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Congo Shuts Down Internet Services 'Indefinitely' (nytimes.com)
On Saturday Engadget wrote:
Authoritarian leaders are fond of severing communications in a bid to hold on to power, and that tradition sadly isn't going away. The Democratic Republic of Congo's government has ordered telecoms to cut internet and SMS access ahead of planned mass protests against President Joseph Kabila, whose administration has continuously delayed elections to replace him. Telecom minister Emery Okundji told Reuters that it was a response to "violence that is being prepared," but people aren't buying that argument. Officials had already banned demonstrations, and the country has history of cutting communications and blocking social network access in a bid to quash dissent.
And today in the wake of deadly protests, Congo announced that the internet shutdown will continue "indefinitely." The New York Times reports: At least eight people were killed and a dozen altar boys arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after security forces cracked down on planned church protests against President Joseph Kabila's refusal to leave office before coming elections... Congolese security forces set up checkpoints across Kinshasa, and the government issued an order to shut down text messaging and internet services indefinitely across the country for what it called "reasons of state security."
And today in the wake of deadly protests, Congo announced that the internet shutdown will continue "indefinitely." The New York Times reports: At least eight people were killed and a dozen altar boys arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday after security forces cracked down on planned church protests against President Joseph Kabila's refusal to leave office before coming elections... Congolese security forces set up checkpoints across Kinshasa, and the government issued an order to shut down text messaging and internet services indefinitely across the country for what it called "reasons of state security."
N/t
If technology is a monster - aren’t the Congo leaders acting appropriately?
Another brick in the Great Trump Firewall complete. Good on you, sir!
And reports and a full-time GNAA questions, then but with Netcraft Escape th(em by taken over by BSDI deliver. Some of and mortifying only way to go: every chance I got
I wonder how he'll get on without his daily 12 diet sodas and soul-poisoning Fox News? Haha, "hard time" for real. It's going to be so uuuuge.
Look for it in your local 1st-World western society everywhere!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
A country that includes the words "Democratic Republic" in its name is neither democratic nor a republic.
I'm interested in any good ideas, countermeasures, rube goldberg devices that could be employed in or outside of a country like DRC that could restore, maintain, or circumvent a communications banhammer.
mesh wifi? blimps? ad hoc 3g network? femtocells? type beam microwaves? airdrops of Pringles? angel investor for TamTam? Bonus points for ideas that are bespoke to Africa itself.
As this movie opens around the world, the protests rage.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The media that screams the loudest about supposed tyranny and injustice will be the least interested in this story. It might get 30 seconds on the back end of the news, near the feel-good story of the dog who can walk on his hind legs.
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W W . W . W . W us are W us are W us are W tot W `W us are
W `W `W . W . W `LORN `W `LORN `HADES on DEFUSE on HADES .
W . W W . W . W tot W `W tot W `W us are W . W us are . W `
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Fat Linux nerds in a server room
Systemd users, with code unstable
Richard and Linus and Little Bobby Tables
Beat a Windows luser with the handle of a broom
Boom, boom, boom
Then I had religion
Then I saw a vision
I could not downgrade Windows 10 in derision
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING INTO BLACK
CUTTING THROUGH THE FIBER WITH A SLASHING HACK
That's most likely true, but in a page taken from the administration over in the USA, what they're up to is being projected as the "other side's".
Congo is shutting down internet services in preparation of the violence *the government* is preparing to unleash against those who would dare question their ruler. If the citizens of Congo have any wisdom or have ever read a history book, then they will strew their government's entrails across the capital before the military and "law-enforcement" forces have been fully mobilized.
Otherwise the loss of life will be far greater, and almost entirely on the side of innocents.
If your not suppressing information you risk losing power. North Korea a perfect example of this type of rule. But even countries like China still try and suppressing information or at the very least monitor it. Congo is just another dictator type government bent on keeping its people in the dark.
Time to dust of these Fidonet Technical Standards printouts!
bash$
It's neither democratic, nor a republic.
They have internet???
SO the 4 people in the Congo with internet can no longer access the web?
There I was, there I was, there I was, in the Congo.
Trump would like to do the same here. Heâ(TM)s. bitch so he canâ(TM)t.
THIS is your future.
But dont worry, Im sure your guns will make you free. keke!
... just like recently enacted elsewhere in the world, just a little more effective.
IIRC during Arab springs, blocking Internet caused more people to go outside, because they could not just watch anymore.
China and Russia taught us it is much more efficient for the government to keep internet online, and to inject propaganda into social medias.