Egypt Goes Dark As Last ISP Pulls Plug

CWmike writes "Egypt is now off the grid. Four days after the Egyptian government ordered Internet service providers to disconnect from the Internet, the country's last working Internet company has abruptly vanished from cyberspace. Noor Group, a small service provider that hosted Internet connections for the country's stock exchange and other businesses, became completely unreachable at around 10:46 p.m. Cairo time (Eastern European Time), according to Earl Zmijewski, general manager with Internet monitoring company Renesys. 'It looks like they're completely lights-out now,' he told IDG News' Robert McMillan. Thought to handle only about 8 percent of the country's Internet connections, Noor had served as a critical lifeline to Egypt since the government had ordered service cut early Friday morning. Nobody is sure how Noor was able to keep operating, even as larger ISPs such as Vodafone and Telecom Egypt voluntarily cut their Egyptian networks off from the rest of the world." To help with this, engineers from Google, Twitter and SayNow have rolled out a "speak-to-tweet" service, which lets people dial in to an international phone number, leave a voice mail, and have the audio file made available online via an automated Twitter update.

Comments

Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

Mubarak: your house of cards is falling down! Who's next...? Down with the dictators!

Re:Yup

[flaming error]

> Down with the dictators!
And up with ... what?

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

Ghadaffi (sp?) next door in Libya? But there goes the entertainment.

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

Mubarak's replacement will be the real dictator. Egyptians will regret what they have done, but it will be too late.

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

Bunnies! ^_^

Re:Yup

[ocdscouter]

77% Discount Viagra, if my inbox is any indication.

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

boners?

Re:Yup

[Kvasio]

Who's next...? Down with the dictators!

Silvio "Pimp" Berlusconi

Re:Yup

[commodore6502]

A Roman-style Senate which had NO leaders. No caesars or presidents or anybody else who might become sick with power.

Also Google's pretty genius. All you need is a standard voiceline to post your tweets online. Nice. Wonder if anyone is making using of Dialup to post online? Despite many claims that dialup is worthless, it's actually quite useful - just slower (watching youtube requires a 5 minute buffer time) (or a youtube-to-3GP downloader).

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

the muslim brotherhood... out of the frying pan, into the fire?

Re:Yup

[h4rr4r]

Democratically elected governments.

Re:Yup

[h4rr4r]

He is already a real dictator.

Re:Yup

[EdIII]

Despite many claims that dialup is worthless, it's actually quite useful - just slower

If all you used was some specific programs that made use of API calls... dial up might be indistinguishable from broadband. Last I checked standard dial up could deliver about 4-5 Kb/s. 2 Kb/s with a crappy connection to the CO.

A tiny program written specifically for tweeting or IM with a bare bones interface (like IRC) could easily work on dial up. I should know.... for years my connection at home was 2.8 Kb/s with THREE bonded modems. If I could do IRC on *that* it's absolutely possible to just do IM and tweets.

A Roman-style Senate which had NO leaders. No caesars or presidents or anybody else who might become sick with power.

Really? How did a Roman-style Senate prevent corruption and nepotism? Sincerely curious.

Re:Yup

[siddesu]

First, the Roman Senate most definitely had leaders, and they had amazing powers to manipulate it. It was these powers that allowed it to be subverted eventually by military men like Pompei, Caesar and Crassus, and then be swept aside as Octavian did. And Octavian wasn't even a caesar, just a mere first citizen :)

Second, the Senate was a consultative body, which had no actual power, legislative or otherwise. All it could do was issue advice decrees. Unless those were made into laws by other Roman institutions that actually had legislative powers, Senate proclamations remained just that - proclamations. Of course, the main reason those proclamations had some influence, and were largely implemented as laws once adopted was the fact that the Senate was comprised of the richest, most influential and sick with power Roman citizens.

Third, read some history before you post funny things on slashdot.

Re:Yup

[MichaelSmith]

You know, Saudi Arabia is also next door. I wonder if they are next?

Re:Yup

[Red Flayer]

> Down with the dictators!
And up with ... what?

Ponies. Preferably of the OMG! variety.

Duh.

Re:Yup

[flaming error]

Great answer. But in Egypt today all there is are crowds demanding Mubarak leave, and if that happens, there is no "democratically elected government" waiting to fill that vacuum.

Re:Yup

[Teancum]

Really? How did a Roman-style Senate prevent corruption and nepotism? Sincerely curious.

I'm trying to see how any incarnation of a Senate is anything but the very definition of corruption and nepotism. Yeah, I'd be curious as well.

It is important to note that Rome was a Republic, not a democracy. The Senate was essentially a lifetime appointment originally and turned into an inherited office over time. Arguably the U.S. Senate is heading that way too.

Re:Yup

[h4rr4r]

That takes time. That does not mean letting a brutal dictator stay in place is a good idea. If he was smart he would have already announced when elections would be held and withdrawn his bullshit emergency powers.

Re:Yup

[Gerzel]

No sadly it isn't

Mubarak hasn't lost any palaces or military bases. He still is in control with the military backing him.

The reason they are not firing is because they simply don't have to. The protesters are poor living hand to mouth before the protests and will eventually have to stop just to get food and survive.

It is a waiting game. The protesters don't have enough support and the leaders will be ruthlessly found, beaten tortured and murdered once things calm down. You don't put the head of your Intelligence service as your second in command for nothing.

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a lot of "up".

Re:Yup

[h4rr4r]

Which in the long term will ensure Egypt would have the same sort of revolution Iran had. I wish our leaders had the stones to admit he needs to go and that we have been propping this asshole up.

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is that so important to note? Having a representative body like a Senate already identifies the system of government as a republic. A democracy would have direct voting on issues like in Athens (if you fit the definition of a person - a land-owning male).

Re:Yup

[camperdave]

What is the point of going dark on the internet? With the cutting of the internet though, world opinion has turned against the Egyptian government. News crews are going to be going in and getting stories, so you won't stay out of the public eye. People will still find ways of calling out and reporting to the world what is going on. Cutting the internet simply raises a huge "LOOK AT ME" flag on the world scene. The UN will get involved, then the US. Ultimately your dictatorship gets overthrown and you either wind up a bullet ridden corpse, or dangling from a noose. Cutting the internet triggers the beginning of the end, so why go dark on the internet. What's the point?

Re:Yup

[Gerzel]

Makes it harder for the protesters to organize. If they organize they might actually start doing real damage. Also while it doesn't stop the press it does make messes (read atrocities, beatings, mass graves) easier to hide. Though Egypt bodies have a tendency to stick around.

Re:Yup

[interkin3tic]

Down with the dictators!

And up with ... what?

Dear leaders! New overlords! Terrorists and warlords! Theocracies which would be more violent, more restrictive on your freedoms, encourage more wars, screw you over figuratively (and literally if you're a woman), and further hurt the very economy you had a revolution to improve, but at least they'll promise that you'll go to heaven if you pay your taxes and be a good little soldier!

My but I'm cynical today...

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

Second, the Senate was a consultative body, which had no actual power, legislative or otherwise. All it could do was issue advice decrees. Unless those were made into laws by other Roman institutions that actually had legislative powers, Senate proclamations remained just that - proclamations.

Oh my God, it was the W3C of the ancient world.

Re:Yup

[siddesu]

The only difference was they had to cut their standards drafts, blog musings and tweets in stone.

Re:Yup

[d6]

>> What is the point of going dark on the internet?

I'm thinking this isn't about the rest of the world or they'd be kicking journalists out too
They're not worrying about the UN (who does?) and the US is busy elsewhere (everywhere?) at the moment

I bet this is intended to degrade communication within the country and limit coordination of the protests.
I bet it is also not gonna help. - I saw footage someplace of what looked like protesters riding on the outside of a military vehicle & figured their government is done...

Re:Yup

[sumdumass]

The importance is most likely tied to the ability to change leadership without resorting to mass protests and riots in the street calling for the removal of someone.

Democracy also works within a republic by allowing the citizens to chose who is representing them. That's how it's supposed to work within the US and yes, eventually, enough people get disgruntled with their representatives and either vote for someone else, or fail to vote entirely which in both cases can result in their replacement.

Having a Roman style senate is little different then having a dictator that you do not agree with. Having a US style senate is in theory at least.

Re:Yup

[sumdumass]

command and control communications structure.

The protest were able to be coordinated relatively easily by the internet. They saw some of this coming and going via twitter and a few other social sites which is probably why Google and others is trying to get things going again. Basically, taking down the internet is like jamming the radio frequencies or communications of the enemy on the battlefield. It makes them a lot less organized, less effective due to that, and steals their low tech advantage away from them. Now it will take resources to send messages by hand, there's a greater chance of intercepting them as well as more time in reacting to them. It puts the government back into an advantage.

Re:Yup

[maxwell demon]

Last I checked standard dial up could deliver about 4-5 Kb/s. 2 Kb/s with a crappy connection to the CO.

Must be a long time since you last checked. Even in the late 90s, I've had a 14.4 Kb/s modem.

Re:Yup

[cold fjord]

- He is already a real dictator.

So, you're thinking they couldn't do worse?

Nasser’s Biggest Crime - December 19, 2005

“In Egypt you can walk wherever you want,” he said. “There are no rules or laws here.”

Well, I thought. There are laws against involvement in politics. But I knew what he meant. The Egyptian government doesn’t micromanage its citizens. Good on Hosni Mubarak for that one, at least. Egypt may be a police state, but at any given moment it doesn’t feel like one......

Can we talk about politics out in the open?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “We can say whatever we want.”

“Is it because we’re speaking in English?”

“No,” he said. “We could do it in Arabic, too.”

“You’re not worried about the secret police?”

“Not any more,” he said. “It is a real change from last year. Last year there was no way. But it’s better now, more open. Do you know why?”

“No,” I said. “Tell me.”

“Because of pressure from George W. Bush.”....

I wanted to know what he thought of the Muslim Brotherhood. Was it even possible that they are as moderate as they want everyone to believe?

“They are moderate because they don’t have guns,” he said. “They don’t kill people. It’s true. But most of the armed terrorist groups we see now were born out of the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“At some point,” I said, “if you want to live in a democracy you’re going to have to accept the fact that conservative religious political parties exist. You may never like them, but they won’t always be a terrorist threat. Democracy has mellowed out the Islamists in Turkey, for example.”

“Yes,” he said. “But Turkey has a secular constitution. They want to enter the EU, so the Islamists are forced to play by the rules of the game. They cannot step on the freedoms that the Turkish people take for granted. The Egyptian people, though, since the time of the Pharaohs, have been a flock. They follow the shepherd.”

“My biggest fear,” he continued, “is that if the Muslim Brotherhood rules Egypt we will get Islamism-lite, that they won’t be quite bad enough that people will revolt against them. Take bars, for example. Most Egyptians don’t drink, so they won’t mind if alcohol is illegal. The same goes for banning books. Most Egyptians don’t read. So why should they care if books are banned? Most women wear a veil or a headscarf already, so if it becomes the law hardly anyone will resist.”

“How many people here think like you do?” I asked him.

“Few,” he said. “Very few. Less than ten percent probably.”

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood eyes unity gov't without Mubarak
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest opposition group,is in talks with other anti-government figures to form a national unity government without President Hosni Mubarak, a group official told DPA on Sunday....

Gamal Nasser, a spokesman for the Brotherhood, told DPA that his group was in talks with Mohammed ElBaradei - the former UN nuclear watchdog chief - to form a national unity government without the National Democratic Party of Mubarak.

Re:Yup

[bjourne]

He is talking about kilobytes per second. You're talking about bits or bauds.

Re:Yup

[Anonymous Coward]

And Israel..

Re:Yup

[EasyTarget]

Yeah.. but the Nassa comment is from Michael Totten; and here is another:

"If you don’t join us now, when Saddam’s regime falls and Iraqis cheer the US Marines, you are really going to feel like a jackass."

The bloke is a jerk.. why are you quoting him? because it reinforces your islamaphobia?

Re:Yup

[SimonTheSoundMan]

What do you mean by a 'Kelvin bits per second modem'?

You failed like the parent.

Re:Yup

[commodore6502]

>>>The Senate was essentially a lifetime appointment originally and turned into an inherited office over time.

I don't know what happened in the long term, but originally the Senate was an elected position. Later-on the Romans added an elected Assembly for the Plebians. So Rome a a Democratic republic much like the U.S. (which copied the roman model with some changes).

Re:Yup

[commodore6502]

>>>Last I checked standard dial up could deliver about 4-5 Kb/s

I'm sure you meant 4-5 kB/s (kilobytes per second). As for speed, I used compressed dialup which squeezes text to about 5% its original size and images to ~10% their original size. It looks like crap but loads webpages as quickly as my 700 kbit/s DSL line (less than ten seconds).

