Slashdot Mirror
Egyptians Find New Ways To Get Online
angry tapir writes "Groups like We Rebuild have scrambled to keep Egypt connected to the outside world, turning to landline telephones, fax machines and even ham radio to keep information flowing in and out of the country. Although one Internet service provider — Noor Group — remains in operation, Egypt's government abruptly ordered the rest of the country's ISPs to shut down their services just after midnight local time Thursday. Mobile networks have also been turned off in some areas."
Just make sure they stay clear of areas where "fireworks" are going off.
A regime that tries to shut down all means for its population to communicate is one that does not deserve to continue.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Be nice if the united states supported the egyptian people.
Seems we're not really all that big on the whole 'freedom' thing after all... We're still hoping our bff stays in charge of egypt.
If egypt does get their freedom... I hope they remember we sold the egyptian goverment the weapons being used on civilians right now.
Sometimes the usa deserves the hate it gets. Ok.. most times... the us goverment anyway.
Please be IPoAC, please...
That's just short sighted biggotry, i hope your just trolling. I'd say that India is running a successful black country? being ~1 billion people in size they have to be doing something right.
I know what you mean, a technology site focusing on the technology aspect of it. Crazy.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Did my own piece on this this morning, got some links of interest in it. http://mobilitydigest.com/preventing-protester-communication-not-so-easy/
GP is trolling, but calling India a "black country" is some serious wtf.
i dunno if slashdot is behind or what but internet was restored by there largest isp less then 24 hrs later. at least when i read the ful story thats what it said.
That's exactly what I thought too! Good ol' RFC1149.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Yes. They have no other options. Any other internet service providers who move in to take their place will do the same thing when the new government points their guns at them too.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
they aren't African black, but they aren't Caucasian either. (obviously, they are Indian...)
my assertion was based on "black people" can't have a successful society, as the only numeric of success of said society was the color of the skin, if it was truly important then lighter skin would be successful society and darker skin would be less successful.
as we know that darker skinned India has quite a successful country, there for the ability to create a successful society is not defined by skin colour. It doesn't matter as if your getting picky about race, then Egyptians exhibit more middle eastern traits than African traits.
Wired also has a wiki titled "Communicate if Your Government Shuts Off Your Internet." It has some interesting thoughts on things like ad-hoc networking, satelite, and even packet radio.
This bit I found interesting: "Apple computers tend to have very accessible Ad-Hoc functionality built in, including a pre-installed chat client (iChat) that will automatically set up an Ad-Hoc "Rendezvous" chatroom between anybody on the network, without the need for an external service like AIM or Skype. Ad-hoc network hosting functionality is built in to the Wifi menu." On Windows PCs, it's almost as easy, but it requires software which is not installed by default.
Egypt shut down the internet for a reason. It was to keep the protesters from organizing, keep the protest from growing, and generally to quell the demonstrations.
Even oboma told there president he better change his ways or this would happen and well he didn't listion.(sic)
Actually it was Bush who said that :
Oddly enough--- only the last Administration with President Bush and Secretary Condi Rice has ever taken a strong reform position with Mubarak.
Obama has either been silent, or supportive of Egypt as it is - don't forget he went to Cairo to speak not that long ago.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is actually something we need to think about at work a "Internet kill switch." What I mean by that is let's say there is a massive amount of attacks coming from all over the net, that we cannot mitigate or shut out. We need to cut our losses until it is over or something can be done, we need to shut down the Internet. Well, just pulling the connection physically would work to some extent, since it is a single building, but actually would result in loss to some pretty critical stuff. We really need to set up an emergency procedure so that we can cut off the net at large, but maintain connections to our critical servers if we need it.
This is the second post in a row where you have exhibited horrible grammar. The first letter of every sentence along with all proper nouns and acronyms should be capitalized.
The word 'are' is a form of 'be', meaning to exist. You meant to write 'our', as in, belongs to us.
You should really use a web browser with built-in spell checking which would have caught most of your spelling errors.
Exactly. I imagine the governments (Egypt and Tunisia) *believe* the social media incite riots (like yelling fire in a crowded theater), and don't acknowledge the real issues involved in the protests. And of course hitting the kill switch incited relatively peaceful protests to all-out revolution. The govts have just REALLY pissed people off now. [Idiot leaders.]
So why aren't we all phoning a random number in Egypt once a day and asking if there's anything they want us to put on the interwebs for them?
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
In that case, our government seems to be sending a mixed message by adding the internet kill-switch back into proposed legislation...
Sensationalist headlines aside, care to point out where the aforementioned bill says anything about shutting down communications? From my reading its about isolating the networks on which high value infrastructure is located, not shutting down anyone's communication. More reading, less rhetoric please.
What you don't seem to get that is that "isolating the networks" is exactly how you shut down communications. How else would you do it, besides pulling the plug entirely?
Also, the other important piece here is that according to the blll, Judicial Review is explicitly denied
A company that objects to being subject to the emergency regulations is permitted to appeal to DHS secretary Janet Napolitano. But her decision is final and courts are explicitly prohibited from reviewing it.
