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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)."
Slashdot that number!
I didn't know that one existed...
Call me Paranoid, but an ISP based in France, that is Not for Profit, is offering Dial Up to anyone in Egypt? Is this out of the goodness of their hearts, or 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 mean, good on them but... why? Also, I wonder how this is going to affect relations between Egypt and France, if at all.
This way, anyone in Egypt who has access to a analog phone line and can call France is able to connect to the network [...]
I'm wondering for how long will the international phone lines work. The gvt. is most likely able to cut those too. Remaining options will then be HAM radio, GSM roaming, if you are close enough to a border and you are lucky to be in the range of a GSM base station from across (but I have no idea about the situation in Egypt), and satellite phone.
I'll wager the exchanges are being told to block it right about now
Would that be a homage to the group Toto, "famous" for the song "Africa"?
It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never have
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Yesterday when I read that Egypt had pulled the plug on the internet the first thing that went through my mind was, 'the people will find a way.'. The second thing was, 'I can't wait to see how they do it. This is going to be fascinating.'. Since then I have been contemplating ad-hoc wireless networks and dialing into 56k modems thousands of miles away.
I have been chewing at the bit (haha! I made a pun!) for any information as to how this little project is proceeding.
The best Cringley's article can muster is a French company offering 56k access for free and the words, 'Wireless mesh network'. That is all fine and dandy.
I am happy and impressed that the French company is offering there resources to the Egyptian people. Big round of appluase for those guys. But the geek in me is not impressed. Dialing out of country to a 56k connection is just so bloody obvious. I want to know the bloody details of the wireless mesh. I want to know about the sap that has hacked his satelite dish to give internet access to his town.
I want more. It has to be out there.
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/egypt-protests-residents-open-wifi-networks-protestors-2751360.html
I submitted a seperate story on this - before seeing this story.
Any ways - I think this gives greater significance to the WiFi p2p protocols - couple of links I can find in a rush:
http://netsukuku.freaknet.org/
http://sourceforge.net/p/widi/home/
I think it's extremely important that we all take notes here. Dial-up may be getting phased out, but keeping one kicking around might not be the worst idea. Probably learning how to set up an actual dial-in connection with ease would be good. Because it can and will happen here when the shit hits the fan, and, being a veteran of war, I can tell you that the best way to demobilize and weaken your enemy is to fuck his communications as hard as you possibly can. Indymedia, while relegated largely to the role of aging dinosaur, has still been on the cutting edge of this sort of thing for several years now. It wouldn't be hard for someone to set up a Twitter-like service akin to Identi.ca and use it as a way to disseminate information on streets to avoid and where certain types of aide are needed and what not, in the event of a national crisis like we're seeing in Egypt.
For a start, the greater the technological advancement, the more dependent it is on a larger number of underlying functions. That makes it vulnerable not only to someone hitting the kill switch, but to government agents (of whom we can safely assume there are many infiltrated amongst any overthrow plot) sending out false information under the guise of "the people" Whether that's reports saying things are different from what they really are, or sabotaging rallies by sending people tot he wrong place - the problem with believing an anonymous source (on twitter, say) is that they're anonymous: you can never be sure they truly represent who they say they do.
So, while there is/was obviously some use of the internet by some people in Egypt, I would think that its main effect has been to deliver part of the story to outsiders (whether news organisations or just people) rather than to get things going within the country itself. As such, if the only way we have of getting information is through the internet we naturally (and mistakenly) presume that is also how people inside are getting information, too. There appears to already have been quite enough groundswell without the need for smartphones or websites.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Luckily, Twitter doesn't take much bandwidth. YouTube won't be a good weapon at that rate, but 56K should be plenty for effective Twitter usage.
Sugapablo
I can't imagine that somebody who set up a wireless mesh network or hacked his satellite TV is going to be very focused on reporting the technical details of what he's doing to the foreign press. There's a revolution happening and the Egyptian government is cracking down hard on protesters.
When is someone going to invent a Wireless peer to peer messaging system? I know it will suck, and there's all kinds of security problems, but in situations like this it would be invaluable.
With apologies...
People revoltin' in the hot sun.
I fought the 'net and the 'net won.
I fought the 'net and the 'net won.
I dissolved the cabinet, I have none
I fought the 'net and the 'net won.
I fought the 'net and the 'net won.
I turned off the 'net and I don't feel bad
Twitter is just no fun
Well it used to rock, it makes me sad
I fought the 'net and the 'net won.
I fought the 'net and the 'net won.
Killin' people with a six gun
I fought the mob and the mob won.
I fought the mob and the mob won.
I miss my country and the good fun
I fought the 'net and the 'net won.
I fought the mob and the mob won.
I left my country and I feel so bad
I guess it's time to run
Cause the nation is so very mad
I fought the web and the web won.