Now what's the deal with three bonded modems only having 2.8 kB/s? 3 * 5.3 == 16 kbyte/s for a digital line and 3 * 3.3 == almost 10 kbyte/s for an analog line.

Re:Yup

[cheekyboy]

Open the stargate, and scare RA into coming back.

Land that pyramid spaceship and take over egypt but with more slaves that have better food.

Re:Yup

[VJ42]

Having a representative body like a Senate already identifies the system of government as a republic.

Not necessarily - modern constitutional monarchies are also representative democracies like the USA, and dictatorships like Egypt can also be republics.

Re:Yup

[gtomorrow]

NEW dictators!

Re:Yup

[flaming error]

If he doesn't want to leave, he isn't going to arrange a peaceful transition. If he were to leave today there would be a vacuum. If the people don't want a new dictatorship, they need to have some alternative poised to take over.

Re:Yup

[InsaneProcessor]

Actually, you are more accurate than you think. Theocracy is exactly what to expect here.

Re:Yup

[tehcyder]

You know, Saudi Arabia is also next door. I wonder if they are next?

Saudi Arabia's military and religious police make Egypt look like a fucking holiday camp by comparison.

Re:Yup

[ladoga]

Al-Jazeera says that opposition groups have agreed to form a comission together to take the lead until elections are held.

What they need now is for Mubarak to step down. Though I didn't entirely understand why it's even necessary. Mubarak has no legitimacy in eyes of the people of Egypt and that's what matters, right? People and opposition could just seize the moment and declare a new government. Who cares if some old man hiding near Israeli border thinks he's still a president. (Mubarak is not even in Cairo) One can't be a president without the people.

Re:Yup

[mrdoogee]

Up with miniskirts!

Re:Yup

[EdIII]

Now what's the deal with three bonded modems only having 2.8 kB/s? 3 * 5.3 == 16 kbyte/s for a digital line and 3 * 3.3 == almost 10 kbyte/s for an analog line

That was three 56k modems with v90 compression. The analog lines were so far away from the CO, and I was told by one of the tech guys for the telco that it was going through some other equipment too before it got to me. Some repeaters or something. He may have said something like digital to analog conversions, but none of it made much sense to me back then.

Hard to remember at this point, but basically I could not negotiate the v90 compression due the poor quality of the line. I could barely squeeze 1kB/s out of each line.

Ohhh, and voice was shitty too on them.

What it *was* good for was remote controlling a colocated server I had only a few miles away. The bandwidth of a Jaz disk (remember those?) travelling at 50mph between my condo and the colo facility was remarkably fast :)

Egypt's got bigger problems

[Anonymous Coward]

Egypt's got bigger problems than their Internet access right about now. I'm glad the Slashdot community is so concerned about their bandwidth and all... but really...

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[donny77]

This isn't about bandwidth. It's about preventing the populace from getting information. It's about keeping the populace from organizing. Its about control.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Chris Burke]

Yeah. The point is that now a critical avenue by which the world at large could see those problems from a non-State-Approved point of view has been cut off.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Sarten-X]

The protesters are using the Internet to organize. They're protesting to fix those "bigger problems" like a lack of free speech, corruption in government, and police brutality. Preserving their Internet access is preserving their ability to fight for what they want. I believe that's important.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[93 Escort Wagon]

Egypt's got bigger problems than their Internet access right about now. I'm glad the Slashdot community is so concerned about their bandwidth and all... but really...

Except this government action is not independent from those "bigger problems" you allude to. They want to keep the protesters from being able to communicate; and they want to keep a lid on news getting out to the wider world as much as possible.

I expect things are about to get very brutal in Egypt - at least if you're a protester (or are an unfortunate "civilian" who ends up on the general area of a protest).

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Amorymeltzer]

Well, that would be the "news for nerds" part of it.

In reality, though, the internet shutoff is a key part of the ongoing struggle. Call it a catalyst, a symbol of the regime, whatever - the point is that internet-based communications were pivotal in jump-starting starting this whole thing (back to Tunisia), and serve as a stark sign for whom the international community should rally alongside (hint: it's not the one turning off the media). There's more to the revolution than twitter, but it's more of a revolution when communication happens freely.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Kvasio]

this isn't about getting information. It's about keeping army's hands busy with porn ... they loose porn, they eventually get off the barracks and pacify people.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[istartedi]

Egypt's problem is multidimensional. The Internet is our dimension.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Luckyo]

The protesters are using the Internet to organize. They're protesting to fix those "bigger problems" like a lack of free speech, corruption in government, and police brutality. Preserving their Internet access is preserving their ability to fight for what they want. I believe that's important.

Problem: their issues aren't ones you listed. The reasons for protests are:

1. Unemployment and poverty.
2. Government's policy towards Israel.

Everything else is secondary at best. The main reason why US and EU (Western Europe before that) supported Mubarak rather openly for about 30 years was because he is a very safe choice for a leader. He reigns in all anti-western majority-supported policies, defends the all-important Suez channel and as one of US diplomats put it "it's generally a lot easier to call the guy who's a dictator and tell him to do what we want done then a democratically elected one".

Problem for West now is that we have to pay lip-service to democracy movements in dictatorial regimes at least due to attitudes at home, and that hamstrings any open support for Mubarak. So now, we apparently supplied a West-backed "democratic" leader in El-Baradei (a very small player in Egypt's internal politics until now), who will be eventually marketed and installed as Egypt's leader so that policies that interest West such as Israel and Suez don't change.

As for unemployment, that's going to get worse at least in short term with capital running from country as fast as it can. Unless they elect someone like Chavez who just chokes the capital's influence down in favor of poor masses, but West learned that lesson in Venezuela all too well - any potential leaders who threaten capital's ability to buy whatever policies needed will most likely be buried asap.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[monkyyy]

but now we know only a tiny facts now, they cant organizes as easy, less hope, more fear, cant find family members as easy etc.

it is a important issue; and now that less video is going out ~0 chance that the public in other stronger counterys will demand that some corrupt idiot wont be put in power by them

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[MichaelSmith]

We should send them our porn.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Gadget_Guy]

they loose porn, they eventually get off the barracks and pacify people.

To "loose porn" would be to remove the staples from your playboy magazine. You should have said "they lose porn".

Everybody seems to have a problem with those two words.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Teancum]

While related, apparently one of the largest problems facing Egypt is that unfortunately for the Egyptian people much of the food is imported.... and purchased with dollar-denominated funds when purchased on the international markets.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, due to loose spending of the U.S. Dollar and essentially "running the printing presses" (mainly sending credits to various banks in America buying up "toxic assets" to be owned directly by The Fed) has been devaluing the dollar sending the price of this food up so wheat in particular is about double the price as it was about a year ago or more.

To really make things ugly here, American farmers have been switching from wheat to other crops, most especially corn which is increasingly being used to make ethanol and other synthetic materials including plastic substitutes that used to be made with petroleum. Since corn isn't even being used for food in these situations, that in turn drives up the price of other grains like wheat when it still is grown by those few remaining farmers who still plant that grain. Thanks to U.S. federal ethanol subsidies, poor people in Egypt have to pay even more for a loaf of bread (made from wheat usually) and are in effect taking the brunt end of the problems caused by the housing collapse in America.

Wheat farmers in other countries are also seeing the dollar lose value in relation to their own currency, yet they are struggling with things like higher petroleum prices that are wiping out any profits they may have experienced from higher wheat prices.

In other words, this is a perfect storm of converging events that essentially is making it impossible for ordinary people in Egypt to be able to eat food anymore. It is also a dangerous feed-back loop given their location next to many major oil reserves in the world, especially sitting on a major international trade route that is going to make this a vicious feedback cycle to drive up food prices even more that will in turn stop international trade in food. When you can't eat, you get desperate and usually don't give a damn about who is in charge.... you'll eat their hide and certainly would be willing to go to desperate ends to simply live until tomorrow or not care if you don't.

The situation is really bad, and unfortunately American policies over the years including domestic America policies are really screwing with the Egyptian people right now... much of it as unintended consequences originally intended to help.

Even somebody like Chavez isn't going to help much in this situation, and Mubarak seems to be making some particularly stupid moves in this explosive situation. I don't think Obama is necessarily doing anything worthwhile either, and IMHO should be doing something like shipping millions of tons of wheat to Egypt at least to calm the situation down a bit. Bread and circuses can make a difference, but right now Egypt has neither and the people are really pissed as a result. Cutting off the internet gets rid of the circus, so they are making their own with the protests. Way to go there.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Teancum]

If the internet had been gradually degraded over time by a lack of investment in infrastructure and monopolizing the service providers as a government monopoly, the network connections could have been cut on a more gradual process that could have been effectively done the same thing but not even noticed by either the citizens or the international community at large. Unfortunately the Egyptian government didn't have the "foresight" to go that route.

The next shoe to drop is cutting off international telecommunications of all kinds. I wonder how long it will be before Egypt drops off the phone exchanges or even out of the international postal union. That is when you know it will be real bad.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Sarten-X]

My source makes no mention of the cause priority, so I picked a few at random. I apologize if my statement's in error, but my sentiment remains. Shutting down communication is not a reasonable response to a movement for change.

On a more general scale, I'd actually support the use of the Internet to protest for or against any cause. Want to use the Internet to organize a protest in favor of censorship? I'll help you do it, but I'll mock the irony.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Anonymous Coward]

On an utterly unrelated note, what on earth is the problem with "who cares?" I've never seen it misused in any writing, unlike the very common "I could care less" (or, to reinforce your point, "I couldn't care less", since your quoted remarks are the accurate ones.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[sznupi]

I really wonder if people here (and also Google or Twitter) will remain so supportive if the end result turns out to vaguely (!!) resemble the Iranian Revolution from 3 decades ago...

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[pspahn]

"Everybody" is a lot of people. I think you are misinformed.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[radish]

The USD hasn't really changed much in value vs the Egyptian Pound over the last year (it's down about 5% or so) - historically it's pretty much business as usual. In fact, the great weakening of the dollar due to the bailout is pretty mythical - vs GBP and EUR it's pretty average right now (actually pretty strong against GBP), the exception being JPY which is strong at the moment. Look at the 10y charts and it's really doing fine (unlike 2008!).

I agree about the screwed up farming subsidies re: ethanol, and the price of wheat has certainly risen sharply since the middle of last year, but I don't see evidence for the fx markets having much to do with it.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[jebblue]

Governments big enough to give you anything you want...etc.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[noobermin]

"Everybody" is not merely "a lot of people". It implies _all_ people. You seriously misrepresented that reply.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Black Parrot]

this isn't about getting information. It's about keeping army's hands busy with porn ... they loose porn, they eventually get off the barracks and pacify people.

I know you were mostly wisecracking, but FWIW some analysts are saying the the military is deliberately staying neutral, viewing their role in the national psyche as more important than Mubarak's tenure. So (according to what I've read) they did occupy some critical sites, but didn't try to quash the rebellion.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Black Parrot]

I agree about the screwed up farming subsidies re: ethanol, and the price of wheat has certainly risen sharply since the middle of last year, but I don't see evidence for the fx markets having much to do with it.

Supposedly, now that the US mortgage bubble popped, hedge funds are moving into areas that result in a similarly inflated price for foodstuffs.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Black Parrot]

My source [wikipedia.org] makes no mention of the cause priority, so I picked a few at random. I apologize if my statement's in error

FWIW, some of the net media is saying exactly what you said.

But undoubtedly, everybody and their dog is trying to spin this to support their views.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[pspahn]

Sometimes I assume people understand my sarcasm without me explicitly saying it is sarcasm.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[grcumb]

I really wonder if people here (and also Google or Twitter) will remain so supportive if the end result turns out to vaguely (!!) resemble the Iranian Revolution from 3 decades ago...

Whether we like it or not, some of us accept the right of sovereign peoples to self-determination.

That said, most experts are not overly worried about Egypt becoming a theocracy driven by Sharia law. My guess is that the more likely scenario -in the short term, at least- is a muddled mess more reminiscent of Iraq than anywhere else. There are a number of long-repressed factions who are decidedly secular, and who represent important constituencies within the Egyptian population.

... That is, of course, unless the army decides to act 'for the good of the country' and impose its own ruler. Given that this is the way Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak all came to power, this possibility should not be underestimated.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Nefarious Wheel]

We will probably have to go back to more traditional forms of fact gathering.

CIA Factbook on Egypt (publicly available): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/eg.html

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[optymizer]

It seems they changed their mind about staying neutral: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNyCmdZFewc&feature=player_embedded#

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[houghi]

Perhaps not:
http://twitter.com/arabist/status/30786981814341632

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Reziac]

The food shortage isn't something "America caused". Egypt did this to themselves. Nassar just HAD to have a dam, to prove that Egypt was a "modern" country, but it destroyed the Nile-based ecology and economy -- before the Aswan Dam was built, Egypt was a net food EXPORTER.

