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Egyptians Turn To Tor To Organize Dissent Online
An anonymous reader writes "Even as President Obama prepares to follow Mubarak with his own 'internet kill switch', Egyptians were turning to the Tor anonymiser to organise their protests online. The number of Egyptians connecting to the internet over Tor rose more than five-fold after protests broke out last week before crashing when the Government severed links to the global internet. Information security researcher, Tor coder and writer of the bridge that allowed Egypt's citizens to short-circuit government filters, Jacob Appelbaum, told SC Magazine Egyptians were 'concerned and some understand the risk of network traffic analysis.' Appelbaum has himself been the subject of attention from US security services who routinely snatch his electronics and search his belongings when he re-enters the country and who subpoenaed his private Twitter account last December." Which helps explain why Appelbaum is helping to organize a small fundraiser to get more communications gear into Egypt.
I'm a little confused. How does Tor work when they shut down the Internet?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This reminds me a lot of that Corey Docterow novel about the kid who was blamed for being a terrorist in San Francisco.
Used TOR and xboxs to make an ad-hoc network. Was actually a bit of an interesting read, although a bit worded for younger people.
I see people always going on about that. I can't see how this would help in the US. If people were protesting or there was unrest in the US, hitting the net kill switch would be economic suicide. In Egypt and Tunisia, the net was used more for socializing than business. In the US, the bulk of net use (in pure data) is business related. Our entire economy runs off of the net now. Turning it off would shut down or severely hobble a large number of fortune 500 companies, not to mention thousands of small and medium sized businesses. Also, like in Egypt and Tunisia, it would just give people more reason to go out on the streets. Without the net to bitch about the state of the country/world on, they would turn to going outside and raising hell instead. So sure, the govt can build their kill switch, but only if they plan to jettison our economy with the push oa button.
"Tor, it's not just for child pornographers and anti-Communist dissidents any more!"
Proof that anyone using a Tor is a criminal with something to hide. They just happen to be breaking Egyption laws instead of US ones. The scumbags. [/end sarcasm]
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
Um...how does Senator Susan Collins, Republican from Main, putting forward a beyond-all-reason-lame bill, somehow equal Obama following Mubarak? Yes, the bill is to give the president the time power to kill the Internet in various poorly defined ways, but that's one amazingly long politically reaching spin if I ever heard one.
"Even as President Obama prepares to follow Mubarak with his own 'internet kill switch',
WTF??? I'm really getting sick and tired of this partisan garbage on slashdot. It's bad enough that it's in posters' comments, do we really have to have it force fed to us in the summaries? Hey lefties... fuck you... but you righties, a special "go fuck yourself" from me, mkay? Arrogant lying assholes... say anything to make the competition look bad, anything at all to win. Stupid, women-hating, fascist money lovers. Bite me.
The Admin and the Engineer
Get some 100 watt FM transmitters make a afsk broadcast(Setting up Soundmodem on Linux). Next plug headphone jack from fm radio into laptop use multimon or windows equivalent. Just have to coordinate freq maybe could try encrypting it with open-ssh and sharing certs
2 *million* people are marching for their freedom. In passerby interviews they keep repeating that they want a peaceful protest, as they want the rest of the world to stand behind them and see they really want this change.
Despite that, people got killed from police gunfire, live rounds and rubber bullets included.
Sure there are a few looters, some suspected of being undercover police to instill FUD in the crowds, a tactic not beyond the past 30 years of tyranny.
The army publicly announced they will _not_ fire on the people as long as the protest stays peaceful.
Google's official blog explains a new technology developed by a group of tech geeks who wanted to contribute positively to the current situation in Egypt.
This is not just middle east anymore, this is humanity coming together.
Check it out :-) http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/
And http://stop404.org/682 :-)
For a European like me, the difference between Democratic and Republican presidents seems minimal with regards to electronic surveillance and censorship.
In my own country, Sweden, the parties conveniently switch to criticising surveillance and censorship when they're out of power, only to conveniently switch back when they're in power again.
When has president Obama suggested an Internet kill switch? This is the idea of a Republican senator and has not been endorsed or supported by Obama, afaik. This should have never made it to the front page, it is an obvious troll.
We do the same. During the Bush years, the GOP meme was "trust the government. It's unpatriotic to stand in the president's way". After Obama's election, but before he took office, that meme changed to "The president is out to push a socialist agenda and I hope the president fails", and these same people who were decrying dissent took a tactic of filibustering and obstructing every attempt at legislation, because they didn't want to give the other guy any victories.