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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."

7 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 Zeek40 · · Score: 4, Informative

      They had to physically wrest control of the entire countryside surrounding the towers from a violent dictator and had to negotiate with foreign telcom providers to accomplish the takeover. I wouldn't say that infrastructure that requires both violent revolution and high tech support from outside the country is especially "brittle" or "easily compromised".

    2. Re:This all sounds very nice, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm fairly sure you need physical access to the infrastructure at some point in order to do this - if only to change the router's admin credential so you can't be "hacked back". In a country with an on-going revolution this is much easier to do that in a stable country where the security guards of the data center are certainly not going to let you in.

      Obviously neither of the 2 parents read the article, where it explains in detail all the high-tech hardware they needed to import in order to do this, with the help of sympathetic nations like Qatar because telecom companies won't sell this stuff to individuals. It was NOT easy, and yes, obviously physically access was needed.

  3. Re:Important Victory for the Rebel Alliance by Haedrian · · Score: 3, Funny

    Its not like communications and the invention of the radio changed warfare and coordination forever.

  4. Re:Yet another "ignorant" southerner by DrgnDancer · · Score: 4, Informative

    To be fair, Huntsville has arguably the single largest concentration of engineering and technology talent between Atlanta and Houston (Alternately it could be argued that nearby Knoxville does, with ORNL right there). I should know, I live here. Among other things, the US rocketry program was born here (Werner Von Braun immigrated here, and is considered more or less the father of the modern city), NASA and MDA both have huge presences here, and we have the headquarters for much of the Army's weapons R&D. There's not many places like this in the South.

    --
    I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
  5. Verizon ads in Libya. by Roskolnikov · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can you fear me? How about now?

    --
    Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.