Here's an excerpt from a letter written in 2008, by a PhD who lived there at the time, was in thick with the higher-ups, and knew the situation firsthand:

=======
The Aswan High Dam (read Miles Copeland's book "The Game of Nations") blocked silt and nutrient transport downriver and into the eastern Mediterranean. Egypt had a thriving coastal sardine fishery, which landed about 18,000 tons of sardines a year. Within two years after completion of the dam, the sardine fishery collapsed, with the yield falling below 500 tons a year. It has stayed down ever since.

It took a bit longer to use up the nutrients in agricultural soils, or for the irrigated soils, deprived of their annual "flush", to become so saline no crops would grow.

Deprived of sediment, the Delta will probably also erode. That's what's happening to New Orleans and vicinity - we've messed around with the river enough that the sediment transport is less and the delta is no longer self-sustaining, but is gradually (well, not so gradually) sinking into the Gulf of Mexico.

Egypt had a lot of very good fisheries and freshwater biologists - some of them among the best in the world. Nasser convened a scientific panel to advise him about building the dam. They told him what would happen. He didn't like
hearing that, so all those scientists lost their jobs and had to emigrate. The U.S., for example Texas A&M University, profited greatly by snapping them up. ...

Well, the reasons for building it were primarily political and had to do with the Cold War. Nasser sucked the Russians and the U.S. into a bidding contest. The Copeland book lays it all out, in a rather amusing way.

And of course Egypt had, as a matter of national pride, to have a gigantic dam. ...

Big dams (well, all dams) eventually silt up - they have a finite lifetime. Once the reservoir is silted up the dam can no longer regulate water flow. Don't remember what the anticipated lifetime of Aswan is - maybe a century or less.
=======

[Undoing a bunch of moderation to post this, but I couldn't let the historical ignorance stand unchallenged.]

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[sumdumass]

I think you might be mistaken. The video claims it was the police who killed the teen, not the military. You can tell when the titles says, the police did it.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[maxwell demon]

Well, all people are a lot of people. Unless the majority of the world population suddenly died without me noticing.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[timeOday]

I really wonder if people here (and also Google or Twitter) will remain so supportive if the end result turns out to vaguely (!!) resemble the Iranian Revolution from 3 decades ago...

Maybe facilitating dialogue will prevent it from turning out like the Iranian Revolution 3 decades ago.

In chaos, whoever manages to organize has the upper hand. In the absence of civil discourse, people will hunker down in the security of clans and/or religions, which are rooted in strong, pre-existing social networks. To get a secular democratic state, you need an open press of some sort.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[sznupi]

In chaos, the most ruthless and absolutely focused people tend to have the biggest upper hand.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[sznupi]

Whether we like it or not, some of us accept the right of sovereign peoples to self-determination.

Though this stance itself ends up muddled, really looks a bit like lip service regarding those events. We don't really want it. Mubarak is very much "our guy"... it's ultimately easier to convince a dictator (vs. "sovereign people with self-determination") to see and do things the "proper way".

But yeah, it will probably not end too bad - but I'm not sure why there's "unless" in the last section about the army. It seems like Mohamed ElBaradei is being designated as the next "democratically" chosen savior.

(BTW, "theocracy driven by Sharia law" is a bit too far in context of, most likely, Iran; even with the Revolution and its effects, its still quite secular and modern, for the region / including our "allies")

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[Teancum]

On the positive side, when the Aswan Dam fills up, it will provide a bunch of very fertile land that will be simply begging for agricultural usage and have fairly close access to irrigation resources too. The silt of the Nile will start to flow downstream again, and in the long run I think it will be a net gain for the Egyptian people. But in the meantime it is going to be a huge ouch for everybody involved.

The silt that is being blocked by the dam will eventually get to the delta, but it will simply take more time to get there.

As for the Mississippi River, the Army Corp of Engineers has sort of done the opposite: It has "improved" the ability of the river to send the silt downstream so in effect the Mississippi River Delta is getting larger, but unfortunately that is in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico where it doesn't really do anybody any good and certainly isn't helping to maintain the marshes on the southern coast of Louisiana, Texas, and the rest of the Gulf Coast region.

Re:Egypt's got bigger problems

[optymizer]

sumdumass, is that really you?

And yet ...

[damn_registrars]

The internet in Egypt is still easier to read than slashdot 3.0.

Re:And yet ...

[syousef]

The internet in Egypt is still easier to read than slashdot 3.0.

I wonder what the slashdot Rosetta Stone would look like? My guess is ASCII porn and ASCII wiring diagrams, but mostly ASCII porn.

Re:And yet ...

[corbettw]

It would be unreadable, what with the thick covering of hot grits.

Re:And yet ...

[Caraig]

But you'd have a beowulf cluster of Mae Link Mak -- oh, forget it.

Re:And yet ...

[markass530]

where's to go back to the old format?

Re:And yet ...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah. especially that the text doesnt get broken around when being zoomed to levels that sight-impaired people need is as extremely annoying as easily fixable in css.

Re:And yet ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lowbandwidth, Simple Design

Re:And yet ...

[neoform]

Wait, this new layout makes it harder to read?

I thought everyone was complaining that the site had too much whitespace...

Dunno about everyone else, but I like the new look.

Re:And yet ...

[warGod3]

I'm thinking more like ASCII Goatse...

Good-by financial markets????

[l0ungeb0y]

Wow, Egypt's "Presidente" should an hero right the fuck now.

The people have spoken, and he's sitting there, firing his cabinet, cutting of all ties to the outside world and has now officially brought whatever international market trade still existed to a standstill.

All so he can cling to whatever notion of power he thinks he still has. The UN should be let in, and allowed to safe-guard the places of government while a democratic election is quickly assembled. There's too much risk at this point of the military just up and saying "fuck it" and having a junta.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[flaming error]

> The UN should be let in
By whom?

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[hedwards]

So far the Egyptian President has been taking the relative high road for somebody in his position. I'm not sure whether he's worried about war crimes or about being lynched on the way out of town. But as oppressive as things have been, he could have ordered a brutal crack down on the protesters. At this point the armed forces are still trying to avoid unnecessary blood shed.

Not that it means it's alright for him to continue without a legitimate election, but lets keep things in context.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Anonymous Coward]

The international community, of course.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Wyatt Earp]

Yea, thats how the UN works, it just goes in.

Actually the UNSC would hem and haw for weeks about it, someone would threaten a veto or four, probably France just to be a pissed off spoiler because of the Suez Crisis in '56. Then there'd be the decision about the make up of the peacekeeping force, someone would insist on alot of African Union troops, probably France, which would piss off the Egyptians and the Arab League, since some of those AU troops are Christians, and by then the entire place is stable on it's own, or a farking war zone like Mogadishu on a Sunday in 1993.

The only folks who just "go in" are the Americans and sometimes NATO.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[hguorbray]

Sadly, unless the military get involved the most likely replacement will be some islamic hardline fascist group like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt's military has been the source of power for decades, so this is not like Tunisia where the military will just stand idly by.

Ironically in another Middle East Country -Turkey the military has often intervened when the governments have gone off track, so they have actually helped keep that country from going radical at times -although they are currently a little nervous about the moderate islamist government currently in power there.

Cries for Western Style Democracy seem to go unheeded in parts of the world where rigid power structures and theocracies reside. Not that Western Style democracy seems to be working that well in the US these days...

I'm just sayin'

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

They have been shooting protesters, do they need to rape them too?

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

If that is what the people want it is their right to have such a government.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[mr100percent]

I don't think the Muslim Brotherhood will take over. Egypt actually has many political Opposition parties and alternative leaders, like Ayman Nour, the Wasat party, etc. They'd be far more likely to win than the Brotherhood. Keep in mind they've been sitting this one out for various strategic reasons. Even so, if they had to run for elections, they'd run towards the center like many other groups. Banning a party, as Mubarak did, will only make it more hardline. Whenever a far right party wins seats, they either are forced to moderate their ideas or they usually lose the next election.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[pckl300]

Egypt's military has been the source of power for decades, so this is not like Tunisia where the military will just stand idly by.

This just in: the military is standing by while the people exercise their right to revolution.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[BasilBrush]

The Muslim Brotherhood aren't an islamic hardline fascist group. They are in favour of a secular state. And in any case they are no where near having majority support.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[sexconker]

But as oppressive as things have been, he could have ordered a brutal crack down on the protesters.

He did.
The commanders of his military all said "fuck that", and his order went ignored.
All he has left at his command is the regular police force, and he likely won't have that for long.

Things aren't as bad as they could have been not because he showed any degree of restraint or sanity, but because his generals didn't join him on the oblivious power trip.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[mr100percent]

High road? He's been on TV crowing about how he is the country's leader of freedom. Nothing but hollow rhetoric.

He fired the entire cabinet of technocrats, in a lame attempt to deflect blame to others, and is only making the crowds angrier. He could have ordered a more brutal crackdown, but he knows that's what caused the Shah of Iran to lose, so he's not willing to make such a suicidal move. The high road would have been for him to announce a peaceful transition to democracy and upcoming elections and a repeal of his emergency powers that he's been using to suppress free speech and jail people without cause. Egypt is known for the most brutal police and prisons in the region.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Mashiki]

Apparently you haven't been paying attention to egypt. Nearly 80% of the 'common' people there support them in some fashion, including sharia law. They've been inciting people there for weeks, and they also have been driving the various opposition groups to overthrow the government. Whenever whatever happens, you can bet that the muslim brotherhood will have a hand in it, besides that they're already ratcheting up the 'time to exterminate israel' speeches.

Yep interesting times, wouldn't surprise me to see in a few years 'islamic countries try to drive the jews into the sea' thing again, with yet another bloody nose.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[monkyyy]

that is 90% of the UN, and they have no power

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[The13thSin]

What are you basing your assumption on that the regime will be replaced by extremists? The protesters seem to be of every walk of life and from every ideological point of view. Even the Muslim Brotherhood recognizes the secular Nobel Peace Price laureate ElBaradai as the main opposition spokesperson now.

If anything, this could very well mean a good thing for the west, with a more secular and broader government of this huge power in the middle east. Of course, uncertainty doesn't make everyone in the different western governments jump up in joy (even though they arguably should) by this uprising. That said, it would obviously speed things up enormously if the Egypt military would throw their weight behind the protest, and the first signs to that end are already there.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Anonymous Coward]

So said Jimmy Carter in 1979. You, Sir, are an idiot.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

If that is what the people of Egypt want, they have every right to it.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[shutdown -p now]

Nearly 80% of the 'common' people there support them in some fashion

Source? I can see that in 2005 elections, MB candidates running as Independents got 88 seats in parliament out of 454 - that's less than 20%, and a far cry from 80%.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[mr100percent]

You're going to have to show me some citations there. Do you actually trust opinion polls in a police state that lacks free speech?

When you ban all other political parties, they get together, moderates and radicals alike. It's because they have a common goal to get rid of the existing regime and are being persecuted together. That's why the Brotherhood is seen as popular because they are the !=Mubarak party. When you remove that block, the supporters fragment once more. Look at Iraq for example; all the formerly-banned opposition groups have divided into their respective parties; Communist, Salafi, secularist, Velayat, etc. They were all opposed to Saddam, and he painted them all as Muslim extremists, traitors, puppets of Iran, Israel, and the US, etc. Most of them weren't.

If you remove Mubarak and allow the formation of political parties once again, you won't see religious extremism take over. Jeffersonian democracy is not like that, instead you get competing factions that will cancel each other's votes out. You'd get a spectrum of political parties from right to left; the Muslim Brotherhood, the Wasat, the National Democratic Party (Mubarak's regime), Socialist party, Communist party, etc. Egypt is not the same as Iran or Saudi etc. You have a large urban class, Cairo is like the Hollywood of the Arab world, and there are tens of millions of non-Muslims living in the land. This revolution is not over religion, it's over political freedom, poverty, and against police repression.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[poena.dare]

Just pointing out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

"Small voluntary civilian gatherings started on 15 April around Monument to the People's Heroes in the middle of the Tiananmen Square in the form of mourning for Hu Yaobang."

"The movement lasted seven weeks after Hu's death on 15 April. In early June, the People's Liberation Army moved into the streets of Beijing with troops and tanks and cleared the square with live fire."

Sometimes brutal crackdowns take a while to get organized.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[hguorbray]

many people will disagree that the Muslim Brotherhood is in favor of secularism

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=11146

the Muslim brotherhood has ties to fascism that predate WW2 and has active ties to Europe and the US in addition to the Middle East.

