Egypt Turns Internet Back On For Same Reason It Was Turned Off: To Try To Quell Protests

from the well,-that-worked dept

As has been widely reported today, Egypt has rejoined the internet, after the government told ISPs that it was okay to reconnect to the world nearly a week after it shut off the internet. What's fascinating to me, however, is the basic thinking on both moves. The idea behind shutting down the internet (and mobile phone service) was to try to cut off the ability of protesters to communicate and organize, hoping that it would stifle the protests themselves. Of course, it seemed to only add to the fire, inciting even more anger towards the government, and contributing to even greater numbers of protests. So, now, the reasoning for removing the blocks... is basically the same thing. The government seems to think that letting people back onto the internet will also quell the protests. Perhaps they just shouldn't have turned the internet off in the first place. Either way, this seems like yet another example of governments realizing that it's a lot more difficult to "control" the public than they thought...

Filed Under: control, egypt, internet, protests

The Impact Of Egypt Cutting Itself Off From The Internet

from the could-be-pretty-big dept

As the news came out late Monday that the last remaining independent ISP, who had remained online in Egypt, has now turned off its connection to the wider internet as well, people are beginning to explore what this all means. Andrew McLaughlin, who until recently was the deputy CTO of the Obama administration, has penned a thoughtful article for the Guardian noting how this emphasizes how infrastructure really matters and how limited competition allows these situations to develop:

The internet cutoff shows how the details of infrastructure matter. Despite having no large-scale or centralised censorship apparatus, Egypt was still able to shut down its communications in a matter of minutes. This was possible because Egypt permitted only three wireless carriers to operate, and required all internet service providers (ISPs) to funnel their traffic through a handful of international links. Confronted with mass demonstrations and fearful about a populace able to organise itself, the government had to order fewer than a dozen companies to shut down their networks and disconnect their routers from the global internet.

But, perhaps the bigger question is how will the cut off actually impact the Egyptian economy and wider society as a whole. It's really quite amazing how integrated the internet has become in all our lives, and it really has become a fundamental part of the economy and how we live. Pulling the plug on the internet in a decently large country has serious ramification both inside the country (most seriously) and outside:

A central unknown at this moment is what the economic harm to the country will be. Without internet and voice networks, Egyptians are losing transactions and deals, their stocks and commodities cannot be traded, their goods are halted on frozen transportation networks, and their bank deposits are beyond reach.

Also unknown is how many Egyptians have been harmed in non-economic ways – as human beings. As things stand, a worried mother who has not heard from her son or daughter can't send an email or check Facebook for a status update. A witness to violence or abuse can't seek help, document responsibility, or warn others via Twitter or a blog.

Life-saving information is inaccessible. Healthy, civil debate about the future is squashed. And in the absence of trustworthy news, firsthand reports and real-time images, rumour and fear flourish. In all those ways, the total internet cutoff undermines the government's own interest in restoring calm and order.

I imagine that there will be numerous case studies that come out of this unfortunate situation, based on what happens. One can only hope that the actual harms aren't as bad as they might be.

Filed Under: andrew mclaughlin, connectivity, egypt, internet

China Doesn't Want People Talking About Egyptian Uprising Online

from the let's-just-leave-that-alone... dept

Whatever you think of how much impact social media has had on recent political uprisings and protests around the globe, it appears that many governments are worried about the impact. We've already seen how Egypt shut down the internet to try to slow down communication among protesters. And there's at least some sense of dominoes falling, with Egypt following Tunisia, and a few protests starting to show up in a few other countries around the Middle East.

It looks like China has decided not to risk being the next domino by having the various microblogging/social network sites in that country block any mention of Egypt. I do wonder how effective that move actually is. Once people realize it, won't that just make them wonder why, and make them more likely to seek out info on Egypt?

