Revolutionary Wants Technology To Transform Libya

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Revolutionary Wants Technology To Transform Libya

Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 25, 2012 @01:03PM from the we-can-build-it-better dept.

pbahra writes in with the story of Khaled el Mufti, the network-security engineer who was in charge of providing telecommunications for the Libyan revolution. "It isn't often you get the chance to meet a real revolutionary. It is a term cheapened by misuse, but Khaled el Mufti is a revolutionary. It is no exaggeration to say that the role he played in the Libyan uprising last year was crucial; had he and his telecoms team failed, it isn't hard to think that Col. Muammar Gadhafi might still be in power. Today, Mr. Mufti is a telecoms adviser to the interim government and heads the e-Libya initiative, a bold plan to use the transformative powers of technology to modernize the Libyan state, overturning 40 years of corruption and misrule under Gadhafi. Mr. Mufti is an unlikely revolutionary, a softly spoken network-security engineer with a degree from Imperial College in London. Almost by chance he was in his native Libya when the revolution took place, working on a project with BT in the capital, Tripoli."

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My prediction: by russotto · 2012-01-25 13:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

Dead within a year.
Libya had a communications satellite by AHuxley · 2012-01-25 13:33 · Score: 3, Informative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_African_Satellite_Communication_Organization
http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes-Space-Systems-and-Industry/Rascom-Libya.html
"'ground network includes gateway Earth stations and low cost," -
It made parts of Africa spend less on Intelsat and a lot less on big telco interconnection fees.
Now the West is back and wants their telco interconnection fees back... all of them.

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Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Interesting background on the coup by Burz · 2012-01-25 13:40 · Score: 5, Interesting

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MD14Ak02.html
No wonder The Wall St. Journal is gushing.
1. Re:Interesting background on the coup by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 14:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  That's one hell of a conspiracy theory. Her main thesis is that Libya was attacked because it wouldn't play ball with the Bank for International Settlements? Well, if you look at the map there are only 4 Islamic countries which are part of the BIS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_for_International_Settlements
  Could it just be that banking standards in the Islamic world differs highly from the rest of the world, and rather than there being an extra layer of conspiracy where Western countries are targeting non-BIS countries (of which there are yet many in USA's backyard of South America, and in France's backyard of Easter Europe), it's just that Libya happened to be a place where human rights violations were immediate (like Syria, Bahrain) and no major powers were backing it (unlike Syria, Bahrain).
  There are two kids being abused, one lives near you, the other lives in a community where neighbors support the abuse. Where would intervention be the most effective?
2. Re:Interesting background on the coup by bill_mcgonigle · 2012-01-25 16:05 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Skimmed the article - from what I've read elsewhere:
  Gaddafi wanted to price oil in terms of gold and get all of Africa to do so as well. This threatened the petro dollar.
  Libyans had a very high per-capita reserve of gold.
  The same day as the US^H^H^H^H^H NATO started to attack, the 'rebels' set up a central bank and a national oil company.
  The idea that the war was fought to protect rebels or civillians (see also: Syria, Bahrain) is sketchy. The idea that it was fought to protect the value of the US Dollar as the world reserve currency and maintain the primacy of central banks ... well, we wish that weren't true.
  
