Egypt Cuts the Net, Net Fights Back

GMGruman writes "Egypt's cutoff of the Net enrages the Netizenry, who are finding a bunch of ways — high tech and low tech — to fight back, from dial-up to ham radio, from mesh networks to Twitter. Robert X. Cringely shows how the Net war is being waged, and asks, Could it happen at home, too?" Sure, it could. On the same topic, reader dermiste writes "In reaction to the Egyptian government crackdown on the Internet, the French non-profit ISP French Data Network set up a dial-up Internet access. This way, anyone in Egypt who has access to a analog phone line and can call France is able to connect to the network using the following number: +33 1 72 89 01 50 (login: toto, password: toto)."

Comments

Re:Toto...?!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's just the French equivalent of "foo". The sequence "foo bar biz baz" is "toto titi tata tutu".

If you want to bless the reigns, you should worry more about what's happening in Jordan, rather than Egypt.

Re:What's the Catch?

[ryzvonusef]

Also, the number is probably already blocked.

If you read their comments there are links to other alternatives, including this interesting link that some how uses cellphones[1], and more people are pitching in.

Also, they have offered some statistics:

Some figures:

The first calls arriving from Egypt (code +20) are seen around 19:30. One every 2 or 3 minutes.

Rarely more than one simultaneous connection. Most are short-term (probably related to the costs of communications).

Also saw some other sources (Iraq, Algeria, UAE, among others)

[1]: http://manalaa.net/dialup

Re:effect of the 'net overstated?

[dkleinsc]

There are 2 reasons Mubarak tried to block Internet access:
1. It was being used by protesters to coordinate - reporting on where police were concentrated, where people were gathering, etc.
2. It had this video of a civilian getting shot by police while he was backing away. Mubarak probably thought that by blocking access to the video the Egyptian people wouldn't figure out that the cops had crossed that line.

It hasn't worked. As a longtime /. sig once put it: The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.

Re:What's the Catch?

[commodore6502]

>>>are they charging an arm and a leg? I mean, I know they're Not for Profit, but that doesn't always meant they offer all services free. If they ARE offering it for free... I can't help but wonder what their angle is.
>>>

I don't know why you're surprised. DIALUP internet only costs me $7/month. Netzero and Juno offer it for free (see links below). It's not that much of a burden for the Non-profit ISP to offer free access to egyptians.

And the datarate is only ~30 kbit/s via analog lines, so you could carry over 300 users in the space of one DSL or cable customer.

http://www.juno.com/start/landing.do?page=www/free/index
http://isp.netscape.com/