-I'm just sayin'

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

Yeah, and for some damn reason we still deal with them, but invade Iraq and hang its leader for using weapons we and our allies sold them, to kill people we help the Turks kill too.. Riddle me that batman.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

Wow, quiet the fair and balanced news source you picked there. Might as well link to something on stormfront while you are at it. These are the same assholes who tend to make their man of the year torturers and murders. So long as they tortured or murdered brown people.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[MightyMartian]

His chief problem is the loyalty of the Army. It's hard for folks in Western democracies, where the military is subservient to civilian will, to imagine such a situation where the Army holds the balance of power, but in many regimes in the world that's precisely how it works. That's what got Ben Ali booted out of Tunisia. The Army wouldn't open fire on protesters, and that was it. The police, which traditionally in such regimes, are the real source of terror, do not have the numbers or the weaponry to put down mass riots, and if the Army won't step in, then the regime is finished.

Why do you think Khomeini create the Basij and Revolutionary Guard in Iran? To assure a parallel military structure under his direct command that he didn't have to worry about the loyalty of when he or his successors needed to start bloodying the streets with the corpses of his opponents. Guys like Mubarak and Ben Ali, being dictators in the more conventional vein, didn't have the mad genius of a fanatic like Khomeini, and thus they're police and "personal" military squads are insufficient to the task.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Teancum]

So somebody wants the U.S. Army moving into Egypt now that America has finally been able to start walking away from Iraq?

Yeah, that sounds like a plan for me!

I have a better plan: Let's put together a multi-national force from Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia move into Egypt. That will do wonders for world peace, especially when those countries start to move into Gaza as well.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[MightyMartian]

And when they lose again, and this time Israel says "Fuck you, we're keeping Sinai", then all the anti-Israelis will moan and groan about how mean and nasty Israel is.

I'm not sure how repeating history will get the Arab countries out of their current troubles.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[comment_test]

Egypt president is a hero??????? who said so??? have you been to Egypt or lived in there????

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Pharmboy]

I have a novel idea: How about we stay the fuck out. The last thing the US needs is to get involved in "nation building" where we weren't invited. Our track record over the last several decades isn't that good when it comes to nation building anyway. Just not our forte.

Oh, don't get me wrong, when you need people killed or stuff broken, our American military is seriously second to none. Perhaps that is what we should stick to, when it is appropriate.

At this point, it would seem the Egyptian citizens have taken responsibility for their own destinies, and unless we are clearly and unambiguously invited, we should stay out. And even if invited, if we can't help them according their own wished, for any reason, then we still stay out. The LAST thing we need is sticking our noses in the middle east when it isn't wanted. From what I can tell, what the citizens want from the US is only VERBAL support anyway. They don't want us there, for good reasons.

Again, this is from a vet, so is a son of a retired Korea/Vietnam vet. If you have no experience in the military or have no family members to risk, you are welcome to disagree.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Teancum]

Even more sad is that the last time America tried to get involved more directly with Egypt, it very nearly resulted in World War III starting.

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War

Stated in the article is how the Soviet Union decided that it had enough and wanted to conquer Israel with Syrian & Egyptian assistance. The only thing that stopped Russia? The fact that Nixon put the USAF at DEFCON three and opened up all of the missile silos in North Dakota with the promise they would be used if Soviet forces ever stepped foot into Israel. Soviet paratroopers flew over Syria and nearly made it to Israel before Leonid Brezhnev called them back home.

Somewhat directly as a result of this whole mess, OPEC also started the '73 Arab Oil Embargo that also shifted much of the geopolitics of this part of the world to what we recognize today.

That part of the world is very explosive and I could see this being a triggering event for countries like Iran wanting to get ambitious again.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[atriusofbricia]

Yea, thats how the UN works, it just goes in.

Actually the UNSC would hem and haw for weeks about it, someone would threaten a veto or four, probably France just to be a pissed off spoiler because of the Suez Crisis in '56. Then there'd be the decision about the make up of the peacekeeping force, someone would insist on alot of African Union troops, probably France, which would piss off the Egyptians and the Arab League, since some of those AU troops are Christians, and by then the entire place is stable on it's own, or a farking war zone like Mogadishu on a Sunday in 1993.

The only folks who just "go in" are the Americans and sometimes NATO.

And if the Americans did that they would be "evil empire builders!!11!!" and only "there for the (oil|canal|unobtanium)!!!!1! "

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[MacGyver2210]

Their butler, Jeeves, of course. Duh!

All you have to do is go to www.askjeeves.com....oh wait...

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

Why start WW3 over a tiny little apartheid state?
I just do not understand how a nation that does that, then uses its intelligence agencies to commit murders all over the world and hides/lies about its nuclear weapons is somebody we should be risking our necks for.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

Mod parent way the fuck up.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[TubeSteak]

I don't think the Muslim Brotherhood will take over. Egypt actually has many political Opposition parties and alternative leaders, like Ayman Nour, the Wasat party, etc. They'd be far more likely to win than the Brotherhood.

The Muslim Brotherhood would win in Egypt for the same reason Hamas wins in Palestine:
They provide social services to the poor.

The Muslim Brotherhood run low cost hospitals & schools throughout Egypt.
They also provides job training for the unemployed and care facilities for widows and orphans.

It's hard to overstate the political credibility they get from these social services.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[ElectricTurtle]

Yes, it's a great idea to use elections as metrics in a country that is in open revolt in significant part due to dissatisfaction with rigged elections.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[ElectricTurtle]

(Godwin time!) So the holocaust was ok just because the Nazi's were democratically elected (initially)? Sorry, democracy is not a magic wand that makes evil acts acceptable. A majority does not have a right to abuse a minority, no matter how many people agree to it.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[icebraining]

According to official records, 2 300 000 registered voters have cast their votes, resulting in a turnout of around 23%.

Yeah, really representative.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

I did not suggest it would. Considering they keep building settlements and have secret nukes I am surprised they are not sneaking into Sinai already while the Egyptians are otherwise occupied. I guess no top soil to steal there.

Not saying the Egyptians are any better.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

Its hard to overstate the moronicness of the Isrealis and the others in similar circumstances who are not doing this sort of thing. We could be turning Afghanistan into a decent place and making the locals love us. Instead we waste lives and billions of dollars on chasing cave dwellers and propping up their drug dealer dictator.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[bsDaemon]

"Ties to fascism" could just as easily be spun as "ties to those who were fighting the Colonial oppressors of Egypt." Have you ever heard of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend?" You don't have to agree with each other, you just both have to hate someone else more.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

I never said it did. The NAZI party is not even a choice in Egypt as far as I understand the situation. Do you have any useful input?

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[cHiphead]

UN does not mean it needs to be primarily US troops, in fact, based on proximity to Europe and the US being tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan, it makes more sense to use a predominately EU based force.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, Egypt's "Presidente" should an hero right the fuck now.

The people have spoken, and he's sitting there, firing his cabinet, cutting of all ties to the outside world and has now officially brought whatever international market trade still existed to a standstill.

Problem being, despite Bill Clinton's assertions otherwise, there ARE areas of the world where "desire to not get blown the fuck away into a greasy blood smear and collection of constituent parts of what used to be called 'human' by military might" is believed to trump "the economy, stupid".

Well, at least that's the prevailing thought of people with money AND political power. Might not be as long-term sustainable as Egypt's president would like to believe. Let's see how this turns out, shall we?

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[moortak]

He is having a hard time cracking down. The army has said it doesn't intend to fire on Egyptians and some of the police are joining the protestors or are unwilling to fire. The remaining police haven't been shy about firing on people. The death toll is over 100 from most reports.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Anonymous Coward]

Study up on language concepts like metaphors. It'll aid you in developing communication with others, especially after you graduate high school.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[kevinNCSU]

On May 22, 2000 it was reported that since Operation Desert Fox there had been 470 separate incidents of AAA or surface-to-air missile fire at Coalition aircraft and Iraqi aircraft had violated the southern no-fly zone 150 times (source)

Probably because China doesn't fire missiles at our aircraft which are enforcing UN resolutions due to them invading their neighbors?

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[orphiuchus]

Look, what would you have done? We needed those smurf-berries or it would have been lights out by the end of the month!

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[kevinNCSU]

Dude, maybe you didn't fully read the GP's original comment but in context your reply sums up to"if the people of Egypt want to drive the Jews into the sea then that's their 'right' to choose as a democratic country." I can't honestly think of a more apt reference to the election of the Nazi party. That being said I don't think it will be that extreme, but I don't think what Egypt will get will be a democracy. At best they'll get to elect their next Dictator or ruling oligarchy sort of like the Palestinian's election of Hamas: Their first, and last, democratic election.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[orphiuchus]

I got out of the Marine Corps 6 months ago after 5 years in the infantry.

I absolutely believe that there are things we need to be doing in the middle east, and some of it involves troops on the ground.

But dealing with Egypt isn't one of those things. And I don't think anyone in power in the US is saying that it is.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[pspahn]

Save your breath. Those people don't listen.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[pspahn]

How do you propose making Afghanistan a "decent place"?

I'm also not sure who this "we" and "us" is that you are referring to.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[pspahn]

Egypt and Tunisia are two instances of people revolting for themselves. Past scenarios involve people that (for one reason or another) were too insecure in their ability to stand up for themselves.

When little Billy goes to school everyday and gets bullied and does nothing about it, sometimes others take it upon themselves to act on his behalf (whether welcomed or not). Once little Billy decides to kick the bully in nuts, things tend to change, albeit rather slowly and not without a long period of "things getting worse before they can get better."

The reason international peacekeeping forces should not get involved directly has nothing to do with "nation building not being our forte." Instead, it has everything to do with letting it just happen, and hopefully things work out well enough for Egypt that an example is set and repressed people around the world begin standing up for themselves for a change, NO MATTER WHAT THE PERSONAL RISK!!!

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Black Parrot]

UN does not mean it needs to be primarily US troops, in fact, based on proximity to Europe and the US being tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan, it makes more sense to use a predominately EU based force.

Unfortunately, some of them visited Egypt uninvited in 1956, and it might not exactly calm things down if they went back again.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Black Parrot]

All he has left at his command is the regular police force, and he likely won't have that for long.

AIUI, the Interior Ministry's massed police essentially lost a battle with the protesters a few days ago. He may not have much by way of police to call on anymore.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Opportunist]

Probably mostly because there have never been any UN resolutions against China for,say, invading Tibet. Wonder why.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Black Parrot]

On May 22, 2000 it was reported that since Operation Desert Fox there had been 470 separate incidents of AAA or surface-to-air missile fire at Coalition aircraft and Iraqi aircraft had violated the southern no-fly zone 150 times (source)

Probably because China doesn't fire missiles at our aircraft which are enforcing UN resolutions due to them invading their neighbors?

Yes!!! That's why we invaded Iraq!

I *knew* we'd eventually retcon a good reason.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Black Parrot]

Sadly, unless the military get involved the most likely replacement will be some islamic hardline fascist group like the Muslim Brotherhood.

That's not a forgone conclusion, but *any* revolution runs the risk of getting subverted toward unintended ends.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Opportunist]

It's more profitable. Duh.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Black Parrot]

Its hard to overstate the moronicness of the Isrealis and the others in similar circumstances who are not doing this sort of thing. We could be turning Afghanistan into a decent place and making the locals love us. Instead we waste lives and billions of dollars on chasing cave dwellers and propping up their drug dealer dictator.

The Western powers are intellectually married to a "we've got a right" attitude, rather than a "let's be smart about this" attitude.

That's why our solutions for third-world problems always fare so well.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Opportunist]

Finally some common sense.

I mean, be honest, people. Imagine your country is in turmoil and you overthrow your government for insane corruption. You finally get rid of them. Now suddenly some foreign soldiers come in, declare that they are going to "help" you (whether you like that or not) and they suddenly decide how your country should be rebuilt, because what's good for them at home is good for you there too.

Let's even imagine their intentions are good and they're not just there to open your country to stripmining corporations, they genuinely want to aid you rebuild your country, albeit in their image of a "good country".

How welcome would they be, huh?

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Black Parrot]

The Muslim Brotherhood aren't an islamic hardline fascist group. They are in favour of a secular state. And in any case they are no where near having majority support.

Of course, an actual Fascist group would be secular. The frequent denotation of Islamic extremists as "fascist" is just slander.

Or maybe metaphor, as "grammar Nazi" has come to mean someone who insists on enforcing a prescriptive set of grammatical rules.

The US political dialogue is so screwed up that most people don't seem to know what 'liberal', 'conservative', 'socialist', and 'fascist' mean anymore. So you get people calling others they don't like "sociofascist commynazis".

