Egyptian government kills internet over riots

[thetan]

http://gawker.com/5745430/egypt-has-shu ... e-internet

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2150069

The cliff notes. Riots and intense information leakage over FB and twitter first ended in the Egyptian government blocking twitter and FB.

However, now theres a complete infowar style blackout all over egypt. The egyptian government killed the internet nation wide.


Thoughts comments and concerns, post em

[sanddbox]

More than anything else, this is a sign of weakness on the Egyptian government's part. Cutting off internet means declaring war against its citizens.

[Goatboy]

My neighbors are in Egypt right now on a month-long family visit. We are taking care of their house and instead of paying ridiculous fees to call us, they were simply using Facebook for communications. I got a call today from them (which worried the fuck out of me at first) and they explained the situation. Shit's crazy, yo. Riots everywhere, protests are less common but still occurring, etc. I asked them to email me if anything further goes on, and to take pictures if possible.

[insomaniacal]

When a government cuts off the internet, it means they want to stifle the spread of information. Any government that wants to do that shouldn't be in power much longer.

I wonder if any of the "Pro internet killswitch" people are reconsidering.

[thetan]

It has to be a double edged sword for the Egyptian government. Not only do they not want information about the unrest getting out. But they also don't want information coming in or spreading in the midst of such an event.

IE: Just a year or so back when the riots in Tehran were going on during the Iranian elections and the Martyrdom on Neda took center stage as videos of the innocent girl just walking down the street screaming about freedom and ending tyranny got shot in the neck and died in front of her family and on some one's video camera. Such an event is like pouring gasoline on a fire with tools like the internet to help it spread.

Which most certainly says something about the power of the internet as a tool for disruption, especially in smaller countries.

As a matter of fact, this is all reminiscent of the Tehran riots to me. Outside People are setting up proxies and doing whatever they can to get Egyption citizens connected again.

The only difference thus far is while the riots in Tehran were starting to peak (i was in iraq at the time) Michael Jackson dies and it was almost a complete media blackout world wide over as mass media focused on this dead beat celebrities death ...... We had access to American and Turkish news networks at the time and finding something that was news and wasn't about michael jackson was way more difficult then it ever should of been.

https://www.accessnow.org/

[LoGiCaL__]

Just got done reading this article, it's pretty interesting: http://www.aolnews.com/story/the-day-part-of-the-internet-died-egypt-goes-dark/1545593/?cid=10

I honestly don't think a Country with such a huge influence on the internet such as the U.S. would ever pull the kill switch unless it was a national security issue. The reason Egypt is protesting is because the Egyptian civilians want the current leader of 30 years out. Luckily we have the chance to vote a new one in every 4 years.

Also, how devastating would this be to our businesses and economy? Just the time that we are in would be a disaster to the U.S. government if they did use the "kill-switch". I think it's going to be used as more of a threat than an actual occurrence, hence the cold-war. Instead of trying to invest in making something like a kill-switch, maybe the U.S. should invest in furthering it's own cyber-security.

Does it suck that this is happening is Egypt? Hell yeah. Just another reason the riots will continue. As far as this hitting close to home, I don't think it's that big of an issue.