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  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
3. Re:Interesting background on the coup by Xest · 2012-01-25 21:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "Libya - The US Currency Protection War"
  An Epic story, brought to you from such esteemed authors as "The Jews did 9/11", "The Financial Crisis is the Banks Taking Over the World", and "UFOs took my mum"
  It's stupid, I suppose these people think that Gaddaffi was in on it too and sent his forces to destory Benghazi provoking the initial French strikes to tip the scales in favour of military action too only to be backstabbed later on? Presumably after the initial strikes the reason Qatar, Britain, and France spent most money and took most risk over the conflict was because Cameron and Sarkozy were caught up in a love triangle with Obama and hoped to whisk him away to Canada where gay marriage is legal too?
  A bank is a pretty important symbol of a functioning state, and a rebel cause like this needs an incredible amount of funding to stand up to the amount of reserves of gold and cash Gaddaffi had lying around to fund mercenairies and so forth.
  As with all wars, those that helped the winning side will likely hope for some kind of repayment - favour for their companies when it comes to oil contracts and such, but to suggest this was some kind of planned US coup is fucking laughable. America was pretty reluctant over Libya and didn't even really want much to do with it, and after softening Gaddaffi's stationary implacements and facilities with initial cruise missile strikes, didn't in fact have much to do with it providing little more than intel from drones and satellites.
  If there were any countries for whom this would be a conspiracy it would be Britain, France, or Qatar, as they were the primary instigators of it throughout, but then you'd have to find a reason other than the US dollar conspiracy theory.
  It's also highly unlikely Russia and China wouldn't have an idea of what the Americans were upto, and they'd have outright vetoed the UN resolution knowing this is what it was about.
  Really, it was what it was, some may disagree whether it was right and that's a fair point, some may point to greed when countries who supported the uprising get handed favourable contracts, but this wasn't some grand US conspiracy - as with most conspiracy theories, the theory only tentatively pieces together a handful of disparate points, whilst failing to string together a cohesive explanation for all the parts of the story that don't fit, no, they just get conveniently ignored by the nutjobs.
4. Re:Interesting background on the coup by Xest · 2012-01-26 03:37 · Score: 2
  
  Did you actually follow your own links?
  The first demonstrates a pipeline that pipes gas from Turkey to Europe, and that passes well away from Kosovo, so what exactly has the US and Kosovo got to do with it?
  The latter pipes gas from Turkmenistan to India. Again, what the fuck has that got to do with the US?
  What do either of these have to do with oil and the petrodollar?
  This is why so many conspiracy theories are so laughably bad- even their basic underlying premises are completely wrong.
5. Re:Interesting background on the coup by II+Xion+II · 2012-01-26 04:41 · Score: 2
  
  Maybe I could see +3 Interesting, but I can't believe this is what qualifies as +5 Insightful nowadays, by Slashdot nonetheless. By an infallible low UID at that! I could see on a conspiracy forum this theory getting heavy support, but having followed the Libyan conflict since its inception (to the point of knowing all the major battles day-after-day and going from next to zero knowledge on the country to knowing most of towns/cities of any significance in the country) I can tell you that that opinion is mendacious and ill-supported at best.
  Consider the totality of the evidence and not what amounts to more than a conspiracy theory, because it's insulting to many intelligent people when they have to put up with this everywhere online including such touted intellectual bastions as Slashdot.
  It's one thing to point out this fact, it's another to imply it's the reason there was a war and NATO support for one.
  I could write ad nauseam on this, but I'll sum things up and if you want to go from there we can:
  Consider the timing and events. An unprecedented wave of discontent and protests sweep the Arab world around this time. Tunisia has expelled its longtime strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt, of all places, just successfully forced out its dictator, Hosni Mubarak. Protests in Algeria and Morocco and huge discontent and uprisings in Bahrain and Yemen (Syria as well, but to a far less extent around this time). So what happens in Libya? Major protests and then an armed insurrection against one of Africa's longest-serving dictators.
  Not only does Gaddafi not yield to the initially peaceful demands, he mocks the protesters and vows to hunt them down "alley by alley" and proceeds to employ brutal military force that up until this point hadn't been widely seen after Tunisia and Egypt's revolutions were largely peaceful. The international community is largely silent in terms of action despite this, but recognizes the significance and there are calls for no violence against protestors. Mass defections are reported, Libyan fighter jets land in Malta, military units abandon the government, citizens take up arms and demand change after Gaddafi's crackdown, multiple cities fall to the rebels and things look good, everyone wants the brutal dictator Gaddafi to step aside...then Gaddafi and his much-championed "reformer" son Saif incite further violence and Gaddafi uses the full might of his military and remaining loyalists to crush city after city.
  Calls for the international community to intervene or face enormous massacres occur from Libyan protestors. The Arab League requests it. Human rights organizations want a no fly zone largely. When a U.N. vote comes up China and Russia abstain from a veto.
  That's how much international and diverse support there was for intervention.
  Anyone who followed this could tell the U.S.A. did not want to intervene until the last minute. Pray tell, if the Gaddafi gold conspiracy theory invasion plan is true, then why wait so long? Why not preach justice and democracy early on and overthrow the government, why wait until Gaddafi had his tanks literally at Benghazi's gates to crush him?
  Furthermore, this was an intervention championed by France and the U.K., not the U.S.A. and all indications are that Obama was against it for the longest time, hence the delay, the back off after the initial assault (which we were best able to handle logistically), and wait for broad international support (including the Arab States and noncommittal from BRIC). Considering the unprecedented Arab revolutions nearby, that degree of support, the resiliency of the rebels and how close things seemed to be at the time to an overthrow, and the fact that Gaddafi was literally crazy and dangerous as well as the fact that this seemed like a just cause to gain traction with the Muslim world - as in we at least do more than lip service to supporting people going against a dictator some times as opposed to supporting dictators - then it makes simple sense why the intervention
Re:Quick by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 14:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