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Serious Callers Only]

The UN should be let in

How about the west cancel immediately their HUGE military and financial aid for this dictator (whom they have backed for the last 30 years without more than lip-service to freedom, democracy, and all those things they claim to hold dear), unequivocally call for him to step down, and then stay out of the way? Leaving egypt to the egyptians would make a nice change.

As long as there have been empires there have been excuses for interfering in other countries, in the name of justice, civilisation, stability etc etc. Now people are claiming we need to intervene because otherwise there will be danger to the Suez, or an Islamist takeover, or a military coup. These are old lies, and we should know better than be taken in by the likes of Blair (the 'peace envoy' who thinks Mubarak should definitely stay), or Clinton talking of the need for stability and western interference.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[cold fjord]

- They have been shooting protesters, do they need to rape them too?

No, but they could open fire on mass demonstrations, or other means of crushing dissent.

Hama 1982 – The Syrian massacre you never heard about
In 1982 the Syrian government killed 30,000 – 40,000 of its own citizens. Assad leveled an entire city with an air bombardment followed by artillery and tank fire. Why? They were anti Baath party, and apparently in 1982 in Syria that was a death sentence

“The residents of a Syrian city named Hama had been more persistent in their criticisms of the dictator than other towns. For that reason,

Hafez Assad decided that Hama would be the staging point of the example he was to make to the Syrian people. In the twilight hours of February the 2nd, 1982, the city of Hama was awakened by loud explosions. The Syrian air force had begun to drop their bombs from the dark sky.

The initial bombing run cost the city few casualties. It's main purpose had been to disable the roads so that no-one could escape. Earlier in the night, Syrian tanks and artillery systems had surrounded Hama. With the conclusion of the air bombing run, the tanks and artillery began their relentless shelling of the town.

The cost in human lives was severe. As homes crumbled upon their living occupants and the smell of charred skin filled the streets, a few residents managed to escape the shelling and started to flee. They were met by the Syrian army which had surrounded the city ... they were all shot dead.

Hours of shelling had turned Hama into rubble. The tanks and artillery had done all that they could. The next wave of attacks came in the form of Syrian soldiers. They quickly converged onto the town killing anything that would move. Groups of soldiers would round up men, women, and children only to shoot them in the back of the head. Many other soldiers would invade homes with the orders to kill all inhabitants. ....

The final attack on Hama was the most gruesome. To make sure that no person was left alive in the rubble and buildings, the Syrian army brought in poison gas generators. Cyanide gas filled the air of Hama. Bulldozers were later used to turn the city into a giant flat area.

The Syrian government death count was place at around 20,000 people dead ... but the Syrian Human Rights Committee estimates it to be much higher, at somewhere between 30,000 to 40,000 civilians’ dead or missing”

So, yes, it can get a lot worse without rape.

That is what a genuinely brutal dictatorship looks like. Sadly, too many divert their attention and misdirect their anger at let's pretend "dictators" instead of the real thing.

Of course for mass death, it's hard to beat Mao.

Mao: The Unknown Story
"Mao Tse-tung, who for decades held absolute power over the lives of one-quarter of the world's population, was responsible for well over 70 million deaths in peacetime, more than any other twentieth century leader." Chang and Halliday claim that he was willing for half of China to die to achieve military-nuclear superpowerdom. Estimates of the numbers of deaths during this period vary, though Chang and Halliday's estimate is one of the highest. Sinologist Stuart Schram, in a review of the book, noted that "the exact figure... has been estimated by well-informed writers at between 40 and 70 million".

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Jedi Alec]

Nearly 80% of the 'common' people there support them in some fashion, including sharia law.

Almost correct. According to some news sources, nearly 80% of the *Muslim* people support some form of sharia law, not necessarily with the Muslim brotherhood in power.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Vectormatic]

Isreal != europe

Also, fuck medling with egypts internal politics, it's been tried time and time again (both by the soviets/russians and the various TLAs from the US), and it never fricking works out, let them sort their own shit out

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[BasilBrush]

Readers of Front Page Mag are not "many people". They are a small niche of far right wing nuts. Their conspiracy theories are are as far out as any on the web, and usually more hateful.

If you want to know the reality of the Muslim Brotherhood, you could do worse than to start with wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_brotherhood

These are your old time conservative Muslims. Not your modern fundamentalist types. And certainly not fascist.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Black Parrot]

Unfortunately, some of them visited Egypt uninvited in 1956, and it might not exactly calm things down if they went back again.

Isreal != europe

But Britain and France are certainly European.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Anonymous Coward]

Not "A" hero... "An" Hero.

You don't internet much, do you?

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[h4rr4r]

Pull back to the green zone, funnily enough the only area the soviets conquered too, then build power plants, schools, hospitals in short bring their life style into the 20th century at least. Make real roads, investments in business, a Marshall plan for the controlled portions of Afghanistan basically.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[makomk]

I don't think, at this point, anyone in Afghanistan would trust the US to do this. Someone - one of Bush's political appointees IIRC - had the bright idea of making US-provided medical care in Afghanistan conditional on actively assisting the US against the Taliban and the warlords. Said warlords started killing medical workers on sight and things haven't improved since.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[ladoga]

I'm not sure whether he's worried about war crimes or about being lynched on the way out of town

He's already out of town. (In Sharm el-Sheikh to be exact)

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Mashiki]

http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2011/01/interview-on-egyptian-revolt

You can start reading there, then keep reading to whatever your hearts desire. Also re-read my original post, and you'll understand what I said.

Re:Good-by financial markets????

[Caerdwyn]

The military IS in charge right now. Egypt's presidency has been held by people with strong military ties since Nasser back in 1956. Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, all were highly-placed military officers who remained close to the military after assuming the presidency.

The fight in Egypt is over succession. Mubarak wants his son to take over, but Mubarak Jr., though he has military experience, does not have the deep political ties to the military which Mubarak Sr. does, and is therefore not acceptable to the military. The real contest is between the military and the national police... and the national police have a poor record themselves for being corrupt, head-busting power-brokers, and are heavily infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood (the Islamist organization that gave birth to Hamas in the wake of the wars with Israel). The Egyptian police also have several times attempted coups of their own, but have never succeeded (the most recent such attempt was in 2008).

The Egyptian army is much like the Turkish army, in that they are somewhat secular and do not want to see their country become Islamist (i.e. run by Wahabiists). Yes, the army rules Egypt with an iron fist. But the alternatives (the national police and the Islamist revolutionaries) also would rule Egypt with an iron fist, and come with an agenda that is much more aggressive and repressive. There are no options that do not end with a dictator; at least the current dictatorship has honored its peace treaties and kept the Suez Canal open. And the military in Egypt is certainly more respected and "trusted" (if that word can realistically be used) by the general populace than the internal security forces and police.

In any revolution there has to be something you are heading towards as well as something you are heading away from. Where is the non-jackbooted "other"? In Egypt, there is none, nor will the major power-players allow there to be one. Therefore, the most likely outcome (particularly given that the national police and their political handlers made the critical mistake of abandoning their jobs on January 29th to try to provoke the army into firing on civilians in the ensuing chaos... which the army refused to do) is that there will be a non-Mubarak president which is nonetheless beholden to the army. The newly-appointed vice president Suleiman is just such a person. It is worth noting that the office of vice president, which if the president resigns is the one to take over per the Egyptian constitution, has been empty for the entire duration of the Mubarak rule up til a couple of days ago. Of course, the extent to which the Egyptian constitution matters in a situation like this is a roll of the dice. But there is also a new prime minister named Shafiq who at one point was the highest officer within the Egyptian air force, which further strengthens the military's hand. The chief question is whether Suleiman is "not-Mubarak" enough to satisfy all the major stakeholders and the majority of the public.

Text to speech

[mr100percent]

It's a really clever idea to have a speech-to-tweet service setup, since its circumventing the block, but I don't think it's all that practical for several reasons:

1. Does it transcribe Arabic?
2. If you can't get online in Egypt, how will Egyptian people follow the twitter feeds? Broadcasting to the outside world is important, but what's somewhat more important to the Egyptians right now is reaching each other, since they're trying to coordinate a massive million-person protest in Cairo and can't do it via word-of-mouth alone.

Re:Text to speech

[Anonymous Coward]

1) No, it's simply storing the voicemails they leave.

2) One step at a time.

Re:Text to speech

[sonamchauhan]

The only way #2 would work right now would be a speech-to-speech mailbox. You call up and leave a message in a mailbox, and 'subscribers' to that messagebox get an automated call replaying the message.

Re:Text to speech

[blackhat1234]

Egyptian people can apparantly hear the tweets by dialing a number...from Official Google Blog

People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

Re:Text to speech

[Thing 1]

See, THIS is innovation. Not the crap that Microsoft copies from its competitors, poorly. This is truly helping people better their lives, and is also helping move technology in new and exciting directions, to help better "route around damage" like the Internet is so popular for. Big round of applause to the developers et al who came up with and implemented this. (And no, I am not surprised to see Microsoft absent from the list.)

Re:Text to speech

[sheridan3003]

It is a start. Letting people outside the country see beyond the "official party line" hopefully will ensure the truth gets out.
Mubarak may be planning on doing something bad for this march tomorrow. Google keeping some lines of communication open will help to get out the truth of whatever happens.

Re:Text to speech

[mr100percent]

If Microsoft were to ever dream up an idea this creative and outside the box, they'd probably implement it 2 years from now. Kudos to Google for getting it working so quickly.

Re:Text to speech

[0ptix]

I've been following the situation quite closely now on twitter for several days and a surprising number of tweets coming from inside egypt are actually in english. Search for hashtags #jan25 and #feb1 to see what i mean. Even now with all ISPs down people are still finding ways round the blockade and tweeting. (Of course many of those tweets are not actually from inside egypt especially now. But still over the last few days many were.)

Also from the google blog post announcing the new service: "People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet." So they do seem to provide a way to get information and not just give. Haven't tested it myself though.

Re:Text to speech

[Ruliz Galaxor]

"You have twenty-five-thousand-six-hundred-and-thirty-three new messages. First new message received on Tuesday, February first at seven fifty-nine am"

Re:Text to speech

[nedwidek]

They need to browse the web with Google Paper!

Viva la Revelution

[Stregano]

Time for Egyptians to stand up and fight back, and many already are.

Re:Viva la Revelution

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of the unrest for the protests is being backed by Muslim extremists behind the scenes. This is not a case of Jeffersonian Democracy protesters vs a Dictatorship. If there is a Revolution, we might just end up with another extremist Muslim country in the Middle East.

Re:Viva la Revelution

[Anonymous Coward]

Tim Leary said it best. Want to back in time 3,000 years, go to the middle east.

Want to go to the future, see a moon base, see a martin base, see a base on the moon Europa. We are a slave planet, have been misused and leave those pesky humans to their own devices, dust.

I'm so glad I have to live on this planet to see the end time.

Re:Viva la Revelution

[mr100percent]

Nope. The Muslim brotherhood explicitly has been saying for the last week how they're staying out of this one. Mubarak would LOVE to blame this on terrorists or outsiders, as a way of delegitimizing the protests, so they're not going to try helping him out on that. Egypt is not really known for their extremism, and democracy would likely moderate any factions that try it, especially since there is a very large secular crowd in the country as well as millions of Christians.

Re:Viva la Revelution

[h4rr4r]

Which just like Iran we can thank the western world for. When you prop up dictators this is what you get.

Re:Viva la Revelution

[shutdown -p now]

A lot of the unrest for the protests is being backed by Muslim extremists behind the scenes.

Well, or so the dictator being toppled says.

How could this happen?

[Simonetta]

How could this happen? I thought that the internet was more important than the government. Our internet; any government. Is this a cultural thing? Do Egyptian engineers always do whatever the government tells them to do without thinking ? Are they secretly Germans or Soviets? Even when they can see themselves that this particular government has reached its end?

Maybe it's my residual American chauvinism, but I just can't imagine any patriotic person anywhere blindly shutting his country totally off of the international computer network, Regardless of what any corrupt 82-year-old man tells them to do. I'd just hem and haw and techno-babble them blind about how it just couldn't be done.

I think that WE should protest this country's chickenshit engineers by refusing to let them back on the internet when they decide that they are rejoin civilization. And then start oscillating their currency in the international markets while they watch helplessly unable to do anything about it.

This is OUR internet. You just don't shut down part of it just because you feel like it. Every now and then we need to give the third world a taste of what real power is about (" a whiff of grapeshot" as the English used to say) so that they don't get a delusions of grandeur and think that they can get away with doing things like shutting down parts of the Internet.

Re:How could this happen?

[hsmith]

When people with machine guns come and tell you "turn off your internet or we will kill you, your family, and just bulldoze the building" - I'd say about 99.999999% of people would comply without blinking. Your "protest" of the engineers would be nothing more than a philosophical circle jerk.