I fought the mob and the mob won.
These are exciting times to be living in Egypt. I'm not an Egyptian myself having moved here a few years ago and the locals are usually wary of me but I have past experience of setting up ad-hoc internet connections and that has proven invaluable in the current crisis. I never travel anywhere without my trusty Commodore 64 and, combined with some string and sticky tape, I have set this up as an internet hub giving access to the rest of the world. Like people everywhere, the Egyptians just want to download Hollywood movies and Linux ISOs and to troll foreign journalists. Now I ahve restored that to them it is like a new age of peace and propserity. Best wishes - Junis.
Those bastards. They're probably too busy blogging/tweeting etc. about the triviality of their daily lives. Maybe when they can just about be bothered we can get the much needed details of how they're doing it in the form of a wordpress blog or a flickr stream.
I remember when microsoft built an ISP finder into their OS. Do they still? I wonder if that would work...
Try googling it
If Google is too hard, try these
doesn't anyone want to talk about about the fact that the good old US of A is supporting a brutal regime that murders and tortures its own people?
If the USA didn't support any regime that murders and tortures its own people it would have very few relations to other countries. It's all a matter of proportion. Egypt is less brutal than other countries in that region, they have a relatively moderate stance regarding international relations, they try not to let Muslim radicals do too much harm.
Don't get me wrong, I think Mubarak should step down, but Obama is right in taking a cautious approach to that crisis.
Maybe we should start copying the Egyptians here in the U.S. I'm tired of being tied to the Comcast monopoly or Verizon monopoly, and would like alternatives.
What is this "mesh" network I keep hearing about?
What is WiFi p2p?
What is Netsukuku?
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
Not much likelihood of GSM roaming. Take a look at a photo of Egypt at night from space.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/5146231463/
Egypt *is* the Nile. And not much near the borders...
There are other media sources to check: good coverage at the moment by AlJazeera.
Some more Reuters quality photos here (warning: some show injuries, not nice). Barak Obama should probably not view photo 80, the protestor doesn't look too happy with the 'made in USA' tear gas canister....
> Dialing out of country to a 56k connection is just so bloody obvious.
Dialing out of country to a 56k connection is damn near impossible.
28.8? If the phone lines are good.
I wonder if there are any Egyptians left with USR HST modems, and if the dial-up concentrators even speak that any more..
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Does this mean we can get their IPV4 addresses back?
Just 'sayin
I wonder if they've physically shut down the networks (down, down) or if they just did something like kill the DNS servers? Even in a small network like what Egypt has it would still take a while to get all the network links, towers and DSLAMS, etc. completely off. Even if it would be a little more difficult there are plenty of resourceful people who could get IRC servers and other services up even without the links to the outside world. Most people would consider a DNS failure an outage and it's relatively quick and easy (and just the thing to be sneaky if you have a revolutionary mind).
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
you have been conditioned/used to/with capitalist brutalism SO much that, anything that i s not similarly capitalist or self centered is too hard to believe.
Read radical news here
Perhaps this suggests that some of that 'old tech' should be kept working and around just in case... I probably have a modem in a basement somewhere and I'm equally sure I've thrown a bunch out thinking that they'd never be need again
The will be happy to broadcast any videos, pictures and comments, and put them up on the internet as well. If you are familiar with Cairo, just look at the live coverage that they are broadcasting, and figure out where they are. If they have satellite video access, they certainly have satellite internet access as well. And they love to put up stuff where they can say, "CNN exclusive!"
Now, if the Egyptian starts blocking CNN . . . oh, well. Try Al Jazeera.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Yesterday when I read that Egypt had pulled the plug on the internet the first thing that went through my mind was, 'the people will find a way.'. The second thing was, 'I can't wait to see how they do it. This is going to be fascinating.'. Since then I have been contemplating ad-hoc wireless networks and dialing into 56k modems thousands of miles away.
Just as a hypothetical, perhaps not as a government action, but an act of sabotage, but what if it were to happen here? Suppose your internet went dark. What would you do? Do you have out-of-country dialup numbers handy? Do you even have a working modem? Do you even have a POTS phone line? Do you even have a terminal emulation program installed? In the before time we used to use bbs systems like fidonet; a series of nodes that connected via modem and swapped info periodically. Who's ready to deploy such a thing? uucp? Is it installed?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
I heard Jennie runs her own ISP now too....
Not much likelihood of GSM roaming. Take a look at a photo of Egypt at night from space.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/5146231463/
Egypt *is* the Nile. And not much near the borders...
Yeah, and then it it's most populated neighbouring areas are the Gaza strip and Libia. Not exactly places that have a lot of potential to get a signal out.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
Well there's always Taba, where you can pick up an Israeli network or possibly even a Jordanian one.