Filed Under: china, egypt, protests, social media, uprising

Al Jazeera Offers Up Egypt Coverage To Anyone Who Wants To Use It Under Creative Commons License

from the but-what-incentives-do-they-have-to-create-content? dept

If you've been following the goings on in Egypt over the past week, it's likely that you at least saw some of Al Jazeera's rather comprehensive coverage. The Egyptian government was so annoyed by the coverage that it "shut down" Al Jazeera's Egyptian offices (and Egyptian politicians are calling for trying Al Jazeera correspondents as "traitors"). Of course, it's worth pointing out that most of us in the US have no options for watching Al Jazeera via a regular TV channel either, since almost no US TV companies are willing to carry the channel.

However, Al Jazeera has embarked on a fascinating way to deal with all of this: it's released a lot of its reporting under a Creative Commons license. In fact, the media operation has set up a CC specific site, that archives and aggregates all of the Al Jazeera content that is free for anyone to use, with just an attribution. Thankfully, it's not even using a "non-commercial" license. Instead, the license just requires attribution for anyone to use the content in question.

This is pretty interesting for a variety of reasons. If you listen to the classic arguments concerning scarcity, some would probably argue that Al Jazeera should be keeping a tight leash on all this great content. It's in high demand right now, and given its extensive coverage and knowledgeable reporters on the ground, some might argue that now is the perfect time for Al Jazeera to be as restrictive as possible with its content. But the media operation seems to be thinking much longer term, recognizing that its coverage is being relied on by more and more people around the globe (with a huge influx of interest from the US). This is actually a chance for the company to grow its brand quite a bit, and maybe even push past some of the stereotypes and attacks from the US and a few other western countries. And the way to do that is to get more people seeing its content and recognizing that the content is worthwhile. Given all that, going Creative Commons (or something like it) makes perfect sense.

Filed Under: al jazeera, copyright, creative commons, egypt, sharing
Companies: al jazeera

A Look At How Egypt Shut Down The Internet

from the a-few-phone-calls dept

With Egypt taking the extreme step of shutting down the internet last week, a lot of people started wondering just how does a country go about doing that. According to a report by Ryan Singel at Wired, the answer appears to be with a series of phone calls to ISPs. Wired published this telling image from Arbor Networks, that shows just how dramatic the cut off was: The report notes that while there isn't anything like a big red "stop the internet" button, and there are a variety of different internet providers, it's still possible to shut them all down with just a few phone calls. And you can kind of see that in the fact that the turn off didn't all happen exactly at once, but there were a series of drops over the course of a few hours, leading up to that big drop off. The report does note that at least one ISP, Noor, appears to still be operating, which appears to represent that tiny bit of blue at the bottom of the chart.

It looks like ISPs as a bottleneck may be yet another piece of internet infrastructure that's a bit too centralized.

Filed Under: egypt, internet, shutdown

Egypt Trying To Shut Off All Internet Access, SMS

from the but-the-internet-has-no-impact dept

There's been this ongoing back and forth between people like Evgeny Morozov and Clay Shirky over the impact of the internet on political activism. And while I think it's silly and misleading to suggest that these tools are the driving force behind some of the political upheavals we've seen, I find it difficult to believe that they're not a useful tool as a part of the process. And it appears that Egyptian officials agree. Over the past few days, as protests have raged in Egypt, there have been various reports about Twitter and Facebook being blocked, with a new report saying that internet access is being cut off entirely for many and with additional reports suggesting that mobile operators have been ordered to shut off SMS text messaging services. Who knows how effective this is, but it does certainly suggest that the Egyptian government is certainly afraid of how these communication tools are being used.

Filed Under: censorship, egypt, internet, sms

Egypt Says No More Mobile Skype Calls

from the can't-route-around dept

Egypt has apparently decided that it doesn't like the idea of people making mobile phone calls that it can't track and/or that the state-owned telco can't make money off of. So it's banning all mobile VoIP calls. Apparently "fixed" VoIP calls are okay, which gets a bit confusing:

"The ban is on Skype on mobile internet, not on fixed, and this is due to the fact it is against the law since it bypasses the legal gateway," said Amr Badawy, the executive president of the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA).

Under Egyptian law, international calls must pass through a network controlled by majority state-owned Telecom Egypt, which this week reported disappointing earnings.