Re:How could this happen?

[Veroxii]

People are less likely to hem and haw with a couple of AK-47s pointed at them. Most people would just flip the switch.

Re:How could this happen?

[NuShrike]

This is the Patriot Act with AT&T and others acting in collusion with the gov't, if it happens in the USA.

Re:How could this happen?

[interkin3tic]

Maybe it's my residual American chauvinism, but I just can't imagine any patriotic person anywhere blindly shutting his country totally off of the international computer network, Regardless of what any corrupt 82-year-old man tells them to do. I'd just hem and haw and techno-babble them blind about how it just couldn't be done.

You're not a corporation. I'm guessing Telecom Egypt's board members all gave little speeches about how they wanted to uphold the rights of their customers, but they had obligations to their employees to make sure they weren't punished, and an obligation to the shareholders not to put their equipment and future business at risk, and besides there are other internet providers to choose from, and they aren't actually preventing from people speaking so it's not really violating their free speech, and the terms of service had either explicit or implicit terms about how in times of mass protest, the service could be suspended.

And then they unanimously voted to shut down for a few days, while they all went on holiday to a more stable country to look at real estate. Just in case.

There was probably a bit of disagreement over whether or not they should and could stop paying their employees (aside from the security guards) during the shutdown.

Re:How could this happen?

[sexconker]

When people with machine guns come and tell you "turn off your internet or we will kill you, your family, and just bulldoze the building" - I'd say about 99.999999% of people would comply without blinking. Your "protest" of the engineers would be nothing more than a philosophical circle jerk.

The tricky thing is you're 100.0000000% wrong.
Nothing causes people to rally to a cause, violently, like a martyr.

Risk of death? Sure.
"nothing more than a philosophical circle jerk"? Hardly.

I can see you're between the ages of 13 and 30, and are a typical internet cynic. May I suggest reading a history book? Or perhaps, turning on the news and watching what is happening, right now, in Egypt? Do you really think Americans, a well-armed populace to put it lightly, could not do the same if so moved to action?

Re:How could this happen?

[nurb432]

If they even ask. They are just as liable to blow up your building on the spot and not worry about 'asking'.

Re:How could this happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get out of your basement more often, you're out of touch with reality.

Internet shutoff

[oldpelican]

The Egyptian military and connections (retired senior officers) are undoubtably wired into the US Military/Intelligence Community internets. My understanding is that civilian landlines will also be closed, probably more difficult but possible since the Egyptian Military has been permitted to re-enter the Sinai by Israel. This situation and many others have been gamed long ago but as once said there are unknowns that are unknown. IMHO, so far, Egypt is still following the program.

Re:Internet shutoff

[Wyatt Earp]

The military and diplomatic lines are still going.

Like you said, an Egyptian military commander these days went to school in the US and or UK, trained with the Americans and Brits and maybe even the Israelis and has connections, official and unofficial. If they really need to communicate they can go over to Cairo West and hop on a physical or satellite connection to DC, Tel Aviv, London, or if they are really old timers, Moscow.

Summary answers itself

[Nidi62]

Nobody is sure how Noor was able to keep operating

Noor Group, a small service provider that hosted Internet connections for the country's stock exchange

A couple people in government trying to get their money out while they can?

Re:Summary answers itself

[Anonymous Coward]

The next few weeks may be an *EXCELLENT* time to invest long-term in Egypt.

it doesn't transcribe

[YesIAmAScript]

But the audio files are posted and some people are listening to them and hand-transcribing interesting ones, including Arabic ones and retweeting them with the same hash tag.

They cannot be read inside the country, but it still works for getting messages out.

Not sure how they were still operating?

[interkin3tic]

That third link provided analysis as to how the government shut down most of the internet:

...a government that licenses a mobile authority can threaten violence to individual cell towers or backhaul networks, or to employees working for the carrier. Future license renewals can also be threatened for non-compliance, analysts noted.

I'm going to suggest that maybe Noor figured Mubarak was weak enough to defy. Maybe they figured his security forces were too busy trying to control the country to shut Noor down, and there wasn't much risk of being denied a license renewal because there wasn't much risk of Mubarak being in power a month from now. It appears to have at least partially worked: they lasted longer than anyone else... though I guess that assumes the forced shutdown involved turning off the power and not, say, destroying their equipment and/or executing their employees.

A more cynical take would be that it's good PR for if the revolution succeeded. "We were the only ones supporting the revolution. Customers: you really want to stay with Vodafone after they left you when you needed them the most? New government, you really want to let them back in? We helped you, now how about an exclusive license to operate in, say, everywhere?"

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[leromarinvit]

(undoing unintentional moderation)

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[Temposs]

I think it's just as likely that because Noor hosts the Egyptian stock exchange and several large companies, and otherwise serves a relatively small percentage of Egypt's internet connections, the government actually *wanted* to leave them on for as long as possible. Staying in the good graces of the business and financial community in the country and the world is an important part of staying in power, so it's no wonder they would hesitate to disconnect the ISP serving much of the business community through the stock exchange and such.

Now the government is in panic mode, so they're pulling out all the stops, including shutting down a nerve center of their economy.

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I read Noor provided service to banks and their stock market, they likely wanted to avoid crippling their financial sector.

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[spasm]

Noor was also the smallest ISP which provided redundancy for the Egyptian stock exchange - it's possible the govt deliberately left it on in order to keep the stock exchange functioning while providing the least amount of additional service to anyone else. They may no longer care if the exchange is up (or may even prefer to have trading 'suspended' until things stabilize one way or another).

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[MacGyver2210]

Staying in the good graces of the business and financial community in the country and the world is an important part of staying in power

Whoops. Guess he botched that one...

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[Chuck Chunder]

Noor hosts the Egyptian stock exchange

I keep seeing that mentioned but surely trading has ceased given the current circumstances. The only thing having it operating would achieve would be having stocks tank which doesn't seem like a particularly useful strategy for Mubarak (or anyone else).

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[russotto]

Maybe, since they are so small, the government simply overlooked them at first when they told the major ISPs to shut down.

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[vegiVamp]

Not upsetting the people to the point of revolt is an equally important part of staying in power. I'd say there weren't pretty good at that.

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cyberwarfare is going to be no fun if governments keep turning the playing field off.

Re:Not sure how they were still operating?

[mu22le]

paraniod_mode
In case you havn't noticed Mubarak didn't need any special law or a big red button to shut off internat access state-wide, just a few well placed phone calls to the the major ISPs.

I wonder if that could ever happen here in the 'civilized' west (in London they chirurgically shut off mobile comunication during the student riots, remember?) and what counter measures would we have.

Could we use the good old phone network to cohordinate? How many of you still remember their home phone number? you mother's? your friends'? How many public phones are there in your city?

So I started investigating the current status of mesh wireless network. There is a significant number of people walking around with a wifi enabled linux phone nowdays, are they enough to build an on-the-fly mesh network? We already have some of the software stack available (http://www.olsr.org/?q=node/30), what seems to be missing is a simple user interface and a messaging system.

And then then what about pratical issues: battery life, interferencies... We should really be experimenting with this stuff now. It may prove to be quite a useful resource in other emergencies too.
end: paranoid_mode

Good luck Egypt

[funkatron]

This just reeks of desperation. The financial markets aren't so important but without communications Egypt is essentially isolated. Let's hope it doesn't take too long for the regime to finally crumble.

Re:Good luck Egypt

[Anonymous Coward]

... to finally crumble and be replaced with a worse one. It's Iran #2, with Obama instead of Carter.

Re:Good luck Egypt

[h4rr4r]

Unlikely, more likely you get a democratic state. Even if it does happen do not blame those who witnessed it happen, blame the decades worth of folks who set the it in motion.

Re:Good luck Egypt

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this Obama's fault? Because he's not spending the trillions of dollars to occupy a third country just to prop up yet another asshole corrupt drug dealer ruler like Karzai?

Re:Good luck Egypt

[xero314]

Why is this Obama's fault?

It's Obama's fault in the same way that Iran was Carter's fault.

In other words, It's not.

Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we can take their IPv4 addresses back and postpone the depletion.
http://www.apnic.net/publications/news/2011/delegation

They just allocated the last two /8s to APNIC, the remaining five /8s will be delegated to each one of the five regional registries. Goodbye IPv4! Nice to meet you and your brother called NAT.

Re:Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

And I can imagine if indeed the rest of the world take their IP addresses.
When they come back they'll just say: "Fuck it! We're going IPv6!"

cap: bribed
No I'm not!

Re:Idea

[Nalez]

We should propose that as a rule.

If your country falls off of the Internet for longer than 24 hours, you forfeit all of the address space allocated to your country, and it goes back in to the unassigned pool. All service points will be instructed to drop peering agreements with your country.

If your country wishes to continue a presence on the Internet, you may re-apply for IPv6 address space

Re:Idea

[0ptix]

that would make DDOS attacks a whole lot more dangerous now wouldn't it...

Re:Idea

[dynamo]

I agree, except that you have to only do it when the country in question is dropping off on purpose - we'd need to offer help to get them back online in case of a tech issue - but if they refused and then still didn't come back in 24 hours, I'm with ya.

Egypt Goes Dark

[Lawand]

Ironically, Noor means light in Arabic.

Re:Egypt Goes Dark

[syousef]

Ironically, Noor means light in Arabic.

Not ironic at all....lights (noor) out....

Re:Egypt Goes Dark

[Anonymous Coward]

AZIZ! LIGHT!

Re:Egypt Goes Dark

[ctaylor]

The lights are on, but noorbodies home?

Re:Egypt Goes Dark

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not ironic. If Noor is light in Arabic, then egypt going dark as the light goes out makes sense. It's apt, exactly the opposite of ironic.

Re:Egypt Goes Dark

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not ironic. If Noor is light in Arabic, then egypt going dark as the light goes out makes sense. It's apt, exactly the opposite of ironic.

That's the irony...

Ironically, Noor means light in Arabic.

You think it's ironic that when the light goes out it gets dark? Seriously?

Re:Egypt Goes Dark

[hasdikarlsam]

The light gets shut down, and it goes dark?

That's.. poetic, I guess, but it's not irony.

Meh...

[Ecuador]

All solutions I've heard so far require people calling international numbers. But do we know whether people have access to international numbers? And how are they going to learn about this service? And their whole problem is that they cannot coordinate their activities, being able to send tweets but not read them will not help much...
Yeah, I can set up a dialup for Egyptian revolutionaries at my home. I can even post to twitter (ok, I have to make an account first, I'm not a twit myself) what they want to say if they call me at home. But even if they knew my number, it wouldn't really help them much.
A slashdotter proposed we all start calling numbers at random in Egypt. While that is silly for many reasons (most obvious is the language issue), it is close to what I could consider a viable solution to the communication problem, provided inbound international calls are possible.
So, instead of the people in Egypt using the internet to organize, they should use their family members abroad as proxies for organizing. You call your cousin in X place, he tells you about the planned activities and instead of trying to contact their inhabitants in X place, you contact their relatives in Queens...
Anyway, just an idea, I do hope Mubarak relents soon and all this is not required.

Re:Meh...

[TheGratefulNet]

>All solutions I've heard so far require people calling international numbers. But do we know whether people have access to international numbers?

well, every time the people put up papercups and wet string, the military keeps shooting the strings down.

other ideas??

Re:Meh...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am really fascinated at how little the Egyptians seem to be using amateur radio during this mess. Perhaps it is just really unpopular there? This seems like the moment when the bands should be lighting up with Egyptian callsigns, but a quick glance at pskreporter.info shows not a single egyptian working the most popular digital mode.. Huh. I mean, if you wanted to get your message out to the world, all you need is a long piece of wire and a radio... no infrastructure required. What happens when the government shuts down all the phonelines next? It could happen... As for how to orchestrate the revolution, how to communicate in country, what about VHF/UHF handheld amateur radios? I mean, this stuff is really obvious.. If this were to happen in the United States, you better believe that the hams would be working. Where are all the Egyptian Hams?

Re:Meh...

[Achra]

Grr, goddamned Slashdot 3.0... I didn't even realize I wasn't logged in and posting AC until after it posted. WTF, slashdot.

Re:Meh...

[hesaigo999ca]

You could just call someone you know has a ham radio in egypt, or as many as you know that do, and give them the lists, of tel no allowing free internet and postings....they would then resend it to all their friends, so on, and so on

kiss

[wervr]

If they can make international calls and they have computers then why don't they just dial up some ISP or a BBS in some other country?

Re:kiss

[0ptix]

Land lines that can call international numbers are not all that common in egypt and cost extra.

He's not taking the high road...