So if anything can be declared "critical infrastructure" and isolated without benefit of the courts, any communication can be shut down. The attempt to avoid judicial review is on page 403 of the bill, if you care to read it yourself.
Agreed. Not because I would have been watching videos of other peoples' cats (what an odd fetish), but because I would have wasted my time reading about other people going out and protesting.
My understanding is that if you use a ham radio to vew the internet you can't go to any web page with an add on it.
A communications disruption could mean only one thing: invasion.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
All governments, as macro pseudo-organisms, sufficiently mimic life that they have their own survival instinct. Any government - every government - when faced with its own imminent mortality, WILL do anything necessary to prolong its survival.
This is precisely why revolutions are cyclically necessary in human civilization: the Beast has to be killed off every so often because it will never simply retire.
Regurgitate your own Kool-Aid much? Does it really taste better going down the 100th time?
Plus, it's not like the people living on less than 2$ a day don't have much way to get video of any 'over-reactions' in riot control out of the country, or widely spread within it, but the minority who has more technology available does -- No wait, it is exactly like that. Oh, well, It's not like just one guy with a cell phone can play back one of those videos to a whole group, maybe multiple times -- No wait, it's exactly like that too.
Who is John Cabal?
My concern is that while the world is focused on communications, government-subsidized foods like bread and other essentials, are being withheld. Food distribution and delivery is disrupted and stores spike the price of food products, thus people can not afford to feed their families. Is anyone aware of people and organizations which can and have overcome this challenge like farm-to-city transport or outside assistance from a bordering or neighboring country. Timing is everything and people starving quickly outstrips communication unless the two can flow together. This is my hope and the reason I am writing...just in time..I hope. Thank you and I appreciate your suggestions.
I think you're mistaking slashdot for 4chan - get yourself a real name and ID or GTFO.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I hate it when people use that stat, less then $x a day. It's meaningless, and I can tell you from experience that living in a country where the populace makes less then 2$ a day is meaningless. Like in Nepal, young educated folks find ways to use the internet, even if dirt poor by American standards.
I think therefore I can't be ~TTNH
The distance record for directional wifi is over 300km. So the answer is to have Isp's fund a mobile relay station (land or sea) that sets up when the network goes down, outside the affected country/area, and then people can tune up their pringle's can antenna skills, or whatever to link up. This would be helpful with unintentional outages, like earthquakes or hurricanes, too. The mobile relay stations could be on call to get set up wherever they are needed rather than each Isp having to buy them.
Your mother is currently residing in my bed, performing fellatio on my wife.
Your wife is a tranny?
Ocean is land, covered with water.
I've already pre-ordered my ringside seat for the next revolution. I expect to live to see it. It's overdue.
I'll stop by for a visit, then. *snort* [Ooops, wrong narcotic.]
I disagree with you Sir, but I will defend to the death, your right to get fucked.
- Signed, Skull Fucker
I can't seem to see any comments your grandchild comment below. I made one, and if the e-mail notices are to be believed you've been trying repeatedly? Ain't this new discussion code wunderful? The preferences won't actually even lemme select the old D1 system: whenever I place a check next to D1 it immediately changes it back....
Oddly enough, I think that shutting off mass communications makes the opposition stronger (and, conversely, that resistance movements that rely on these technologies tend to be weak and brittle.) With no electronic networks, people organize physically, managing territory, creating local bodies of provisional authority, etc. The Egyptian protestors are now flying "under the radar" - they have systems of command and control which have more to do with the physical layout of neighborhoods. This will make them stronger.
The value of the internet as a tool for resistance is greatly overrated, I think this has shown.
...the usa may be the exeption to it due to are free speech right...
Please note that the US is by no means the only country in the world that has free speech in its constitution, and despite some americans claiming otherwise there are plenty of countries that have equivalents of the US constitution, it's just that we don't refer to it as "The constitution", here in Sweden it's "Grundlagarna" but they're still equivalent to the constitution.
Also, please do something about your spelling and grammar, your post is barely readable.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
You really should take some evening classes and brush up on your English. It's physically difficult to read what you have written in this thread. I hate to think how you speak!
Hey, don't knock it till you try it!
If / when Mubarak is taken down, The Muslim Brotherhood will slowly take over, not a pro-Western, pro-freedom movement of the people. We in the West (especially in the US) have this pollyannaish belief that once a tin-pot dictator is overthrown, said country will instantly and permanently become Switzerland or California. This 'Cairo Spring' may well turn out to be a long, cold winter for all the Mid-East and Israel specifically (re-encirclement).
Sorry, but the ISP's are run by people too - and they can end up on the streets just as easily. A company not only has to run by the law (and if the government says no, then that's your lot) but has to have people who will make those changes too. They can argue, they can try to change the law, they can stop doing business but it's not up to the ISP to try to be the last bastion of freedom in the country. It might be a *small* group of people who used to work at the ISP holding out but the ISP itself is just a virtual entity that has to obey the law if it wants to exist. It's the *people* that have to switch things off or on, and I don't expect any of them to stand up for my rights when the government is in such a state.