Technology is a tool, support to make something easier. It doesn't solve your problems for you.
That's why specialists rarely make it into leadership positions. They lose touch with reality. You know the saying, when you have a shiny new hammer, everything looks like a nail.
The first thing they need right now, is to print scads of leaflets about what democracy is, how different is from the previous regime and so on. And not just papers, but people to support those things with words. And they needed to do it just weeks after the end of the conflict.
Re:Almost by chance by Ethanol-fueled · 2012-01-25 14:06 · Score: 2

Because a Libyan ex-pat who was hired by an oil company

BT is not BP...though given the nature of the two industries, the intent was still most certainly contrived evil.
Re:Right, "by chance" by AHuxley · 2012-01-25 14:10 · Score: 2

The BBC just found out "SAS on ground during Libya crisis" - 9 January 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16624401

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Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This depresses me by sideslash · 2012-01-25 14:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

Not saying there isn't great potential for good there, but I don't expect to see it. Unfortunately, the Islamists in Libya and Egypt would like nothing better than to use technology the same way Iran does -- to stifle any dissent from the political/religious straightjacket that is Islamic fundamentalism. I hope for the best, but don't like some aspects of the political momentum I see in the "Arab spring". It seems like they are dumping corrupt secular dictators, just to prop up theoretically less corrupt, but still abjectly fascist slave masters wielding Sharia law.
1. Re:This depresses me by Mashiki · 2012-01-25 14:48 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Oh come on. The media elitists keep telling us that this arab spring is nothing but good stuff, and there's rainbows, and cookies, and everyone is going to hold hands. That's why in egypt they just elected a group of people which will be happily throwing the countries legal system back to the 13th-14th century, and quickly shoving women back to chattel status.
  Oh...and the same thing is going on in libya. Sadly the people that believed this revolution stuff would be positive were so naive that it made me wonder if they'd ever left their home countries and wondered the world in the slightest.
  
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  Om, nomnomnom...
2. Re:This depresses me by artor3 · 2012-01-25 15:00 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  It seems like they are dumping corrupt secular dictators, just to prop up theoretically less corrupt, but still abjectly fascist slave masters wielding Sharia law.
  I don't see that at all. The Muslim Brotherhood won in the election in Egypt, not to Salafis. They had an election, and they elected one of the moderate parties, by their standards. Maybe you were hoping for them to elect the liberal party, but there's a difference between "not the party I would have voted for" and "abjectly fascist slave masters".
  If anyone expects Egypt to be a utopian bastion of democracy within a few years, they're fooling themselves. It never works like that. But they're taking steps in the right direction, and they fought like hell for the right to take those steps. Don't run them down for that.
3. Re:This depresses me by artor3 · 2012-01-25 15:26 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  By the standards of the country, the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate, and perhaps more importantly, they were elected. It's better to have an elected government than a dictator, even if that elected government does some bad stuff.
  Let's not forget that America passed plenty of terrible laws when it was younger. Still does, in fact, though not to the same extent. The Sedition Act made it illegal to say anything bad about the government. Black people were deemed 3/5ths of a person. No, that doesn't mean they got three fifths of a vote. It means their owners did. They banned sodomy and alcohol. Non-protestants weren't allowed to hold office in many places.
  It takes a long time for democratic countries to level out and start running themselves well. But it beats the hell out of being completely at the mercy of a dictator.
4. Re:This depresses me by Mashiki · 2012-01-25 16:24 · Score: 2
  