[Shauni]

He's taking the only road. If he ordered a brutal crackdown now, the military (many of which are American-influenced and better-educated than the police forces) would probably refuse, like Tunisia.

Don't think he wouldn't do it if he thought he could get away with it.

Mubarak is hoping for one of two things. Either the protest loses momentum and goes away (yeah right), or it goes out of control and he can convince the military leaders that martial law and massive crackdowns is the only way out. Until then, he will do whatever he thinks is necessary to hold on.

Re:He's not taking the high road...

[Black Parrot]

Mubarak is hoping for one of two things. Either the protest loses momentum and goes away (yeah right), or it goes out of control and he can convince the military leaders that martial law and massive crackdowns is the only way out. Until then, he will do whatever he thinks is necessary to hold on.

According to some sources, he's courting Western support by trying to portray the revolt as a Jihadist movement.

And one well-known Western media outlet is eating it right up... I'll leave the identity of this outlet as an exercise for the reader.

Re:He's not taking the high road...

[maxwell demon]

And one well-known Western media outlet is eating it right up... I'll leave the identity of this outlet as an exercise for the reader.

Let me guess ... is it named after an animal?

9th Plague

[JoeThoughtful]

When Egypt goes dark it is best to evacuate your firstborn out of the country! Really, the population of Earth is at such a size that we should be witnessing the rise of more geniuses than we have seen throughout the whole of human history. This should be a time of peacefully working out our past karma and past prejudices and preparing the way for a new generation of spirited helpers and builders. We are one Earth population, any country filled with people in pain is our own pain.

Re:9th Plague

[leighklotz]

Or use RFC1149 updated with wicker packets.

Worked recently

[SuperKendall]

He could have ordered a more brutal crackdown, but he knows that's what caused the Shah of Iran to lose

Not sure I buy that, since in a more recent example the "brutal crackdown" model worked really well for Ahmadinejad, sad to say.

I'm in agreement with other posters that Mubarak simply doesn't have "brutal crackdown" as an option because the army would not obey it and he would then lose their support (which is also why I don't think he has ordered anything like this).

Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[thetagger]

Thanks for nothing Google. What about hosting a Wikileaks mirror or allowing donations to Wikileaks via Google Checkout?

It's so easy to be a revolutionary when you are thousands of miles away from any danger. Twitter is full of Internet revolutionaries sipping coffee at a Starbucks in San Francisco.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up, and yes I'm a coward.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for nothing Google. What about hosting a Wikileaks mirror or allowing donations to Wikileaks via Google Checkout?

It's so easy to be a revolutionary when you are thousands of miles away from any danger. Twitter is full of Internet revolutionaries sipping coffee at a Starbucks in San Francisco.

It's easy to be a critic when you are thousands of miles away from any danger.

Google, on the other hand, has offices in Cairo.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Anonymous Coward]

So so accurate it is sad.

Kudos for pointing out the uncomfortable truth

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Anonymous Coward]

We mostly drink Peet's here in SF. /goes back to arm chair generaling.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Anonymous Coward]

What would you suggest that Google do?

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you rather they did nothing?

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[shia84]

Whoa, someone with an axe to grind... Are you seriously saying we shouldn't thank them for supporting the people of a nation because they don't host mirrors for something completely unrelated? And tell me, have you any proof that it's not possible to donate money to Wikileaks via Google Checkout? Last time I looked, there was no indicator to this... And I'm not even going to ask you what gives you the higher moral ground to attack a company that does more than any other tech giant and (presumably) more than you...

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Anonymous Coward]

samefagging much?

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[mapkinase]

Did you or any of your friends support American supporters of freedom fighters in Kashmir when they were sentenced to 30 to life or from 4.5 years to life for various members?

That's the price of being "revolutionary" nowadays in US. Before thinking of any revolution abroad, Americans should think of what kind of Orwellian "democracy" they are supporting on their home turf.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Anonymous Coward]

given that your nickname is "thetagger", i commend you on your honesty calling yourself a coward.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[oreaq]

Troll?

[...]American supporters of freedom fighters in Kashmir[...]

The freedom fighters you talk of are the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Their glorious fight for freedom includes among others the 1998 Wandhama massacre, the 2000 Chittisinghpura massacre, the 2002 Kaluchak massacre, the 2003 Nadimarg massacre, the 2005 Delhi bombings, the 2006 Doda massacre, and the 2006 Mumbai train bombings.

[...]when they were sentenced to 30 to life

From your link: "On June 6, 2006, a jury unanimously found Chandia guilty. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with three years of supervised release at the end of his incarceration".

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[Tuan121]

1) Wikileaks mirror
Why should that be Google's job? There are plenty of web hosting companies far more capable than Google for web hosting.

2) Google checkout for donations
Ever hear of Paypal? That would be Paypal's job.

3) This new process of setting up a number to dial into and it being stored easily
Seems like that perfect for what SayNow does, which Google now owns. And then they partner up with Twitter to make it easily available, since that is what Twitter does.

Looks to me like Google/Twitter used their resources when that was what they are specialized in.

You should be modded "Angry at the wrong people", not Insightful.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[mapkinase]

"Troll?"

Are you assuming that majority of /. readers are on Indian side?

Should I start with crimes of Indians in Kashmir? 7000 Kashmiri women molested by Indian troops in IHK

BURIED EVIDENCE documents 2,700 unknown, unmarked, and mass graves, containing 2,943+ bodies, across 55 villages in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara districts of Kashmir, based on applied research conducted between November 2006-November 2009

The bottom line of my comment is that US designate armed groups around the world as "terrorist organizations" or "freedom fighters" as they please, not in the relation to the actual situation.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[gknoy]

2002 Kaluchak Massacre refers to an incident on 14 May 2002 near the town of Kaluchak in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir when three terrorists attacked a tourist bus from the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and killed 31 people....

There were a total of 31 killed, including 3 Army personnel, 18 Army family members and 10 civilians. There were 47 wounded including 12 Army personnel, 20 Army family members and 15 civilians. The dead included ten children.

(From Wikipedia)
I think that killing family members of the opposing army loses you any right to be called a "freedom fighter". Sorry, soldiers aim to kill soldiers, not civilians (and children), otherwise they're thugs. So yeah,I'm inclined to view them as terrorists rather than freedom fighters, even if bad things were done to them too. An eye for an eye makes us both blind.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[mapkinase]

How do you see the opposite side? How does the government see the opposite side? That is all about. ANS was a "terrorist organization" before the elephant in the room stepped on the feet of the idiot blabbing about it's absence.

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[oreaq]

Are you assuming that majority of /. readers are on Indian side?

No. I assume - or at least hope - that the majority of /. realizes that there is no Indian side or Pakistan side but rather a small group of criminal thugs side and a very large victims side. And there is a third group that some call the useful idiots. This third group helps and supports ("useful") the thugs, most of them with out even noticing it ("idiots"), by asserting that there is some larger than life trait that some of the thugs and some of the victims share, for example being "Indian" or "Pakistani", and that the victims and the thugs that share this trait should really band together and that the victims should support "their" thugs instead of siding with the other victims to stop all thugs on both sides.

The bottom line of my comment is that US designate armed groups around the world as "terrorist organizations" or "freedom fighters" as they please, not in the relation to the actual situation.

Agreed. Why do you make the same mistake?

Re:Supporting the revolution - only when it's safe

[mapkinase]

"Why do you make the same mistake?"

It's not a mistake neither on their part or on my part. On their part it's hypocrisy: they say that they support democracy, while in fact they only pursue their interests.

AVAILABLE FOR IMMEDIATE OCCUPANCY ---- 41.128.0.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Ip's are used but in fair condition.

Who is compensating the ISPs?

[tompaulco]

So all of a sudden these ISPs are losing millions of dollars because they are not allowed to operate in Egypt. Is the Egyptian government going to be compensating them for this direct expense?

Re:Who is compensating the ISPs?

[h4rr4r]

Of course not. Corporations exist only at the blessing of the government. They have no expectation to be paid in this sort of case. These companies could just as easily have had their charters revoked and told to get the fuck out of Dodge.

Re:Who is compensating the ISPs?

[LordLucless]

lol. Sovereign Risk.

Re:Who is compensating the ISPs?

[Demonantis]

I doubt it. Insurance doesn't cover acts of war. The government has bigger things to worry about. It is funny that you worry about their revenue and being compensated. When quite easily a lot of their infrastructure could be destroyed or looted by either anyone during the fighting.

Re:Who is compensating the ISPs?

[MarkvW]

That is so funny! Thanks for reminding me that many people actually (really, truly) are so naive and complacent.

Internet Kill Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe now the US will have some... slight qualms... about implementing policies that are provably used by totalitarian governments to crush communications during times of unrest. Go ahead, try to pass it into law. I dare you.

Re:Internet Kill Switch

[orphiuchus]

Yep. Its kind of a sick way to look at this, but it is good for policy in the US.

There is no way that the "Internet Kill Switch" is going to fly now, it would be political suicide.

Re:Internet Kill Switch

[sharkbiter]

I must disagree. The ability to squelch the internet is but a stepping stone for fascist oppression and has a definite appeal for the Security Theater that is DHS.

Those who would give up essential liberty -- yadada yadada yadada...

Re:Internet Kill Switch

[kilfarsnar]

Maybe now the US will have some... slight qualms... about implementing policies that are provably used by totalitarian governments to crush communications during times of unrest. Go ahead, try to pass it into law. I dare you.

Actually, Obama recently renewed the state of national emergency that the US has been in since 9/11/01. Under a state of national emergency, the President can do pretty much anything he wants, including suspending parts of the Constitution, seizing the means of production, etc. So if the US government wanted to shut down the internet, they could do it tomorrow, no new laws needed.

Way to go Egypt.

[pclminion]

You're officially even less connected than Bhutan. You might as well take a step into the twelfth century, that's about where you are, technologically, at the moment.

Re:Way to go Egypt.

[bledri]

... You might as well take a step into the twelfth century, that's about where you are, technologically, at the moment.

It's not just technologically that they (the government) are in the twelfth century. Here's hoping that the people prevail,

Actually, you are both wrong...

[denzacar]

You don't need to send men with guns when you can do the same much easier by sending one man (perhaps two) with a piece of paper.
Comply or be arrested, have your equipment confiscated as evidence, your premises padlocked and your bank accounts frozen while you wait for any and all licenses you have to be examined by court.

They'll probably even let you defend yourself from "outside" - your trial won't be up for a couple of months/years anyway.
Have fun feeding yourself and your family with no money, no job and no free time as you are too busy with your court case.

YOU ARE A WINNER!

[denzacar]

Or a meat popsicle. Or both.

Ad Hoc networking.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I hope one thing that comes out of this is some work on ad-hoc networking.

Example: a self-orgainzing, ad-hoc, robust re-routing and load balancing network using WiFi enabled machines. To join you'd bring up your machine and sniff for WiFi access points identifying as the net you're after. You'd connect to the strongest one, and if you didn't already have the software you'd bring up a browser and the neighbor would serve you a copy of the routing-and-configuring software. Accept and load it and you're now another node on the net.

Security risks of accepting such software are obvious. (Especially after malware authors and authoritarian government security operations build attacks or sock puppets with spyware.) But it has the advantage that you can play without having anything preloaded in advance of the network disruption. In a situation like Egypt's it could easily be worth the risk.

Others: Software-defined cell phone base stations, to replace shut-down cellphone infrastructure with VoIP over whatever works - or just enable the nearby phones to talk to each other over a square mile or so. Right NOW you'd need some special hardware for the radio part. (Can't use a handset because the built-in diplexer keeps it listening and talking on the wrong halves of the cellphone bands.) But in the future? And you don't need a LOT of "cells" to cover a city. Then there are smartphones that can switch over to WiFi "microcells" when available. Those wouldn't need any special radio to create the pirate cells.

I could go on...

Re:Ad Hoc networking.

[corbettw]

What I hope comes about after this is an open standard for microblogging. Just because the rest of the Internet is cut off from Egypt doesn't mean (necessarily) that Egyptians can't access servers within Egypt itself. So while they're cut off from, say, Twitter, if someone had a microblogging server set up locally they could still use it to coordinate protests and demonstrations.

Facebook, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 properties are all great and all, but we really need to get back to simple open standards like finger, uucp/smtp, and nntp.

Re:Ad Hoc networking.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Don't need a standard. There are plenty of available blog server packages and ANY of 'em will do the job. Or fall all the way back to netnews, or Fidonet, which not only don't require the capital-I Internet but also don't have a single point of failure for the bad guys to destroy.

All you need is a server with a blog tool on it and a way for people to contact it.

The problem is not that the tools are missing. The problem is that the network to connect people TO them is missing.

