Slashdot Mirror
Internet Shutdown Adds To Venezuela's Woes
Slashgear reports that many state-run internet links in Venezuela have been shut down by that country's government, as censorship efforts there step up along with widespread turmoil, partly in the form of widespread anti-government protests. The article begins: "Don’t expect one whole heck of a lot of tweets coming out of Venezuela in the immediate future as President Nicolas Maduro’s government has shut down the internet and select TV channels. Having shut down Twitter access for the area this past week, Venezuela’s state-run ISP CANTV has been cut in areas such as San Cristobal. This area is a regional capital in the west of the country and CANTV controls the vast majority of internet connectivity in the area. The Electronic Frontier Foundation made note that Venezuelans working with several different ISPs lost all connectivity on Thursday of this past week. Users lost connectivity to the major content delivery network Edgecast and the IP address which provides access to Twitter’s image hosting service while another block stopped Venezuelan access to the text-based site Pastebin."
I'm Venezuelan and I live in San Cristobal, my Internet service was cut 36 hours by my ISP (Cantv which is the biggest in the country and fastest, but it's owned by the goverment). This was due to prevent comunication because my city is one with the most prostest in the country, also, a the same time where it was shutdown, the Minister of Defence annouced militar strategies to control riots in the city. People are using Twitter and Zello app, to comunite and to know what's happening because traditional media is not publishing this events.
http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2009-04-21-ObamaChavez.jpg
...Joseph Kennedy sings his praises
Man Shot To Death For Texting During Movie
That doesn't really work for you if you are in the damaged / isolated area.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
So.. ham radio. Radio Club Venezolano. National Emergency Network. Satellite Dishes. ISS. Free hosting. Google... Facebook... friends.
There are probably a bunch of ways to get information in/out of Venezuela, at least in a one-way burst.
On the other hand http://www.yv5rcv.org/ tweets pane shows "Hmm, an empty timeline. That's wierd." Ouch.
Only Madagascar can shut down everything
did you forget to take your meds?
They're Communists. This is their bag. Don't put communists in power. Full stop.
I don't know why incumbent governments ever think this is a valid why to curb public sentiment. In every single situation where they try to do this to control the population it does the exact opposite and incites them to get off their lazy bottoms and rebel. They must not realize that cutting off internet access also cuts off pornography which means you have a lot of angry frustrated men with some serious aggression to work out roaming the streets. It is the worst move I can imagine.
It senses any attempt to do so as damage and routes around it.
Yes, but with less bandwidth.
I use a private ISP (Intercable) and while my ping to www.google.com usually sits around 100 ms, now it's usually at 800 ms or so.
Now it might be backbones shutting down or it might just be that everyone is on youtube and twitter trying to get news and clogging the links.
There's also a lot of people recommending VPN apps for their computer or phone to get around censorship, others using zello or other apps to get news and communicate, and so on.
Funny this is what gets talked about rather than Maduro kicking CNN out of the country, the dead protesters or the armed 'non-government' supporters atttacking them. But hey, this is /. I guess.
Ask Slashdot: What Does Edward Snowden Deserve?
Most of what you may want to ask is probably already covered here, tho: http://caracaschronicles.com/2...
BTW, full Internet shutdown seems to be in effect only in San Cristobal. In most other places, you can bypass the blocks by using the Tor Browser.
Who would benefit most from disruption of Internet service in Venezuela?
(Hint: Not the Venezuelan government.)
https://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/...
Maduro wants no possibility of an Arab spring or Ukraine revolt
It looks like this new slashdot look isn't going away. What are some other news sites with equivalent stories that I can read instead?
Funny this is what gets talked about rather than Maduro kicking CNN out of the country, the dead protesters or the armed 'non-government' supporters atttacking them. But hey, this is /. I guess.
If you care then you're seeing that stuff already. This, however, is news for nerds. I, for one, welcome our on-topic overlords. So long as they don't Beta me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
or in countries where the authoritarians demand an 'internet kill switch'.
How do you route around damage if you have one way in and one way out?
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Because the more mergers our bought-off government allows, the closer we will be to an off-switch here.
If you look at his account, it is brand new and this is his only post. I've noticed this kind of thing on various sites when there's a story on Venezuela that is critical of the government or that talks about the problems happening. People who have never posted before pop up and say it isn't true, or blame the US, or whatnot.
Now maybe they were longtime readers who just happened to suddenly decide to participate, but I kinda doubt it. I think it is a bunch of pro-government types that are out to shill. Could be officially sanctioned, could just be a bunch of nationalist types (which all countries seem to have) that are doing it of their own accord.
Seems to be happening fairly often with Venezuela stories though, so one way or another I think this is a concerted effort on the part of some people, and not just happenstance.