  They didn't elect dictatorship and fascism. They elected a backward fundamentalist religious government. There is a difference, even if neither is very good.
  The difference between fascism and a fundamentalist religious government, is one uses religion as a pretext. The other uses the word of man. In both cases, they're the same thing, it's simply interpretation that defines how screwed up it will become.
  
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  Om, nomnomnom...
5. Re:This depresses me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 17:51 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Oh come on. The media elitists keep telling us that this arab spring is nothing but good stuff, and there's rainbows, and cookies, and everyone is going to hold hands. That's why in egypt they just elected a group of people which will be happily throwing the countries legal system back to the 13th-14th century, and quickly shoving women back to chattel status.
  Oh...and the same thing is going on in libya. Sadly the people that believed this revolution stuff would be positive were so naive that it made me wonder if they'd ever left their home countries and wondered the world in the slightest.
  If thats what the egyptians want, then thats their right. You or I don't have to like it, but it sure as hell aint any ones business but the egyptians. fought hard for their democracy, and its up to them to decide what to do with it, not some slavering angry westerners who want to turn the middle east into some sort of bizzaro reflection of washington, london or paris.
6. Re:This depresses me by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-01-25 18:29 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  If thats what the egyptians want, then thats their right. You or I don't have to like it, but it sure as hell aint any ones business but the egyptians.
  Keep in mind that Sharia equals death penalty for homosexuals, for example. Statistically, about 10% of Egyptians are homosexual. Do you think they want it? Or do you think that, if the majority wants to oppress some of the minorities - maybe even massacre them - they're free to do so so long as they held a vote first?
7. Re:This depresses me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 19:23 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  If you think the Muslim Brotherhood is homogeneous, you're fooling yourself. Calling the Muslim Brotherhood "the same guys who hold the same beliefs as 50 years ago when they wanted to slap tents on women" because a faction of the movement is violent and fundamentalist is like calling the Tea Party "the same guys who assassinated Kennedy and Lincoln" because some psychos with guns who call themselves tea partiers make death threats and in one case tried to follow through.
  Neither is a fair representation of the movement, and there are a lot of reasonable and peaceful people who want to work within a western democratic system to affect change per their vision of a better USA/Egypt.
8. Re:This depresses me by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 20:37 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Actually, based on what I know of history, I bet a lot of these homosexuals want Sharia law even if it means death for them. They probably think that despite Sharia law, they'll never get caught or they think the risk is worth the "good" stuff Sharia law brings. I'm willing to bet at least half of Egypt's homosexual are just as extremist as the straight extremists and would have no problem stoning a cheating woman or beheading a girl who had premarital sex.
  And to be clear, I'm not saying the fact that they are homosexual makes them extremist or supportive of Sharia law - I would also say that a lot of cheating women would support Sharia law because they don't like gays... That's the way people are - they'll support something that harms those they do not like, even if what they support could hurt them too; they'll just assume they won't get caught but everyone else will.
  A recent example of this is World War II. A lot of Tziganes (gypsies) were happy to see the Jews go and a lot of Jews were happy to see the Tziganes go. They just all thought they'd escape the Nazis while everyone else wouldn't. A lot of Germans were happy about the war on everyone else and the death it brought to their enemies, even though they were fighting and risking their lives too. When France was occupied, some French people were glad to report their neighbors for stuff the Germans/Vichy government deemed illegal. Some did it in support of Germany, some did it to get revenge on their neighbors... Those who reported their neighbors could have been reported themselves too, but they thought they'd get away with it while their neighbors whom they disliked would be the only ones to get caught.
  Out of those 10% of homosexuals, maybe 5% are really opposed to Sharia law. And about half of cheating women or unmarried women who lost their virginity would support Sharia law too. It's not fair to those who don't support Sharia law, but the reality is a lot darker than you think.
9. Re:This depresses me by sourcerror · 2012-01-25 22:49 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  If you refer to the Muslim Brotherhood, then you must be really misguided. It's like saying that a Christian-Democrat partys wants reintitute inquisition.
Re:Quick by viperidaenz · 2012-01-25 14:34 · Score: 2