Come up with a replacement for that (preferably one that doesn't immediately lead the enemy to the key piece of infrastructure or its operator) and you're live. Once people are connected they can figure it out on-the-fly.

Re:Ad Hoc networking.

[Thing 1]

I agree with your hope, and your going on, with this simple note: we will route around damage, until we are too damaged to route any longer.

Re:Ad Hoc networking.

[lennier]

What I hope comes about after this is an open standard for microblogging.

I would like to see a standard for microblogging of arbitrarily sized/structured data that plays well with pervasive caching peer to peer systems like radio mesh routing. It seems like we have such a very common need for publish/subscribe networking that we really ought to be standardising this concept at a level a lot lower than 'send an HTTP request to this commercial website'.

Re:Ad Hoc networking.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Sounds like Freenet on ad-hoc WiFi mesh. Maybe with a little tweaking to use the mesh's routing table and avoid any dependency on centralized network services such as DNS.

It's not ALL dark!

[Anonymous Coward]

My pyramid shaped Fleshlight flashlight still works.

Plausilble Deniability

[tkprit]

[okay, I snatched that from Independence Day]

No news in; no news out; if they attain 'peace' within a week or so, they allow 'journalists' to print how the uprising was caused by a few malcontents. Eventually they go all China and control internet accessibility... all in the name of peace. And the worst part is, they could come out looking squeaky clean, like, "Ah, Mubarak handled business, saved monuments, etc."

(I doubt that will happen, of course, but I think that's Mubarak's thinking/hoping/wishing/praying.

This is what happens when you abandon the old Gods

[Anonymous Coward]

By betraying Ra for Allah, the Egyptians brought this upon themselves. They will lose their Stargate for this.

HAMs and older tech keepin' Egypt in the loop

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading articles like this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12322948

Remind me how awesome geeks are around the world!

Stay connected people!

Worse cure than the disease

[Troll-Under-D'Bridge]

Letting in the UN or any other country or group of countries into Egypt should be a cure of last resort, radical surgery when there's Khmer Rouge-style genocide already taking place. That point has not been reached. This is a matter for the Egyptians to settle among themselves.

Or how would you feel if the UN intervened in the LA riots? The chaos in Iraq is partly the product of misplaced good intentions (never mind the possible economic "motives"), a war supposedly to topple a dictator without a clear plan on what to do after the downfall of the regime.

Foreign intervention, no matter how well intentioned, always leaves a bad taste in the mouth. If anything, national pride is hurt, as the citizens now feel they have to be rescued from themselves. It would be more difficult to re-establish a working government, than if the country was invaded after a war between countries of nearly equal military strength (as was the case after the defeat of Japan and Germany in World War II).

Re:Worse cure than the disease

[Black Parrot]

Letting in the UN or any other country or group of countries into Egypt should be a cure of last resort, radical surgery when there's Khmer Rouge-style genocide already taking place.

And that's when people seem least interested in intervening...

dialup and wifi cantennas

[petsounds]

I heard a NPR report today on this which mentioned some Egyptians are using dialup modems now and connecting to international numbers for an access point. Not sure how widespread this is.

I also wonder if a site-to-site wi-fi system using the infamous cantenna could be used to daisy chain net access from across the border. I know the Burmese Tiger rebels used this tactic pretty successfully.

Re:dialup and wifi cantennas

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking along the same lines... wasn't wifi broadcast across the Atlantic once? Something to do with using the top layer of salt water as a conduit? I can't remember and I am search engine challenged, so I can't find it, but it was posted on Slashdot at some point. I expect whatever the hell I'm talking about could be done across the Mediterranean as well. Now... I shall mod you up! Ha ha!!!

Re:dialup and wifi cantennas

[wasabu]

The Illuminists risk sparking a communications revolution post-internet by taking draconian measures like this.

Massively Distributed WIFI is where this is going, and we need to accelerate thinking in this direction. It cannot be intended for mainstay use, but as a mitigation to tyranny.

Another option is blue-tooth (100M Class A) distributed database core (eg CouchDB) with lightweight web server and subscription / security layer. People would be able to 'swarm' to update their subscriptions, and identify where physically the latest updates are, and become human routers.

Re:dialup and wifi cantennas

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard a NPR report today on this which mentioned some Egyptians are using dialup modems now and connecting to international numbers for an access point. Not sure how widespread this is.

I also wonder if a site-to-site wi-fi system using the infamous cantenna could be used to daisy chain net access from across the border. I know the Burmese Tiger rebels used this tactic pretty successfully.

the problem that all countries sounding Egypt are ruled with dictatorship or supporting the Egyptian directorship! Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Israel and the see in the north!

Re:dialup and wifi cantennas

[Anonymous Coward]

The main issue with the "daisy chain" idea is that nearly all of Egypt's population is within a few miles of the Nile. Unlike the U.S., they're in an inhospitable environment otherwise and not clinging to interstates and highways like U.S. cities are.

That and I imagine some of those folks would quickly get shot. "Well, it kinda looked like a little rocket launcher, sir."

Re:dialup and wifi cantennas

[Anonymous Coward]

these are used all over Africa,
whenever it is important to keep the local government from being able to listen in:

http://www.thuraya.com/

Never 100% dark

[muzicman]

Whilst dial up is a viable means it is by no way the hardest to stop. There is no reason why sat comms wouldn't be a viable (and still working) means of accessing the internet.

Since the Egyptians aren't using them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the Egyptians aren't using them...maybe we can reclaim their IP address blocks...

I'm just saying....

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nobody is sure how Noor was able to keep operating," - really?

Read more closely!

"... even as larger ISPs such as Vodafone and Telecom Egypt *voluntarily* cut their Egyptian networks off from the rest of the world."

Simple, I guess Noor just didn't "volunteer" then!

Egypt not entirely off line

[Animats]

There's a solid Internet connection still open into Egypt, with substantial bandwidth. It's probably better if I don't give the details in an open forum.

Re:Egypt not entirely off line

[Devoidoid]

Pics or it didn't happen.

But the surprising thing is...

[Anonymous Coward]

How quickly Obammy and The PantSuit turned their backs on a staunch ally in the Middle East for the sake of political correctness and a sad attempt at appeasing unreasonable Muslim dirt farmers. The whole world is watching, and the lesson learned is that America no longer has any balls it's word isn't worth a shit.

Minor detail...

[Anonymous Coward]

They're Mudslums. They hate women. You might be able to appease them with some goat fucker porn, though.

Re:Minor detail...

[MichaelSmith]

Dunno I tend to hang out in Internet cafes while in Malaysia and I am pretty sure the guys browsing porn on public terminals there are mostly Muslim. The preferred delivery mechanism is yahoo mail so governments who want to filter porn are going to have to block mail too.

What about FidoNet?

[WetCat]

Does this coutry have any presence in FidoNet? It's a useful form of distributed communication.

A communications blackout

[Wolfling1]

usually precedes an invasion. Commander, prepare the militia.

Ministry of Communication still has net.

[0ptix]

Not everything is down. The IP block of the The Ministory of Communication is still up.

Noor ISP has special role.

[0ptix]

Noor is the ISP for the stock exchange as well as for many major banks. That would suggest quite a few reasons as to why they were not shut down with the rest...

Local solution

[0ptix]

I was talking to a guy from telecomix on irc yesterday who was working on a pretty sweet project trying to get net and phones to people in egypt. Generally they seem to be organizing quite a few cool things. In this case the guy was gearing up to buy a bundle of phone lines (enough for about 2000) and hooking it up to a computer with SIP on the egypt side. The end goal was to setup what is essentially a new Dial-in ISP. But I didn't really have time/knowledge to understand the details. Anyway they're doing some pretty rad stuff so it's worth checking out.

Still, there really is only so much you can do given just a couple days notice and a country in the middest of an information lockdown (not to mention a general revolution).

google did something and is involved.

[0ptix]

Dude... seriously?

At least they SOMETHING to help the people in egypt. What do you want? a full scale google invasion?

And by the way a google employ (exec) was kidnapped by plain clothed security forces in cairo and is missing since several days. The arrest was caught on video. See around 1:11

Not quite so cushy after all.

Re:google did something and is involved.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up!

Re:google did something and is involved.

[gknoy]

I'm just waiting for Google to employ PMCs to protect their employee assets in other countries. I hear there are some mercenaries in the Seattle area that are into that sort of business arrangement.

Next move

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, cutting off all international phone calls is even easier than shutting down Internet access...

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[Anonymous Coward]

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(MB != AQ) && (Egypt != MB)

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh... that's total BS. The MB was, by their own admission, behind the curve on this demonstration. They were definitely no the instigators (and you'd be pissing off a LOT of Egyptians if you claimed they were) and only even agreed to join on friday (4 days in). There are sources on the net for all this stuff but I'm a to lazy now to find them for you. Just google "Muslim Brotherhood Joins Protest" and look what day those articles are reffering to.

On top of that all that, in the last two days they've just come out backing ElBaradei as a leader for the opposition. He is both a copt by ethnicity and secular by politics. Not the most radical islamic of moves now is it.

While I definitely do not agree with many of their policies and ideas but still... you might want to inform yourself about their opinions and actions just a bit more before you go ranting all Glen Beck on us...

seriously, for all intents and purposes they do seem to want a democracy. I mean NOW is their chance if ever to influence and form the shape of the next government to come. and what do they do? they put themselves squarely behind a secular leader who espouses a very western sort of government system.

Little random anecdote to give an example of why I doubt the 80% figure: my friend who is a reporter for an international news org was covering a big demo in cairo on friday. as a crowd of MB followers is passing by the begin to chant some of their recognizable slogans. promptly and spontaneously the much much larger surrounding crowd of demonstrators totally drowns out those chants with the chant "Muslims, Christians we are all Egyptians". (A refrain which has been heard quite a bit during these last days.)

It ain't all fox news out their bro... ;-)

The positive side...

[Foske]

We have a few unused IPv4 addresses again !

CIA funded Obama internet kill switch bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much sums up the situation in Egypt.

Kill Switch Test?

[nagnamer]

While the US gov't is discussing the possibility of an Internet kill switch, Egyptian gov't is doing it. Good chance for the US to see what it looks like, and what people might do in an event kill switch is activated.

voice translations

[datapharmer]

we are currently working on a voice to text translation for all speak to tweets. You can view and contribute at http://egypt.alive.in

Mr Universe

[el cisne]

Can't stop the signal, Mal.

It is a paradox!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how will they find out about this new service from google, if they don't have access to look it up...

LAN party

[tsvk]

It's like the Egyptians -- all 83 million of them -- are having the world's largest LAN party! :)

Oh No

[rossdee]

Without the Internet they can't have a revolution - o dear...

I guess the american and french revolutions in the late 18th century never happened then, they didn't even have telegraph or telephone, much less internet wifi and cable or satellite TV

Re:Oh No

[lennier]

I guess the american and french revolutions in the late 18th century never happened then

Yes, and look what happened to the French Revolution without Twitter.

phone lines available

[Anonymous Coward]

As phone lines are still available, at least one IAP (french FDN : http://blog.fdn.fr/post/2011/01/28/Censure-de-l-internet-en-%C3%89gypte-:-une-humble-action-de-FDN ) furnishes a phone number for modem access : +33 1 72 89 01 50. (login: toto password: toto)

Hope this might help a bit.

The point?

[Grismar]

Although I can definitely see the point of getting Egyptians on the net by any means possible to assure their access to foreign and independant sources of news about the situation - I fail to see the point of allowing Egyptians to phone in Tweets. Twitter as a medium only works well (imo) if a sufficiently large percentage of the people is using it. If it is reduced to a small minority, wouldn't they be much better off with some way to publish their "tweets" to a service that has somewhat better tools to search and organize the information, like a simple forum or something similar, posting the transcribed message as well as the audio fragment for example?

Turning off the Internet is a bad idea

[gurps_npc]

Think about happens when you take the internet away from a typical teenage girl. When you have news, you sit back and read about it. Maybe play a little farmville. Check your stocks. Without the internet, many egyptians have nothing to do besides go outside and protest.

Military isn't just standing by though..

[Firethorn]

Not only did the commanders refuse to stop the demonstrators, I was listening on NPR and they commented that the military is protecting the demonstrators as long as they don't get violent.

Cross-border wireless internet?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if the world needs the internet equivelant of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty?

It's just Google Voice

[penguinchris]

To be fair, Google already has the infrastructure set up in the form of Google Voice. It seems like all they've really done is set up a Google Voice voicemail box that posts the recorded message to twitter.

Obama all but ignored Mubarak's announcement

[bstender]

"Obama all but ignored Mubarak's announcement, declaring that "an orderly transition must be meaningful, must be peaceful and must begin now.""

woah, three nuanced ideas in one sentence? slow down college boy!