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Bringing Bandwidth To Iraq
jemevans sends us a link to his nonfiction tale of two California cypherpunks who went to Baghdad to seek their fortune and bring the Internet to Iraq. A much abridged version ran in Wired a while back. From the original: "Ryan Lackey wears body armor to business meetings. He flies armed helicopters to client sites. He has a cash flow problem: he is paid in hundred-dollar bills, sometimes shrink-wrapped bricks of them, and flowing this money into a bank is difficult. He even calls some of his company's transactions 'drug deals' — but what Lackey sells is Internet access. From his trailer on Logistics Staging Area Anaconda, a colossal US Army base fifty miles north of Baghdad, Lackey runs Blue Iraq, surely the most surreal ISP on the planet. He is 26 years old."
So do they need a bunch of big trucks so they can start laying down the tubes?
One of my questions would be. Who out there is still hiring, what are the wages like, and who here on slashdot would be willing to sign up?
We take a lot of our technology for-granted. Bringing modern technology to a war-torn, outdated country could be both a dream and a nightmare.
Where are these positives articles about Iraq which you speak of?
Spencer Ogden
This guy did an excellent presentation at Notacon about running a non profit isp in iraq. Available in mp3 or video format.
mp3 aviDavid Coughanour - HajjiNets: Running an ISP in a War Zone
Hacker Media
Certainly, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the facts are wrong. It's definitely written with an eye to entertain and as such plays up the violence, because, well this is America, we like violence - especially violence of the wild west variety, which was a definitely a parallel the author of the article was trying to draw.
... If they'd had electricity working within a month or two of the invasion, there probably wouldn't have been near as much violence." The idea that large US corporations, who made their fortunes working within a more or less reliable national infrastructure, could actually do a decent job building infrastructure where what little that is there already is unreliable - seems to me to be a really bad idea. What's really interesting is the causality implied by Lackey (the author of that quote), i.e. that had the US not tagged massive corporations for outsourcing their rebuilding effort, Iraq would not be in the state that it's in now.
. To sum it up in a sentence: agility and flexibility is the necessary quality in organizations responsible for providing basic services in Iraq, and it's not a quality of *any* big corporation I've ever seen.
To digress from my point (if I really had one) I thought this quote from the article was very interesting: "But the US solution was to give large US companies business here
This seems to be to be very insightful. Given the management structure of these large corporations - rapidly deploying anything as complex as telecommunications infrastructure doesn't seem to me to be something they can actually do. The reality in situations like Iraq is that if you want the citizens to be happy, you must give them the basic necessities: food, water, and shelter (and, since the late 19th century, electricity). Given the instability in Iraq, the way to provide these things is not through the massive beauracracy of American corporations, but rather with small, self-sufficient modules - mobile power stations, mobile communications stations. I kind of envision it as the guerilla warfare method of providing basic services. After all - it's been shown time and time again that the guerillas can give the massive beauracracies a run for their money *cough*vietnam*cough*iraq*cough*afghanistan*cough
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Of course, you need the skills, and the connections.
You also need balls, since Iraq IS a war-zone you are essentially risking your life every minute you are there.
I know of one contractor who was kidnapped in Iraq and subsequently released once his company payed an undisclosed 'ransom', although that was more than a year ago. Lets just say after than incident they beefed up their security just a tad. Kidnapping is a big money maker in Iraq/Afghanistan. Of course, that entails you surviving an attack long enough to be kidnapped in the first place! Most likely death would be as quick as hitting an IED and its GAME OVER.
Then there are others who are smart. They go over there and stay in their armored compounds (as opposed to foolishy driving around in the open) and are protected by security. They do their assignments, stay for a few months, and make a nice chunk of change at the end.
Truthfully, many contractors are getting rich there but the majority of them are not accomplishing much of substance. All of it is dictated by the whims of the Americans. The Iraqis have little real input. Most of it is completely unsustainable. As the linked article states, even these Internet gurus are under no illusion that what the US is doing is only aggravating the civil war.