Maduro, the new Nikita Castro ;) What a fool, they will cut his balls off and drag him through the streets before this is all over. Wanna be Commie dictator will get his.
all governments will do this if they feel threatened
the 99% need a communication network that is out of the control of governments and corporations, and the way to do this is with mesh networks that are easy enough to use that "normal people" can do it without the help of geeks
we aren't there yet but some people are working on it, and hopefully a truly "public" internet is in place soon, one that no government or corporation can shutdown not matter how badly they want to
...like the US?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Pulling the plug at the ISP leaves you no place to route. Pulling the plug at the backbone might allow you to route within the portion of the internet on your side of the plug, except that your ISP may very well pull the plug at the same time.
You can try this yourself on a small scale. Go to your modem/router, and pull the plug. Unplug ALL the wires going into it. Few modems, if any, will continue to route WIFI - but even if it does, what are you going to get on your local network? It's highly doubtful that you can connect to Slashdot to refute my post. Those who are using an iPhone or similar to browse are ultimately using a wired connections somewhere between their phone and Slashdot. The government knows where that wired connection is, and government can cause that connection to be unplugged.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
So, a handful of people (the recent "protests" were in the number of hundreds, maybe a few thousands at most, nothing of a big and massive popular protest, as Venezuela had in the past, with both opposition and chavistas massing hundred of thousands, even millions) violently protest, attack public infrastructure (city halls, metro stations, hospitals, ...). People are killed - not by the police, but by the protesters, most of the death are _chavistas_ not opposition.
Then, the opposition start a massive media manipulation, with photos and videos of repression taken from all around the world (Chile, Spain, Greece, ...) pretending it's the Venezuelan government doing it. All the western media jump on that, and without a single second of critical thinking, claim Maduro is repressing.
And now, some governmental Internet links have problem functioning. It must be Maduro doing censorship ! From France, I've troubles reaching many Venezuela government sites, like VTV (state TV) website, or CanTV (public operator) website. Why would Maduro censor his own sites ? Especially VTV ! And why would he cut CanTV, while it's just one operator among many, especially on mobile Internet (and most people in Venezuela, especially among the opposition, have a cell phone) ? It just doesn't make sense.
Couldn't it be that the violent protests damaged the infrastructure ? Couldn't it be that the Venezuela opposition, which is _very_ rich (they have the 1% among them, and they get massive funding from the US), is doing some DDoS or similar attack on CanTV ? Couldn't it be a sabotage, from opposition workers inside CanTV, or from abroad ? I should remind you that during the 2003 oil "strike" in Venezuela, the US corporation that handled the computer systems of PDVSA (state oil company in Venezuela) sabotaged them, just to add to the chaos and create the conditions for a military coup.
Given all this past and all those facts, shouldn't we wait until the exact reasons of the (very partial) shutdown of CanTV services are known before yelling "censorship" or "dictatorship" ? Because that's exactly what the Venezuelan extreme-right wants us to do, and it's not the first time they would manipulate media and perform false flag attacks to do it (remember the events of 2002, where the opposition killed people, blamed Chávez to justify a coup).
We should march in there and setup democracy just like we did for Iraq. Then we gun down "terrorists", and finally make friends with the government as our Oil Tankers are pulling up to the docks.
That government has to go... Chavez and those he brought into power are a cancer.
And they can either cut it out or rot.
Up to them to decide and do the deed one way or the other. But I'm done feeling sorry for people that don't fight oppression in their own backyard.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
it will be interesting to see and learn what the long-term economic and social effects of these censorship attempts are. the effect of censorship is not just going to cut off the "pruhtesters", it'll cut off researchers from access to papers and equipment, businesses from the customers and suppliers, and, additionally, cut off government departments within venezuela from effective communication with each other in the day-to-day operations. looking further ahead i look forward to seeing whether other governments find this lesson useful or not.
False information and no information to people in a country (ala the old Pravda in the USSR) as a means of achieving a politically repressive end is coming to a close.
Cuba, Ukraine and Venezuela are the proving grounds to show that governments can no longer keep the free will of the populace from exerting itself.
But the old dictators will hold on until they are thrown out. It could still take decades in some places where the dictatorship is effectively run by the military and they are the true power, like N. Korea.
The trend of history is clear over the last 150 years as countries have moved to freer and freer elections. The king is dead.
I was only expecting half a heck.
How many shedloads is that?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Someone call Oliver Stone, he'll know what to do!
Just another day in Paradise
But hasn't Venezuela been turned into a socialist utopia by taking over and tossing out all the bourgeoisie. I see no reason for the government to need to censor the people who clearly benefit.