It might surprise you to know this, but a Pointy Haired Boss is already in management.
Re:Quick by Anonymous Coward · 2012-01-25 14:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

Better to use a hammer to put on a screw than to be clueless as to why the spoon doesn't work.
Re:Quick by cribera · 2012-01-25 14:59 · Score: 2

Non technical leaders have had a lot of opportunies through history, and they rely on appealing to emotions in masses to screw the majority and get personal gains. So, why would it be bad that geeks and nerds get a real chance? Why are so many afraid of logic and reason being in power positons? Why would stancard politicians, lawyers and greedy businessmen be the only options to get the decision making power?
Allahu ackbar! by hessian · 2012-01-25 17:05 · Score: 4, Funny

USA: starry-eyed techs go into IT in order to make our lives better through technology, end up having to update thoughtless websites, and hate it.
Middle East: starry-eyed techs go into IT with hopes of bringing democracy to their countries, end up working for Islamic Brotherhood and designing suicide vests, and hate it.
See, we're all the same after all....

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Futurist Traditionalism
Re:Quick by Fjandr · 2012-01-25 17:45 · Score: 2

You are talking about people.
Logic and reason mean nothing.
Fixed that for you.
You don't need a gun to be a hero by msobkow · 2012-01-25 19:07 · Score: 2

My hats off to the Libyan IT team that kept the communications going.

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I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Re:Quick by SuricouRaven · 2012-01-25 19:47 · Score: 2

The PHB is middle management by definition. The characteristic of the PHB is just that he leads a team but has no knowledge at all in the tasks for which his team are responsible - they enter the position via sideways transfer, and their training is limited to management concerns. The PHB is loathed for their inaccurate estimates of the difficulty of a task leading to unreasonable expectations and their disregard of technological concerns in decision-making. From the point of view of their unfortunate underlings, they appear to just be idiots. The original PHB character in Dilbert was the head of an engineering team but had no personal knowledge of or interest in engineering, and so could only provide his team with empty encouragement ("Work smarter, not harder!") and requests to do the impossible.
Thats not how it works by arcite · 2012-01-25 23:19 · Score: 2

Democracy is probably the last thing on people's mind. First they need electricity and water. Then they need food. Then they need shelter (actually this is a big one considering that thousands of building were almost completely destroyed in the war)....then the big one, they need JOBS. They need industry to get back on its feet, children to go back to school, hospitals to reopen, supermarkets to get restocked. Democracy? Elections? Who cares about that when you have roving bands of heavily armed militia trying to boss everyone around and having turf wars with the tribe next door? No, law and order first, then redevelopment, true democracy comes much later. It's a long process, decades in fact.
Re:Quick by HeckRuler · 2012-01-26 03:48 · Score: 2

Man, there are a lot of raging hate-mongers and crazy in this thread. I mean, there's those few in every story about Muslims, but it seems to be a little bit more prolific here. What's up Slashdot?

We've got blatant racism like this guy, people that think the only technology they're concerned about is AK-47's, the one nutjob who thinks Muslims are 40% gay, the conspiracy types who are saying the whole arab spring is a CIA action, and they have their cohorts who claim it's entirely because of Libya's desire for a gold standard.

Bloody hell, it's like Slashdot is off their meds.

Well bless the few who are calm enough to respond with a simple rebuttal.