So essentially it's all blood money. Frankly, if there is a choice between making the 'easy' money or keeping your integrity intact by not 'selling your soul' to the man for a quick buck, I would say it's not worth it in the long run. I mean, you still have to live with yourself years from now. Right?
PS. There are good jobs in Afghanistan and its not nearly as dangerous as Iraq...though that is now changing. A few years ago suicide bombings in Kabul were a rare occurrence, but things seem to be hotting up there more every day - unfortunately.
God bless the American tax payer.
While perhaps their technical expertise is slightly exaggerated...All descriptions of life in general and surroundings are right on. Actually with a fairly light hearted point of view - very healthy. Their synopsis at the end is also right on.
--
Just my 2 cents...which is probably worth more than your 2 cents...
I work Communications. Satellite, phone, computer, solaris, microwave, voip, teleconferencing....everything he did. In the same place. Anaconda is ok...if you can ignore the irritating mortars that DO come in every single damn day(usually while you are sleeping or on the can it seemed). Unfortunately, I was military, and my pay was much less than his.
That 703 area code from viginia....yeah, try calling somebody else on base with that damn army phone. If you call from an army phone to an air force phone...it goes thru the satellite hop and fiber to get back to virginia, then runs around the world on the DNS phone network to the air force side. Calling from the army side to the air force side or vise-versa was significantly more laggy than calling back to the states.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
No no no, pine is for the fjords.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
I serve in the Arizona Army National Guard. I just got back last November from a one-year stint in Iraq.
We used to get our internet access from an internet trailer that we had. We also had a (barely usable) wireless network set-up from our internet tent. As far as I know, a lot of the internet providers we used were satellite providers. In fact, we got so sick of the really crappy internet, that we shelled out money to buy a satellite dish, a satellite modem, and internet access. Split between the members of one platoon, it was about $60 a month. Our contact was an Iraqi who ran his business from off-base. He had a contact on-base that would help us out if we had any issues. It worked fine most of the time (unless we had severe dust-storms). The contact that the internet guy had on-base was actually an Iraqi electrical engineer. From what I heard, most businesses (and most people on the base) got their internet from satellite internet providers. It was pretty pricey and the only way you could manage it is if you got a huge bunch of people to sign up. In fact, that's what they used at the Internet tent. It was called FUBI Internet (For Us/US By Iraqis Internet).
This is the first time I'm hearing about this guy, or the company. I was stationed on Camp Liberty, which is a huge base in its own right. We were some hours away from Anaconda (I think 12? I don't remember rightly anymore). All the stuff we used there (that I know of, and my scope is just our internet trailer, internet tent, and platoon internet; the division MWR used internet but it was some connection from USAREUR (US Army Europe)) was from gulf (or greek or italian) satellite providers.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
At least some of the facts are wrong.
For instance, the claim of 75 net cafes nationwide prewar is bogus, there were more than that in Iraqi Kurdistan alone. They say the Erbil office failed because there's not enough business. Closer to the truth would be to say it failed because there was already an entrenched network of trusted local operators.
South of the Kurdish line, there were (and are) huge numbers of little ISPs. They arrange for satellite service from Jordan, then bring the dishes into Iraq. In the old days, when banking was still a total catastrophe, they paid their bills by sending people with cash strapped to their bodies overland into Jordan, where they'd wire the money to their upstream provider. These days it's a little easier.
Ultimately, I think this article - like so many others about Iraq - is written from the perspective of someone who is hiding in the green zone behind soldiers and armoured cars and doesn't have a great idea of what's really going on.
P.S. Just arrived in Dubai for a little R&R. It's 2:30am and they're blasting the call to prayer at my hotel balcony while I'm trying to sit out here peacefully and post to Slashdot. What the hell?