I *expect* the ISP's to co-operate with whatever they are made to do - either by law or by force - in order to protect their employees. Seen what happens in China if you decide that you *don't* want to follow their rules?
In the same way that when Russian submarines have their power turned off because the government hasn't paid its bill, I *EXPECT* the company to be forced to put the electric back on (as happened a few years ago) because someone is going to point a gun at them if they don't, and they are human too. I wouldn't expect there to be repercussions from the customers when such extremes of civil action take place.
Not everyone can be a hero, especially not over something so petty and transient in the middle of mass-rioting - and expecting everyone to be a hero basically makes "heroes" redundant. If someone points a gun at me, they will get what they want, unless that option is worse than death to me. A few million people being without the Internet *isn't* worse than death, despite what you might personally think.
The point is to make a system where NOBODY ever ends up pointing guns at you - i.e. a working government, a non-oppressive government, and a law where its completely illegal to do such things.
This is state censorship. If you live in that state, you have two choices - comply or risk persecution. Risking persecution is very heroic but for someone else's Internet connection, especially when you know it isn't going to stop anything? Pointless. This is why the Chinese are so "oppressed" - the "heroes" aren't shooting back, they are complying with every rule, being put under house arrest etc. It's that or be dead, in some cases. You can't make that choice for other people.
When someone points a gun at you, whether the switch in your ISP is on or off is the least important thing in the world. If it were a switch for a nuclear reactor that someone wants you to blow up, then you have a problem. Otherwise you just do what the man with the gun tells you. Or the several thousand men with guns who *will* come knocking if you don't.
Living in a reasonable country is an extreme luxury that most people in the world never experience. And it's all too easy to be the hero if you're not actually subject to the consequences. In the UK, the government tells the ISP's what to do. I damn well expect the ISP's to co-operate - it's not their domain to argue with the law, they are just a company. They can lobby for changes but if the law says that on 1st Jan the Internet goes off, I expect the Internet to go off.
When the anarchy breaks out and the government is replaced and the lawful decree goes out to turn things back on, then they can. But otherwise a company is just a law-abiding entity, or it's putting it's workers at risk (of just unemployment, or worse). If the US were to force your ISP to block all adult sites, are you going to blame the ISP or the government?
A good thing the french have set up a line for the egyptians to use, to offer free dial up...
I'm quite certain that the ISPs, even if it isn't because of government meddling, are melting down due to a breakdown of government services (connections are being broken from the riots/vandalism) and because people are crushing the connections with usage alone. If you are in Egypt, you need to know what is going on and are seeking out others even if you have a network connection.
A similar kind of impact happened in America following 9/11/2001 where many ISPs felt a crush of usage. Even Slashdot couldn't keep up at one point with that crush. I see what is happening in Egypt to be no different and the need for staying connected is even more important if you live in Egypt.
Trying to run wires or even set up an antenna for a mesh network is still going to be a task risking life and property if it is done, if for no other reason than pot shots from demonstrators and looters is going to get in the way at the moment, much less from government officials and soldiers. Egypt would not be a good place to start an ISP at the moment.
FidoNet to TCP/IP gateways have existed in the past, and I've used them too. E-mail in particular was something I've used in the past rather extensively and works better than you'd think including some interesting routing of direct messages.
FidoNet works particularly well when network communication is spotty and intermittent.... such as using dial-up links and perhaps Sneaker nets.
Sneaker nets in particular seem like an ideal solution to what is happening in Egypt.
Just curious.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Maybe they celebrated in the streets because of a lack of education, which is directly caused by the corurpt goverment? Generally, well educated, happy people don't start celebrating when 3000 innocent civilians die, even if it happens in a country they really dislike. The fact that they are being repressed with tear gas and other weapons which has 'made in USA' printed on it probably doesn't help.
The Egyptian president denounced it because he would probably lose international support (Israel actually likes Mubarak) and probably more important the yearly $1.5 billion in US 'aid' if he joined the celebrations.
It's people like you that make genocides possible.
No, Tunisians and Egyptians were pissed off with their corrupt dictators and the political and economic mismanagement they engaged in. Tthey weren't just moaning because they couldn't get fast broadband access.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Quick, we need to send them 1.5 million free-trial AOL CDs!
Not that I agree with the OP, but how the fuck do you call India a black nation? Please say you aren't that dumb. Please be trolling.
We agree... first came oppression, then came individual protests, then came publicity of protests due in part to internet. Then came even worse knowledge that corrupt govt was using immoral code to find/arrest those posting messages against corrupt govt. Tunisia's govt didn't turn off internet but used it against citizens. But yes it's all about total. oppressive government. Egypt is a different nightmare... same bad quality of life and fire started from Tunisia.. Mubarak just thought he'd nip problem in bud. He royally screwed up.
French Data Network (FDN), the oldest French isp, fighting for an open Internet, Net neutrality, against HADOPI etc., also did it's share.
FDN opened an account dedicated. See : Internet Censorship in Egypt: a humble action from FDN