Eygpt is known to have nasty jails for people who disagree with others on all sorts of things.
What is happening seems to be a revolution in the making. Either you win or you die, and the people (at least those involved enough to be specifically targeted by the government) probably know it.
Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
According to an article appearing in the online technology journal MicroScope.co.uk, here:
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Since they're offline, can you use/steal their v4 Ip addresses?
"In a hypothetical scenario in some Axis of Evil nation of course."
Put functional "bait" hotspots in plastic containers that contain a tamper switch discreetly connected to any number of interesting "prizes" made from uncontrollable common non-firearm components anyone with a bit of ingenuity can assemble. A fat UPS case has LOTS of room if you ditch the large batteries. Take out enemy techs and weaken their response.
Peaceful baiting could include sacrificial easily found hotspots adjacent to concealed hotspots. When baitspot is disconnected, timer allows removal and a few hours later the backup hotspot powers up.
Baitspots could be used as ambush bait. Monitor on cam, target arrives, Claymore time. Secondary IEDs are old news but work. Tertiary and clustered command-detonated units would be practical. Cellphones are routinely used in urban warfare and the internet could be integrated into it as well. Cams could monitor targets ("drones" need not fly!), facilitating placement of ordnance in the monitored zone as well as the attack.
Write this scenario into literature. The Turner Diaries are fiction, and there is no reason other fiction can't cover controversial subjects in detail.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I propose a new protocol: Internet Delivers Information Over Twitter, or I.D.I.O.T for short.
~X~
That's at least one thing the French do right at the moment.
Mark Stephens and InfoWorld parted ways acrimoniously, and one of the results of that is that they both still use the Robert X. Cringely name. The InfoWorld Cringely is NOT the same author as this one.
Egypt turned off the internet by shutting down the DNS servers. It is extremely useful to have public DNS servers memorized. Google: 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4
You have now seen an Internet Kill Switch in action. Anyone at all still think that it's a good idea to give this president one too?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I want to know the bloody details of the wireless mesh.
Here's a place to start: HSMM-MESH
When the Shah shut down the phones and radio at the start of the Revolution, and placed a curfew on the populace of Tehran and other major cities and towns in Iran, people started shouting from rooftops at each other encouraging the revolution.
There's a point when an uprising becomes a revolution, and a revolution is a helluva lot harder to stop. At that point the rulers begin to worry about the loyalty of the army, because if the army, either in total, or even sufficient units, refuse orders to reign in the uprising, it's all over. That's what happened in Tunisia. Ben Ali was no dummy, and as soon as the Army's reliability was called into question, he knew he had very little time to get the hell out.
While the police in Egypt seem to be wavering, and there has been some reports of individual army units refusing orders, thus far the army seems loyal to the regime. How long this will last is hard to say, but too many more days like this and I can't see how Mubarak will be able to count on the Army, and then he to will flee, leaving behind some poor lieutenant to try to maintain order.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
"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)."
I suppose that could work if they had anyway to get online and get that information. Although the Egyptian government can easily block access to that number.
I don't understand why "netizens" are so concerned about making certain that a bunch of Muslims in Egypt have access to the Internet. Granted, the regime in Egypt has its flaws, but considering the country is 90 percent Muslim, it's actions have been pretty benign. What happens if the moderates currently in power in Egypt are replaced by radical Islamics? Are we to fight reflexively for freedom of speech for those who hate freedom of speech? It seems a much better use of our energies would be to fight the Obama administration's current attempts to implement an "Internet kill switch" here in the United States.
Greg Raven
As long as there's any left, I'll take mine first.
So when is the US/EU/etc going to step in and liberate Egypt?
ham radios are the best rely the case with d-star models. they have full net ability via radiowave have a 150 mile range and unlimited range with a tower and are abought idsn speed. got a older ham your still not out of the loop being you can use sstv or slow scan tv to send pics and data over the radiowaves its even possible with some mods to a cb radio. example hear http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2fa1WvjIvs but as i said d-star has full web.