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
It isn't mentioned until well down in the article, but many Slashdot readers may remember Ryan Lackey as part of the team that founded Sealand/HavenCo, the offshore data haven that was featured on the cover of Wired in 2000. Sealand's launch and struggles were discussed here on /. The guy clearly has an appetite for adventure.
RichM
Data Center Knowledge
A company that shall remain nameless once pinged me about a role providing linux cluster admin and field engineer/developer support for a visualization project designed for military use. I would have been stationed in central Baghdad and paid on the order of two hundred and fifty thousand base pay plus hazard pay, full relocation, etc. etc. etc. amounting to probably on the order of four hundred thousand to half a million a year after all the calculations were done.
I turned them down.
Yes, it sounded like a technically sweet gig. Yes, the pay and benefits were very, very solid. Could I handle a morning and evening commute that includes pitched gun fights and car bombs? Would the security where I sleep be as good as where I would work? Would I adapt well to wearing body armor and carrying at least one if not several weapons to do something as simple as buying toilet paper? Would I want to get beheaded for my troubles? Would I want my next of kin to profit from blood money should I bite it; would I feel comfortable accepting money for supporting something I found morally abhorrent? Would I have gone through those paranoid years of deployment without becoming irrevocably changed in ways that would make it difficult to reintegrate to mainstream society (PTSD is No Fucking Joke)? I asked myself questions like that and got too many negative answers to feel comfortable taking them up on their offer. Maybe other people would have a different situational calculus, I don't look down on them for asking themselves questions and coming up with different answers.
It was a near thing for me. I almost said yes. That money could have put my SO through grad school without loans. It could have bought my ailing mother a house. It could have done a lot of things. I still sometimes wonder if I made the right choice.
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Hey, then Iraq would finally have WMD's!
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
PTSD is the main concern here ( I noticed you put it in parenthesis). Sure, all those things you could have done with the money would have helped you materially, but imagine going through the rest of your life, unable to get a good night's sleep, haunted by nightmares. Or a car back-firing triggering your nervous system to high-alert. Looking at Arab men on the street, wondering if they have an IED under their shirt. Could you get through grad school like that? You might never be able to rebuild your psyche after that. It would probably permanently change the course of your life.
I've spent some time overseas. While that's nowhere near a war experience, but it was intense enough that it made me an outsider amongst my friends. Their world was so small. I had to find a new contingent of friends who had broader backgrounds. Fortunately some of my other friends have since traveled; now we can relate better. There's a reason vets hang out at the VFW. It's to be with the other guys who have lived through that experience. You would become a totally different person and you would have a new community. I'm not saying that's bad; I'm just saying that all the benefits you would imagine having as a result of becoming a contractor might have to be completely re-evaluated in light of your new path. Hopefully with your practice you would be able to find healing and mental health for yourself and other vets if/when you came back.
My grandpa was in the invasion of Normandy. He never talked about it. A decade after his death, I heard this story: He was trapped behind enemy lines. There was a guard that he had to get past to get back to the allied front. For hours, he bid his time. Finally, the guard relaxed, and sat down to read. My grandfather snuck up and strangled him with a piece of barbed wire. He look at what the guard had been reading -- a handwritten letter and a picture of a young woman. He was so distraught by the time he got back to the front, he couldn't speak. The allies were about to kill him on the spot, because they thought he was a German spy, dressed up in an American uniform as a cover.
I don't know to what extent this story is dramatized. The biggest problem is that he never talked to *anyone*, *ever* about the war. I don't know in what circumstances he told this story. My Uncle told my mom after my grandfather had died, years after, but he doesn't remember where or when he heard it. It was sort of common knowledge among the men in my family.
My mom's family would go out to picnics, and my grandfather would sometimes disappear for hours. My male relatives were hunters; even they couldn't find him. When he came back, he would have no recollection of having disappeared. Everything was normal to him, nothing odd had happened. In my dark times, I imagine him trapped behind enemy Axis lines in some Ohio field, hiding, biding his time a few yards away from a ghostly guard.
