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Engineers Hijack Libyan Phone Network For Rebels

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-see-what-you-did-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A team led by a Libyan-American telecom executive has helped rebels hijack Col. Moammar Gadhafi's cellphone network and re-establish their own communications. The new network, first plotted on an airplane napkin and assembled with the help of oil-rich Arab nations, is giving more than two million Libyans their first connections to each other and the outside world after Col. Gadhafi cut off their telephone and Internet service about a month ago."

3 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Come on guys deliver us too. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Hope Gadaffi is merely the dry run, and the liberators would come to rescue the wretched masses suffering under the totalitarian regimes of AT&T and Verizon too.

    Can you hear me now?

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  2. This all sounds very nice, but... by countertrolling · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It really shows how brittle and easily compromised the infrastructure is. That, in my mind (what's left of it), is a 'bad thing'.

    --
    For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
    1. Re:This all sounds very nice, but... by bigpat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, I think it was somewhat disturbing that it took a month to get this communication system back online. Even with fighting going on West of Benghazi it seems that getting the infrastructure back in place would have been a huge priority for a variety of reasons and that getting towers back online even just for local communication would have taken days not weeks. I think the delay was probably due more to organizational issues of who had the authority to award contracts in the new regime and how to coordinate restoration of services than any technical or even security reasons.