Conservative, mod down for violating
Well, "The Venezuelan regime" (democracy, he won the election with more than 50% of votes) recibed Argentina support (support from another goverment that won the elections with almost 54% of votes). Why it is ridiculous?
Notice that also did it:
- Brazil (goverment electer for more than 55% of votes) (http://www.telam.com.ar/notas/201402/52714-el-pt-de-brasil-condeno-la-desestabilizacion-del-orden-democratico-y-manifesto-su-apoyo-a-maduro.html) ,
- Ecuador (almost 57%) (http://elcomercio.pe/mundo/latinoamerica/correa-protestas-intentan-desestabilizar-gobierno-maduro-noticia-1710381)
- Bolivia (62%) (duck duck it)...
- Uruguay (53%) (duck duck it)...
- etc
Take into account that this numbers are huge, specially because in this countries people choose between several political parties. Even so, most of them have been accused of being dictatorships.
Socialists? Yes. A bit of populism too.
Latin american expressed support because of two reasons:
1) They are plagued by private media who give their full and explicit support to economic liberalism (even some of them supported military dictatorships in the past). And many actions of these governments protect low income people and try to impose restrictions to the very few economics groups that controls the countries. In other words, private media want to overthrow the government.
2) Latin america has a lot of natural resourses. and don't want to be the next middle East. (Do not be surprised of the support given by Russia and Syria).
There were many twits from opposition politicians encouraging violence. Many post showing photos from other places or times disturbs described as located in Venezuela, looking for national and international support. It is very easy to prove with sites like www.tineye.com (see for example http://albaciudad.org/wp/index.php/2014/02/la-primavera-photoshop-medios-y-tuiteros-opositores-utilizan-decenas-de-imagenes-de-represion-policial-en-otros-paises-para-alegar-que-ocurren-en-venezuela/).
Please, critically analyze and inform yourself before posting.
No, those who question that CO2 is a pollutant and that man is causing global warming have voulmes of science (nipccreport.com) to prove the sun, volcanoes and ocean currents, etc. go through natural decades long cycles and are the real cause of climate change, both warming and cooling. Those pushing AGW are the ones ignoring science and making it political (carbon taxes, shutting down clean coal power plants, etc.)
...you mean hundreds of thousands, as numerous pictures from Newspapers and Twitter have shown.
The rest of your post is of similar accuracy.
Now why don't you tell us how Euromaidan in Ukraine is "just a handful of extremists"?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Slashgear? Really? Is that even a real website? I thought all they did plagiarize other websites and make money off it.
Not unlike, wait never mind...
Hello,
The citizenry in Venezuela have only themselves to blame for what is all honestly quite justifiable by the government. If they had behaved in a peaceful, civil manner, none of this would have been necessary and the government would not have needed to shut down the Internet, or anything else, for that matter.
People need to behave in a civil, respectful manner, otherwise there will be consequences. To be quite honest, would it be so bad if this kind of thing happened here in the US? Perhaps we would have less terrorism and more civility if Obama used his powers for a good cause instead of bowing to so-called Freedom-loving rabble.
If you think the US is an authoritarian country you don't understand the meaning of authoritarian.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The poor majority doesn't need internet and can't have it. As long as the poor back the government and will take action, as they did in the past - it's not the same situation.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt taught us that when the government cuts Internet, people have to gather to exchange ideas, and that fuels the protests.
But I bet the situation in Venezuela is not comparable. The government is legitimate and won election that everyone recognized as fair. The only concern at that time was the opposition attitude, which was not obviously ready to accept the election outcome. Therefore I suspect the current protests are manipulated. Cut Internet access, and the manipulation becomes a bit harder.
If I am right, Internet restriction will not worsen the situation. If I am wrong, it will throw more and more people in the streets.
Authoritarian? No. Not really. It's far more insidious.
The Commies forbade you to speak your mind. We're quite a bit further ahead. We already learned that it doesn't matter at all if people can speak, as long as nobody is listening. We mistake the right to say the truth with having to say the truth. Just because the media can tell you how it is doesn't mean that they will do so. I hope I needn't point out that our media are dependent on advertising income.
Well, do you think banks pay for those double page ads that nobody really notices because they want to attract customers? Do you think various companies that happen to have "accidents" suddenly feel the need to polish their PR image by buying prime time ads? But don't take my word for it. Wait for the next catastrophe to happen, then check which media report it, whether and how they report it, and watch their ads for a bit. Maybe you will spot a curious coincidence.
The fun thing is that Communism IS the opposite of Capitalism. In Communism, the state controlled the industry.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
thanks to the exploitation and harsh treatment done by USA to Latinamerica since ages. So many dictatorships backed by the US to do away with comunism has only made it bigger and stronger.