But what is the difference between the "mobile internet" and the "fixed internet" in real terms? If I use a laptop on a 3G connection... is that fixed or mobile? If I use a mobile phone on a WiFi connection connected to a DSL line, is that fixed or mobile? This just seems like a way to try to boost profits for the state owned telco with arbitrary rules.

Filed Under: egypt, voip
Companies: skype

Egypt Bans Porn Websites: Good Luck With That

from the yeah,-that'll-work... dept

It appears that Egypt is the latest country to think that it can ban certain websites by court mandate. In this case, it's all pornographic websites, which have been deemed "venomous and vile" by the court. The lawyer who was arguing against those sites responded happily: "Thank God we won, now the government should stop these electronic dens of vice immediately." Of course, what's been left unstated is exactly how the government can stop pornographic websites? My guess is they'll demand ISPs do it for them. However, in the meantime, we're left wondering how these "venomous and vile" sites are forcing themselves on poor Egyptians. I do plenty of web surfing and have found that simply not surfing porn websites is a rather effective way to not have to deal with such "electronic dens of vice."

Filed Under: bans, egypt, porn, websites

Grad Student Uses Twitter To Get Released From Egyptian Prison

from the twitter-pr-people-must-be-thrilled dept

Recently, Tim wrote about how aspects of Twitter could represent the future of news, and it appears that may be happening faster than some people expected. In a story that must absolutely thrill any PR person working for Twitter, a UC Berkeley grad student who was filming protests in Egypt was able to alert his friends to the fact he was arrested by Egyptian police through a message on Twitter. This resulted in a coordinated effort to get him released, which eventually involved the US State Department. You get the feeling that this story will move into PR legend like the story of the guy who self-diagnosed a heart attack using Google.

Still, it is a rather remarkable example of how Twitter can be quite useful. While there are plenty of people (myself included at one point) who wrote off the service as being rather useless, it's been evolving in very interesting ways. For those who embrace it, it can become a rather useful quick and easy public messaging and conversation tool. While, James Karl Buck could have sent a text message to a friend, the simplicity and public nature of Twitter allowed him to alert a lot of people nearly instantly to the situation he was in -- and they responded. Not only did they reach out to get help, they also quickly responded to James on Twitter, providing advice on how to deal with the fact that he was arrested. Still, what's not entirely clear in this whole story is how he was able to continue to use his mobile phone while under arrest. While the lesson some may learn from this is that arresting officers will quickly take people's mobile phones away, that doesn't lessen the impact of a service like Twitter and its ability to spread a message to a lot of friends and acquaintances extremely quickly.

Filed Under: egypt, prison, protest, twitter

Egypt's Plans To 'Copyright' The Pyramids

from the you-have-got-to-be-kidding dept

We've had plenty of posts discussing the ridiculousness of copyright extension, especially when it applies to works retroactively. However, we're usually talking about content created in the last century. Not any more. It seems that this era's obsessions with misunderstanding the purpose of copyright is about to taken to a new level of absurdity. Chris was among many of you who took time out of your holiday feasts to alert us to the fact that Egypt is preparing to "copyright" the pyramids, the sphinx and other Egyptian antiquities. Of course "copyright" is being used loosely here. Realistically, it sounds like some Egyptian politicians need to come up with a plan to raise more tax revenue for the government, and so they came up with this bizarre plan to pretend that they can tax anyone who creates a likeness of famous Egyptian monuments. Apparently this decision came just days after a newspaper editorial suggested that the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas owes the Egyptian gov't a share of its profits. Realistically, this has nothing to do with copyright at all, but is simply just an excuse to try to try to bring in additional tax revenue by misappropriating the concept of copyright as a weak rationale for the tax. However, in an age where copyright supporters want people to think that copyright is the same thing as real property, it's much easier to get people to believe this is a reasonable proposal. Of course, given that the real purpose of copyright is supposed to be about creating incentives for the creation of new content, does this mean we're going to start seeing new pyramids start springing up in Egypt anytime soon?

Filed Under: copyright, egypt, taxes