know jack squat about computer gear... there was alot of flack flying around about american ciggerettes making into iraq hands.

[http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid =4 708]
U.S. can't knowingly sell them in the Iraqi market -- either directly or through intermediaries -- unless they obtain a license from the U.S. government.

It's no paradox at all. Assuming the goods were made in America they either had a license to sell to iraq, which is easy enough to believe. Alternativly good could be purchaced by nations neighboring and on good terms with iraq and taking into iraq borders.

While computers are something listed as being a dual use item, as in could possibly be used as making weapons, the embargo in theory restricted their access. But it's not like Iraq didn't have free trade agreements with it's neighbors to import them. According to this bbc artical anyway... [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1959 481.stm]

Not to treat the story seriously, or anything...

[geekwench]

It would appear that the sysadmins literally poured blood, sweat, and tears into keeping the ISP up and running under Hussein. Not to mention going way above the "call of duty" to make certain that something of the equipment survived missle attacks, fires, and looting.
The real point here is that contact with the outside world is an extremely valuable commodity to these people, and something that we in the Western nations take horribly for granted. Think of Iraqi expatriates in other parts of the globe who don't know if relatives are alive or dead. Or, in the interest of balancing out FoxNews' reporting, a hypothetical Iraqi blogger can now give the outside world a better picture of what's going on in the country. I think that this is a positive step towards rebuilding. Yes, it's an odd, sideways step, given the other needs. But when you consider just how much emotional investment the sysadmins had in this project, their priorities are entirely understandable.