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How Syria's Rebels Communicate In the Face of Internet Shutdown
jamaicaplain writes "In an extensive look at rebel communications, the New York Times reports that, 'In a demonstration of their growing sophistication and organization, Syrian rebels responded to a nationwide shutdown of the Internet by turning to satellite technology to coordinate within the country and to communicate with outside activists. To prepare, they have spent months smuggling communications equipment like mobile handsets and portable satellite phones into the country.'"
... as long as your government isn't powerful enough to force Skype to let them in the back door...
A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Not when the US Government and others are providing the funding for those communication devices.
'rebels have been fighting governments without the aid of internet communications (or indeed any electronic technology) for thousands of years, remember Spartacus? William (Braveheart) Wallace? Bonnie Prince Charlie, George Washington. The rebels didn't even have the telegraph until the war between the states...
This should point out to politicians that you can't un-invent or un-learn a technology just by pulling the plug. There are countless other examples of this ridiculous attitude being unsucessfully used. The "war on drugs". Doomed to failure. Enough people have their own pot plants to re-stock the entire nation in a short time. There are so many ways to get other drugs across the border or even synthesized de novo that you would bankrupt your government trying to shut them all down. But they try. Disarming a population. Doomed to failure. Guns are small and easy to smuggle, and failing that, they can be MADE. Home-made weapons are quite common among the poor, and ammunition is cheap. And even in countries like afghanistan and Iraq, there are people with the chemical knowledge to make their own explosives.
It's the politicians that never, ever learn. The Star Wars quote is quite relevant here, despite the source. "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Project Byzantium
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/12/08/15/1054246/project-byzantium-zero-to-ad-hoc-mesh-network-in-60-seconds-video
The lack of the internet actually would make it harder to monitor the rebels communication. With the internet they'd know who is using Tor and who is communicating in encrypted form. Without the internet it will be much harder now because the communication methods will go much deeper underground and will be just as efficient as before but harder or impossible to trace.
The internet being cut off actually keeps the media from foreign countries from being able to monitor the situation but it doesn't greatly effect the situation because I am sure the rebels and syrian government both would be smart enough to have redundant forms of communication.
to the syrian rebels months ago, i thought i remember reading that the USA announced it was still going to send communications equipment
yeah, here we go:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/11/30/can-u-s-communication-kits-help-syrians-get-around-the-internet-blackout/
the usa has been providing assad-less commlinks to syrians for awhile now
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Syria ranked 105 out of 179 countries on Human Development Index in 2006.Syria is also one of the few Arab countries that have achieved the target of universal primary education. It is showing remarkable progress in achieving other MDG targets: the gender gap in enrollment is small, with gender parity index of enrollment at primary level at 95 percent and 96 percent at the secondary level in 2007.[2] Literacy rate is estimated at 82 percent in 2004 which is also higher than the average for MENA and lower middle income countries (LMIC ). Literacy among youth (15 to 24) stood at 92.5 percent in 2004
Like all Middle Eastern states, labeled as enemies by the US, Syria has a high literacy. So had Iraq (Soviet influence), Iran (Soviet influence), Libya (Soviet influence), South Yemen (Soviet influence), etc.
Unlike Americas illiterate dictator friends: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, North Yemen.
But, the Syrians can deem themselves lucky, now that the US's bearded friends are bringing "democracy" to their neighborhood...
I think you overrate Iran's influence on Syria. Although the Alawites were quite friendly to Iran, Syria was and is a strictly secular state, and like all other ME players, it's trying to keep the balance of power by maintaining foreign influences and alliances. After all, without Hezbollah keeping them busy, Israel could get some funny ideas; especially shortly before elections... Also, what is it that the Syrians did *not* do by themselves? They are a sovereign state, period!
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
In your above list, Iran was never under Soviet influence. It was one of the countries hostile to both the US and the Soviet Union, and since Saddam was one of the closest allies of the Soviets, that didn't do much for Iran-Soviet relations.
Syria is a secular state by Arab/Muslim standards, no arguing that. As was Iraq. But it's worth looking into the internals of all that. One thing worth remembering is that when a Muslim country calls itself an 'Islamic state', the question comes up of what is the true Islam, if there are multiple Islamic sects within the country, and typically, it's determined by whoever is the majority. For instance, Saudi Arabia and Iran are both Islamic states. In Saudi Arabia, it means that Sunnis practicing the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence run things, while in Iran, Shias practicing the Khomenei school run things. A Sunni who would be perfectly halal in Saudi Arabia would find himself treated like an apostate in Iran. Or a Shia who is perfectly fine in Iran would be treated as badly as other Infidels in Saudi Arabia.
Saddam was a devout Sunni Muslim - he had a Qur'an written in his blood, and added 'Allahu Akbar' to the Iraqi flag before Operation Desert Storm. So why didn't he ever declare Iraq an Islamic state? Reason is simple - then Iraq would have been a Shiite Islamic state, and not a Sunnite Islamic state, since the majority of Iraq's Muslims are Shia. In which event, the Sunnis would have been persecuted (as they actually are now in the new 'democratic' Iraq, as well as Christians, who have fled the country to Syria, and who would have to flee that country again if it falls to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood linked rebels).
That was the whole rationale behind the Baath Party. It was founded by Michel Aflaq, a Syrian Christian, and fused Arab nationalist, pan-Arabism, and Arab socialist interests. The same things that Islam promotes, so why didn't they just close ranks with the majority Muslim sects in their countries? Reason is simple - Muslim countries don't follow the concept of 'Live & let live' - if a Muslim minority group in a Muslim country dared let democracy, as in simple majority rule, prevail, it would mean opening to door to persecution. Just look at examples like Pakistan, which is democratic, but where even Shias (forget about Christians, Sikhs or Hindus) are routinely targeted in attacks. So the Baathists came up w/ this ideology, in which they rallied all the non majority groups around them. In Iraq, it was the minority Sunnis, Chaldean Christians, Turks and some Kurds (although Saddam had his problems with the Kurds as well), and backed up by the military, they kept an iron leash over Iraq's Shias. In Syria, the coalition was the minority Alawites, minority Shias, Christians, Kurds and Druze. So both countries were 'secular', but only because being 'Islamic' would have meant the evisceration of Saddam's Sunnis in Iraq, or Assad's Alawites in Syria, not because of any belief in genuine religious pluralism. Or else, Saddam would never have supported Hamas, and Assad would never have supported Hizbullah.
In fact, once one knows this, one would know the reasons for the enmity between Saddam and Hafez al Assad. If one recalls, during the 8 year war between Iran and Iraq, Syria was the lone Arab country that supported Iran (although initially, Libya did as well, but switched sides later) against Iraq. More surprisingly, during Operation Desert Shield too, Syria, despite being an adversary of the US due to its support to Hizbullah, allowed the US to use Syria as a forwarding base for operations against Iraq. Reason is simple - despite both being Baathists, Saddam and Assad had conflicting interests - the former was trying to establish the supremacy of his country's Sunnis at the expense of the majority Shias, while the latter was trying to establish the supremacy of his country's Alawites, at the expense of the Sunnis. This is why a lot