I think the isp finder still exists in XP. If not mistaken as an option in some new connection wizard or something. Havent looked in a long time, but I suppose phone books and companies still offer dialup service, in many places, so you can just call and for the number, sign up, etc. Like back in dialup times.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
The RIAA and MPAA are basically censorship organizations. Copyright law is basically a form of censorship. Any restriction on copying and distribution of information basically is a form of censoring, with a legal support. The "uncensorable" internet, that we thought routed around all censorship, doesn't. It's immensely censorable. Any company with any copyright, plus any of the terrible and violent things that happen all over society, become reason for internet censorship. Plus, states that just outright censor, can do it easily. I remember discussing this back in the early 90's, that the internet, for all its potential, could in practice be censored, controlled, and inspected, as all the connections are centralized. What we need are p2p web servers, that are hosted off everyone's machines, serverless. Routing built into our connectivity solution. Wiring and wireless from neighbor to neighbor. An entirely different connectivity infrastructure. Hell, we're going back to the days of AOL with facebook and the like, where censorship becomes just corporate policies, with complete impunity. If you want to take freedom to the ultimate consequence, people have the right to sit at a bar or cafe or street corner, and talk about whatever they want. If they talk about illegal things, they can still talk about it. On the Internet however, conversation of illegal activity is grounds for censorship. And that opens the door wide open to all kinds of censorship. There are dozens of things you may not say on the net, because it's censored in this, that or the other way - it's all controlled. I have a lawsuit for thousands, for defamation, because someone used my connection to curse out their boss. Defamation, yet another law for censoring. There are dozens of reason to censor, and we just don't do anything about it, keep repeating the mantra "the internet routes around censorship". Well, maybe it can, but it's not doing it very well.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Have you considered that perhaps they know this, but are hoping that the current regime won't be in existence much longer. At that point it really doesn't matter what the powers that be would do as they will cease being the powers that, well, be. Regardless, it's their own call to provide the service and anyone else's call to take them up on the offer.
From a purely self-interested point of view, the company may believe they have more to benefit than to lose. From other views, they may believe that this is the right thing to do, even if it does cost a few extra bucks. Either way, motivations are complex.
I too have been waiting to see what will come up, ever since they cut it off. But honestly I nowadays feel very consored in the regular Net already. There's a huge battle going on internationally to control and censor the net using all sorts of ways. Defamation, copyright, lawsuits, police needs, and regular commercial interests are slowly steadily increasing the vigilance and liable actions and content. IP number logging has become the universal ID that is recorded at every doorway automatically. And a totally decentralized network, with no servers or cables run be corporations, is the only way I see out.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
http://www.open-mesh.com/
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
"USA supporting a brutal regime ..." is far more the norm rather than the exception. In fact, I would go a step further and state that the USA supporting a brutal regime is SOP, and has been so almost since we began our American Exceptionalism "Age of Empire" that started with the Spanish-American War. The USA engaged in the brutal suppression of entire villages in the Philippines to capture|kill a few freedom fighters -- a tactic we learned from the British Empire. A brutal dictator is easier to control than a democracy, right up to the point that that we lose control of the dictator (i.e. Saddam Hussein) or that dictator loses control of the country (i.e. General Pinochet, or the Shah of Iran).
Since the USA fought the fascists in WW2, we have become that enemy of democracy ourselves -- Operations Paperclip, Gladio, Ajax, MK-Ultra, Condor, Northwoods, Mockingbird, COINTELPRO, and more. Between the intelligence agencies formed after WW2 (CIA & NSA) and military programs like School of the Americas, the USA has been the world's premier promulgator of brutal secret police, death squads, and torture the world has ever seen. All this in the name of Empire, also known as colonial mercantilism.
Post 9/11/2001, the USA has directed the 2nd unending war, the War on|of Terror -- the 1st being the War on|of Drugs. Today, those two wars are directed against countries abroad (especially those with oil) as well as against the American people themselves. The chickens (fascism) has come home to roost, in the form of the Orwellian named USA Patriot Act(s), the Help America Vote (Our Way) Act, the FISA|Telecom (Immunity) act, the Military Commissions Act, and a smorgasbord of POTUS Executive Orders, including the power of extrajudicial assassination of USA citizens, extrajudicial stripping of USA citizenship, detention of citizens for indeterminate length without habeous corpus or due process. And now there is legislation pending to cut off the internet here in the USA by the Unitary Executive, just like what was done in Egypt, all in the name of fighting terrorism.
"War is to neither be won nor lost, but to be continuous." George Orwell, from "Nineteen Eighty Four"
Sic semper tyrannis.
That concurs with my experience when I have to dial-up around the Great Firewall (which is blocking news from Egypt these days...don't want to give the natives any restless ideas...). I typically have to fall back to 9600 or 2400 bps, which is good enough to make an independent check on SSH key MD5 sums, at least. Modems signals are pretty standard down to 2400 bps, but the slower 1200 and 300bps standards are different between Europe and North America. Russia used North American standards, because the Soviets of the 80's were more accustomed to stealing American technology.
And I wish dial-up were more obvious to the Ubuntu packagers. Recent versions of Network Manager won't recognize Gnome PPP as a network connection and Evolution refuses to fetch mail, thinking it is offline. Arrrgh!
I have to say, for the first time, I am impressed with the french, extending their services to allow egyptians to use the internet even if their own government does not want them to. I would want to know why a government would completely block the internet off from people, what is the reasoning, but I guess when you see something that just ain't right, it is nice to see another country doing what they can to help out.