I don't think you made the wrong decision at all.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Ryan may have been 26, but I did that when I was 24 working as a contractor for CSC. Anyone in the military uses the term drug deals to describe the shake of the hand barter system that gets you going day to day. Back in 2003, I traveled around to military installation setting up VSAT sat dishes to just to provide Internet Cafe's and VOIP access to the troops. Although this wasn't my actual job, I provided my expertise on a "free basis" to aid our troops. General Conway at the time deemed it enough of a priority to at least throw some money at it to get more sites up and running.
In the end, I didn't live in a tent. I was in an actual buidling complete with amenities most would envy in Iraq. Between all of my contacts, I was rocking it with a TV, DVD Player, Sat Cable and Internet, Refrigerator/freezer, microwave, xbox and ps2 at the time, and above all else AC. The hardest part was getting the transformers but much like everyone else the engineers scratched my back as well for what services I rendered in off time.
Traveling between bases, I flew. Forget doing a convoy where it takes you 14 hours to drive 30 miles. Helo rides were what it was all about, and I spent many nights either sweating my @$$ off or freezing to death just waiting for them to touch down to grab me.
Again, like others had said it's sensational journalism. What he did isn't all that impressive and some of the security procedures handled by SSI are negligent at best. I also have a problem trumping up his bad@$$ card for being logistically irresponsible.
Sadly, the positive stories never make it to the news.
I served in Iraq for a year. I just got back last November.
So the Stars and Stripes that we got there did tell us about explosions and deaths going on outside. We also got CNN at the chow hall and from that we heard about what's going on outside too.
But let me tell you what people back home never hear of.
The mobile hospitals that the military takes around Iraq, curing Iraqi children and adult Iraqis of diseases. The media probably never showed the stories of the mobile eye-hospital that went around Iraq curing children with eye-ailments that would have made them blind unless they got proper medical attention. I bet the media hasn't even told you guys about the schools, hospitals, and bridges that the military builds.
Nope. You will never hear about these, because "150 Iraqis die in a car-bomb blast" is more sensational than "15 Iraqi children have their sight restored due to help from US military doctors".
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
I am the Tyler Wagner from the article. At the risk of exposing myself (further) to the flames of Slashdot, I'd be happy to answer questions.
Pictures:
http://www.tolaris.com/gallery/Iraq
The Mohammed story:
http://giantlaser.livejournal.com/56797.html
http://giantlaser.livejournal.com/56863.html
Sadly, coming from a military background myself, you hit the nail on the head.
There are many good things that have happened downrange, but hardly anyone hears it because "Good News" doesn't sell unless you're some pop-idol that just got a face lift - or, you're Sanjay and just got voted off AI...
Now, AFN does show this type of stuff, but it's not picked up by the main media (I'm guessing it's shown to them..) The bad side of this is that AFN plays mainly OCONUS (overseas for those of you that haven't a clue) and only shows informational things to troops. So I see safety commercials 24/7 with Good and Bad news thrown in. The Good news is normally played over and over and over, to the point where we can mute the TV and say exactly what they are (That should be a Security question for all military personnel - "Who is Squeakers?"). The families overseas normally get excited when a normal commercial gets into the mix...
But, back on topic, good news doesn't sell. People only want to hear the bad things. Sadly, I know several people that refuse to watch the news (my wife, being one) specifically because it's only the bad stuff. The American public is so ignorant (in the true sense of the word) of whats going on down there. All they hear is X soldiers died...X Civilians died. They don't hear how many water plants are operational, they don't hear how we're attempting to fix the power but the locals keep cutting down towers so they sell the metal....
Another potential factor: They had a lot to prove. The power vacuum in northern Iraq provided them with their first opportunity at autonomy in modern times, and it's no doubt important for them to demonstrate that the Kurdish people can run a unified and viable state given the opportunity.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS