Internet Blackout in Myanmar Stalls Citizen Report

StonyandCher writes "The government in Myanmar has reportedly cut off Internet access in the troubled country. The loss of Internet access in Myanmar has slowed the tide of photos and videos shared with the rest of the world but people outside of the troubled country continue to use new media sites and other technologies to protest military activity in the Southeast Asia country."

Site with TFA is loaded with flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Printer-friendly link [goodgearguide.com.au].

This, my friends....

[Man On Pink Corner]

... is exactly why you don't want to destroy the utility of the HF radio spectrum to sell it to broadband-over-power-line Internet providers.

You don't want to put all of your communication eggs in one government-controlled basket.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

is why they said the revolution would not be televised.

Re:This, my friends....

[Vellmont]

is exactly why you don't want to destroy the utility of the HF radio spectrum to sell it to broadband-over-power-line Internet providers.


Right. Because we all know an oppressive government that's willing and able to cut off internet access to an entire country won't be able to send a couple soldiers to gun down the guy down the street blasting HF in his ham shack.

I think violating government spectrum policy would be the last thing such a person would be worried about.

Re:

[MMaestro]

The difference is that the cost of running a ham shack is maybe power generator, $50 and a some haggling at a flea market. Running a HF radio isn't perfect, but compared to the alternative (that is, word of mouth) its far better than what they have now.

Oh and in a country like Burma (aka Myanmar), violating government spectrum policy probably comes with penalty of death for you any anyone nearby the equipment.

Re:

[Deadstick]

Because we all know an oppressive government that's willing and able to cut off internet access to an entire country won't be able to send a couple soldiers to gun down the guy down the street blasting HF in his ham shack.

And we are right.

HF radio communication can be done with a few pounds of equipment in a car. It can be concealed by short, transmit-and-skedaddle operations, and even better by using spread spectrum, and with the right atmospheric conditions it can reach around the world with no infrast

Re:

[Agripa]

Compared with 6 meters and above, HF can actually be difficult to track down both because of propogation and because of the characteristics of the electrically small antennas that would normally be used for mobile hunting. A skilled operator might also take advantage of beam forming combined with skip to mask the transmitter's location. (I've done that sort of thing in transmitter hunts at 2 meters and above but skip gets replaced with reflection and refraction. The beam forming becomes much easier thoug

Re:

[vertinox]

... is exactly why you don't want to destroy the utility of the HF radio spectrum to sell it to broadband-over-power-line Internet providers.

From my understanding owning a non-approved two way communication device is illegal in Burma (much like North Korea). You might be able to smuggle one in, but you'll probably be shot fairly quick if they find it.

Re:This, my friends....

[tloh]

Actually I was just being facetious. But I am curious to know the current state of ham radio in other parts of the world. Has anyone ever exchanged QSL with someone in Burma? Might be a good time for state-side hams to start listening and do some credit to the amateur radio discipline.

Re:

[brunson]

I think it's actually because they don't use the metric system. Their pipes were the wrong size to attach to the rest of the world.

Ah, well ...

[Aetuneo]

Time to start using pigeons (or smoke signals) to get information ... I wonder what sort of compression would have to be used to get a fairly good speed connection?

Re:

[Sideshow Coward]

Perhaps the RFC for IP over Avian Carrier has the answers...

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1149/ [ietf.org]

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2549/ [ietf.org]

Re:

[UncleTogie]

Time to start using pigeons (or smoke signals) to get information ...

Reference RFC 1149 [faqs.org] for all the data currently available....

Re:Ah, well ...

[Qubit]

Time to start using pigeons...I wonder what sort of compression...

Now I'm no birdkeeper, but have you ever tried to gzip a pigeon before?

Re:Ah, well ...

[Leftist Troll]

have you ever tried to gzip a pigeon before?

Compressing a pigeon is not difficult (though a little messy), it's decompressing it that I can't quite figure out.

Obligatory RFC reference.

[drspliff]

It's a shame their internet's down because they won't be able to get access to this: http://paultan.org/archives/2004/11/29/rfc1149-cpip/ [paultan.org]

Re:

[Curtman]

Now I'm no birdkeeper, but have you ever tried to gzip a pigeon before?

It's probably much easier to gzip a pidgin [pidgin.im].

Re:

[jhines]

While this was meant as a joke, a pigeon could carry a pretty good sized flash chip these days. Some of the old spy tricks almost make sense with today's tech.

Re:

[3waygeek]

I saw a story on the news a while back about a river rafting outfit in the American west that used pigeons for exactly that purpose. The birds would carry memory cards from digital cameras ahead to the office so that the rafters could have printed photos ready at the end of the trip.

Umm... only question: Why so late?

[Opportunist]

The first thing an oppressive government usually does when unrest is rising is to make sure independent news and reports can't escape, so the only source for information is the official one. They actually took their time to do that, given that the civil war has started almost half a month ago.

Well, maybe their astrologer said they should wait 2 more weeks 'cause then the stars are aligned or something.

Re:

[damburger]

I don't think your average autocratic police state is that tech-savvy - Burma is run by peope whose expertise lies more in the area of killing and torture.

It may simply have not occurred to them to do this

Re:

[K8Fan]

Here is a YouTube clip [youtube.com] from a 1995 program called "The Internet Show" about the 1991 Soviet coup attempt [wikipedia.org], and the role the early Internet had as an information source.

Re:

[damburger]

I'm almost certainly further left than you, and I don't support killing of peaceful protesters and reporters trying to tell people about peaceful protesters.

Re:

[visualight]

Yeah, those monks come from the most caste driven culture in the world, where someone born in the lowest castes are forced to remain there forever

What in the hell are you talking about?

Re:

[RealSurreal]

And the caste system is part of Hinduism. What's your point?

Re:

[aneeshm]

I'm sorry to say this, but this is complete, total rubbish, probably born of ignorance.

If you knew ANYTHING about the societies which were (they aren't now) run on a system of caste organisation, you would know that the monkhood is open to everyone.

In India, in all Indic-influenced countries, one of the things that a monk undergoes is the renunciation of his ties with the world, including his birth, his caste, and his society. He is a free spirit. There is a saying, "Never seek the source of a sannyas

Re:

[gobbo]

This basically means that once a person is a renunciate, that's it, you don't bother what he was before his new life, the old self is dead.

Except that his skin color still determines how he will be treated. So the caste system still applies to him, especially if his skin is very dark.

This is oversimplified despite a kernel of truth. Some brahmins have fairly dark skin; other cues are used to indicate caste. India is a vast population with unbelievable variety. Please don't equate US and euro oppression with India's.

Re:

[blueskies]

What a lame troll! Dude, i can't even say nice try.

Re:

[mikael]

It does't take too much skill to figure out how to switch a router off, or to switch off the power supply to a satellite dish farm.

Maybe there is some way a communications satellites could boost the signal so that ordinary mobile phones could be turned into satellite phones?

Re:

[raju1kabir]

Maybe there is some way a communications satellites could boost the signal so that ordinary mobile phones could be turned into satellite phones?

No, that won't make it possible for mobile phones to transmit with the strength necessary to reach orbit, or to cope with the signal delay.

One interesting tidbit: On the Thai side of the very porous Burmese border, you can go into any 7-Eleven and buy an AIS One-2-Call SIM card for as little as 50 baht (about US$1.50). AIS often run cheap deals [one-2-call.com] where you can get

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Maybe there is some way a communications satellites could boost the signal so that ordinary mobile phones could be turned into satellite phones?

The biggest problem with this idea is the doppler. Mobile phones are very bad at coping with doppler; if you are in a high speed train then you will have problems communicating with a tower that isn't perpendicular to your direction of travel. A satellite in a low enough orbit for a mobile phone to reach it would have to be moving very fast in terms of ground speed, which would be likely to cause problems. It might be possible to use a cell repeater in a spy plane, if you could persuade the USAF to lend

Re:

[Yvanhoe]

The Internet blackout happened in the 24 hours after the first violent repression. It has been fairly synchronized. Of course they claim that this is due to damages done to a submarine cable...

Control=Cut off information

[kcpearly15]

I guess this goes back to the idea that if you can control the information going to and from people, you can control the people themselves. It is really a statement of where the internet is today in terms of importance around the world. I would like to see if anyone from this country manages to make an "underground" makeshift connection to the internet. Also, does any one else find it interesting that the group forming together to protest for the rights of the monks is on facebook?

Re:

[gad_zuki!]

>Also, does any one else find it interesting that the group forming together to protest for the rights of the monks is on facebook?

Not at all. Seems obviously typical for something college students (90% of facebook) to do.

Satellite access a possibility?

[Langfat]

I have never used a satellite internet provider, but I know that they do exist. Could someone on slashdot explain what is required for such service? I assume a modem which would be registered with a satellite provider. What is the feasibility of smuggling such things into Burma?

Modems?

[Attaturk]

What about phone lines? Surely I'm not the only one old enough to ask whether people can dial out to international dial-up lines. It'd only take a relative abroad to hook up their broadband-connected PC to their old phone modem and unless your line is tapped it'd be just another phone call to the family.

Re:

[Bert64]

The phone company (Myanmar Post & Telecom - http://www.mpt.net.mm/ [mpt.net.mm] normally, tho its down right now) is owned and tightly controlled by the government.
They can cut off international phonecalls just as quickly as they did Internet.
Aside from that, the cost of international phonecalls effectively cuts off all but the richest people over there, and those rich people tend to be part of the regime and have no interest in bringing it down.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Do they charge for incoming calls? If not, then it would be possible for people outside to dial in to their modems and act as a bridge to the Internet. Maybe one of the humanitarian organisations should start wardialing...

Re:

[Bert64]

Well no, they don't charge the receiver of the call...
But, they do charge international telco's for the privilege of routing calls into the country. And, i'm sure they have someone to monitor each call (their international line capacity isnt that high and wages are low, so its easily feasible).
Also the line quality is very poor, a modem connection would be very unstable and slow.

Morse?

[Attaturk]

If they've cut off every single international phone line you can still radio data in and out. People tend to think that going high tech is the way to break out of these kinds of situations - e.g. satellites etc. - when often going back to flashing light semaphore or carrier pigeon is more likely to succeed.

Losing the connection to Burma slightly, the Romans employed four flags on poles to communicate messages up and down Hadrian's Wall. In ideal conditions they could get a 4-bit message from one end to the other (70-something miles) in a matter of seconds - that's a pretty good bitrate for something with no electricity behind it. Granted you can't get streaming video of monks being beaten up at that kind of bandwidth but radio's a different story.

And setting up mobile radio stations is probably easier than installing a massive communications line of wooden poles without the military noticing. Many brave individuals carefully concealed both receivers and transmitters throughout occupied Europe often at great personal risk, for example. Communications routed around damage even back then. I'm sure there are people within that country right now beaming data out. I wonder where messages in bottles cast out on their beaches would wash ashore. You could squeeze quite a bit of memory into a bottle.

Anyway, I think what I'm rambling about is that there's always a way. I just hope there are enough people with the balls out there taking these risks and, much more importantly, I hope that their messages do not fall on deaf ears. Sadly I feel some of the more powerful countries, who might otherwise be in a position to levy some immense pressure on the Burmese junta, are somewhat under-staffed at the moment. Although it's fair to say that some other countries - that are most definitely not under-staffed - remain on the outside of this affair for rather more cryptic and apparently self-serving reasons.

All said with humble and awkward apologies for commenting on the topic while enjoying a comfortable yet-to-be-oppressed privileged lifestyle.

Re:

[LingNoi]

Actually carrier pigeons with 1 to 3 gig flash drives doesn't sound like a bad idea. It would probably reach it's destination faster too if you're talking about transferring up to 3 gigs over a 56k line.

Re:

[Bert64]

I doubt it, operating a non government controlled communications device is illegal and the punishment quite severe.

Re:

[drspliff]

Traditionally with satellite internet systems you'd have a modem uplink with the download handled by a satellite reciever. However there are relatively new two-way systems (which I used when ADSL was not available in my area), but their prohibatively expensive most of the time (1000-3000 GBP in hardware & setup costs, plus ~100 GBP per month).

I don't have any experience of what internet access is like in Burma, but in Cambodia it's expensive even before you take into account the average wage and satelli

Re:

[the_womble]

There are plenty of ways around it, but governments do not care about expensive workarounds, or those that require technical knowledge. They want to stop the mass of the people from seeing things.

I doubt the Burmese government cares much about us seeing the pictures, they want their own people to be not sure what is going on. They do not, for example, want people in other cities seeing the protests in Rangoon, and starting their own.

Re:

[Braino420]

Could someone on slashdot explain what is required for such service?

Is Google down? Wikipedia too? That just might be a sign of the apocalypse.

please...

[joe 155]

as someone mentioned before, call the country Burma. That's the name which signifies that you don't accept the legitimacy of the murders who have stolen the country and ruled over it for all these years.

Also, I don't get the anti-bush tag, he seems to be doing a lot more than most to help the situation...

Re:

[Vellmont]

That's the name which signifies that you don't accept the legitimacy of the murders who have stolen the country and ruled over it for all these years.


Bah. Countries are as countries do. If you have the ability to act like a government, you're a government. It's pointless and counter-productive to play some dumb name game where you close your eyes and pretend reality isn't reality.

Re:

[butlerdi]

I do believe the name Burma came from when the British were the murders who had stolen the country and ruled over it for all those years.

Re:

[butlerdi]

Actually accounts are not really all that positive. As much as i hate to use it as a reference but ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Myanmar#British_rule [wikipedia.org]

A wave of strikes and protests that started from the oilfields of central Burma in 1938 became a general strike with far-reaching consequences. In Rangoon student protesters, after successfully picketing the Secretariat, the seat of the colonial government, were charged by the British mounted police wielding batons and killing a Rangoon University student called Aung Kyaw. In Mandalay, the police shot into a crowd of protesters led by Buddhist monks killing 17 people. The movement became known as Htaung thoun ya byei ayeidawbon (the '1300 Revolution' named after the Burmese calendar year)[2], and December 20, the day the first martyr Aung Kyaw fell, commemorated by students as 'Bo Aung Kyaw Day'.[3]

Re:

[LingNoi]

I good movie about the history of the Burmese and Siamese (Thai) is Naresuan [imdb.com]

Re:

[Bert64]

Actually, Burma is what the British called it when they invaded...
The locals always called it Myanmar, and regardless of government would probably still have renamed it back after becoming independent from Britain.

Re:

[jabuzz]

The BBC have been exclusively referring to it as Burma ever since the current protests started. In addition a number of high profile exiles living in the UK and interviewed on a range of UK news channels, including the BBC, ITN and Channel 4 have all been referring to it as Burma as well. I would describe all three of these as real news channels. Are there any real news channels in the USA?

Re:

[Breakfast Pants]

Funny, it's the British that colonized "Burma" in a reign of terror the likes of which could only be seen in modern days as the actions of an Axis of Evil to-wit, non-withstanding.

Re:

[Bert64]

Well, Burma is the British name for the country... And what it was officially called while occupied by the British.
It's also easier to pronounce, and will probably stick around regardless.. Think Germany vs Deutschland

Fucking Myanmar...

[danielsfca2]

Isn't this shit sad? I mean, a tyrannical military government that nobody wants in power, who's abusing that power by willfully shooting civilians. Of course, our leaders don't give a rats ass beyond talking about how "concerned" or "saddened" or "disappointed" because Myanmar doesn't have any oil, or strategic position we can use.

I'm not trying to say Iraq wasn't justified. It doesn't matter. Whether it was or not, I think Myanmar's military rulers need a good ass-kicking. And there's an ass we could kick overnight if we wanted to. Just bust in there to their headquarters and fire some automatic weapons at them just the same way they do to the innocent monks. That'll teach 'em. Throw in an election to put up a REAL government, and we'd be home by Christmas.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Err there already IS a real government and one with a Presedent-elect who is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The whole point of the protests is that the ruling junta never allowed her to take office after they won the election.

It's worse than that...

[Langfat]

Burma DOES have oil. Chevron (US) and Total (French) are two of the biggest benefactors. China, Russia and India all have billions invested as well. So long as the money keeps coming, no one seems to care who is in power or how they exercise it...

Re:

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

Throw in an election to put up a REAL government, and we'd be home by Christmas.

They had an election, and the junta ignored the results and put the newly elected government under house arrest or killed them.

Re:

[danielsfca2]

Okay, so now China is the #1 world power? Nobody gave me that memo. You know what? Fuck China too. I'm sorry, a country that's pretty much 100% driven by greed and dishonesty (as their poisoning of the rest of the world's children to save a couple cents on each plastic piece o' crap proves) doesn't get my respect.

See, I know I come off like some sort of crazy Bush-cheering jingo when I advocate military action, but I actually almost never support drastic measures or war (and never did in Iraq, for example).

internet censorship in Myanmar brought to you by

[sdedeo]

the American firm Fortinet [wikipedia.org], which runs the Myanmar Wide Web [wikipedia.org].

Re:internet censorship in Myanmar brought to you b

[susano_otter]

Actually, the government of Myanmar runs the Myanmar Wide Web. Software produced by Fortinet, but not administered, supervised or maintained by Fortinet, is used by the government of Myanmar to censor the MWW.

Re:

[Slashcrap]

Software produced by Fortinet, but not administered, supervised or maintained by Fortinet, is used by the government of Myanmar to censor the MWW.

Yes, you're quite right. Fortinet are only making money out of the situation and therefore should be entirely excused of any suggestion of wrongdoing. Likewise anyone selling arms to the Burmese government should also be excused because they're not the ones actually shooting monks in the fucking head.

If you disagree with my comparison, please do feel free to let u

Re:

[susano_otter]

Don't look at me. I don't actually care that much about the issue. But if you're so convinced there is no difference, how about you explain why your computer is full of parts made in China, what with China being the Burmese dictatorship's major backer and arms supplier? Is there a difference, or have you convinced me that your hands are just as bloody as Fortinet's?

Re:

[Serious Callers Only]

Maybe the fact that they fraternize with the Burmese Junta [64.233.183.104] has something to do with it?

The link is to a cache of the official www.myanmar.gov.mm site, which is now down and replaced with another one, cleansed of all refs to Fortinet.

Next, Sales Director of Fortinet Co Mr Benjamin Teh explained the Fortinet Antivirus Firewall with audio visual aids. Next, Mr Benjamin Teh presented a certificate of sole official representative of Fortinet Co to Managing Director U Min Zeya Hlaing.

I wonder why they have an ind

Re:

[Bert64]

Actually, many of those sites have already been hacked in the past...
http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition/2000/08/01/www.myanmar.com/ [attrition.org]
A bunch of the government sites got defaced before that too, but i can't find the mirror sites.

So Read...

[MrKaos]

If we shut down Internet access in your region or country it's because we don't want that information to get free.

WTF? Haven't you heard of Burmah Oil?

[Colin Smith]

Myanmar == Burma

It has large quantities of oil and gas...

WTF do you think there are problems in the place all of a sudden? Do you think it's coincidence there are problems and unrest in oil producing countries now that world oil production has fallen for the last few years?

http://www.worldoil.com/INFOCENTER/STATISTICS_DETAIL.asp?Statfile=_worldoilproduction [worldoil.com]

Re:

[echucker]

No, but I have heard of Burma Shave.

Re:

[YrWrstNtmr]

WTF do you think there are problems in the place all of a sudden?

All of a sudden? How about a couple of decades...
""In 1988 [wikipedia.org], unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the government led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country known as the 8888 Uprising. Hundreds of demonstrators were massacred by security forces, and General Saw Maung staged a coup d'état and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)."

flamebait my butt

[unity100]

the parent is packing heavy punch, and you all know it. use your mod points wisely instead of political nitpicking. or dont use them at all.

Re:

[khallow]

I would mod that post the same. Cliched post pushes the usual Bush and Iraq-oil buttons. There's no "heavy punch" there.

like godwin's law ...

[unity100]

something being overused does not mean that it will be misused every time that it is used.

Brilliant global politics

[Hrothgar The Great]

Your understanding of the issues surrounding this situation seem to be extremely poor, and the observations made in the post you are defending are equally ignorant and childish.

The situation for the US, or any Western government which might want to get involved militarily in Myanmar today is simple - involve your military today in Myanmar, and you will almost certainly find yourself facing the very threatening military might of China, their strongest ally.

It would require you reading maybe half of one of th

that soo ?

[unity100]

The situation for the US, or any Western government which might want to get involved militarily in Myanmar today is simple - involve your military today in Myanmar, and you will almost certainly find yourself facing the very threatening military might of China, their strongest ally.

i didnt see any hesitation from anybody on the face of the world on bush & co part when they decided to invade iraq.

no sir, methinks you need to read a lot of 'articles' and actual late politics history before putting out such brilliant theories belittling other arguments.

Re:

[Solra Bizna]

China and Iraq are allies? This is news to me.

-:sigma.SB

in case you had been in mars for the last 5 years,

[unity100]

ENTIRE world have opposed bush invasion of iraq, but blair. not only china.

Re:

[unity100]

same will be true when you invade burma. russia is in no position to intervene, china wouldnt be fighting against a country after buying bn $ of state bonds from it.

Re:

[raju1kabir]

The situation for the US, or any Western government which might want to get involved militarily in Myanmar today is simple - involve your military today in Myanmar, and you will almost certainly find yourself facing the very threatening military might of China, their strongest ally.

I really doubt that. Burma isn't worth a major war to China. It's just some oil and gas, one of the many backup sources that China has been lining up by spending a few hundred million on development and sweetheart trade deals -

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Learn things before you speak. You sound like a High School Junior. "OMG BUSH R EVIL N GUBBEMENT R BAD CUZ DEY KIL PEOPL."

Honestly, things are a lot more complex than you think.

Re:

[khallow]

something being overused does not mean that it will be misused every time that it is used.

But it's an excellent warning sign.

Re:

[thatskinnyguy]

Because Myanmar is right in there with Vietnam.

Re:

[ynososiduts]

But see, going to war with Myanmar means going to war with China. No one wants that.

Re:

[vertinox]

But see, going to war with Myanmar means going to war with China. No one wants that.

So does going to war with Iran, but no one realizes that.

I mean... If someone shot up your largest foreign oil supplier you'd get pretty angry too. It would be as if China started bombing Saudi Arabia.

Re:

[ynososiduts]

I realize that fully actually. Going to war with Iran would be the equivalent of the Nazi invasion of Poland.

Re:Where are you, George?

[nagora]

China is already bleeding the US in Iraq (via its proxy Iran)

Oh, grow up.

Iran and Iranians are only too happy to aid the insurgents in Iraq for the very, very simple reason that a bunch of total cunts dropped weapons of mass destruction on them in the form of nerve gas and bio weapons. Who were these bastards that went beyond any acceptable limits of civilised behaviour? Well, goodness me! It seems that it was the good old US of fucking A and it's ongoing mission to bring democracy and strong IP laws to the world! And strangely, dropping plagues on Iran has led to anti-American feeling there?! They're just unreasonable, those ragheads.

If America had treated my country the way the US treated Iran, I'D be an insurgent too, and I suspect you would too, without any need to listen to anti-China fairy stories.

Apart from anything else, there's a mountain of reasons to hate China without having to make new ones up. Unless, of course, you are really just trying to justify some other totally unconnected policy.

TWW

Re:

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

What's interesting about Iran is that after 9/11 they seemed to be the only country in that part of the world that felt bad about what happened. I believe they were one of the few countries that held candlelight vigils that night and prayed for the victims of the attacks.

Re:

[nagora]

What's interesting about Iran is that after 9/11 they seemed to be the only country in that part of the world that felt bad about what happened. I believe they were one of the few countries that held candlelight vigils that night and prayed for the victims of the attacks.

Yes, but that didn't fit Rumsfeld's self-justification so they had to be pushed and pushed into a corner so that they'd support I'madinnerjacket who would in turn spout the correct rhetoric to give a causus beli for an invasion. Which in

Re:

[YrWrstNtmr]

What's interesting about Iran is that after 9/11 they seemed to be the only country in that part of the world that felt bad about what happened. I believe they were one of the few countries that held candlelight vigils that night and prayed for the victims of the attacks.

The people of Iran, yes. The government of Iran, not so much.

Re:

[damburger]

Oh, grow up.

Don't be an asshat. I'm not judging Iran for supporting the insurgency in Iraq (as with the nukes issue - they'd be crazy not to) - I'm just saying its a fact, and that China amongst others are supporting Iran in this enterprise because it suits their interests. Tricking China into militarily propping up the Burmese regime would be a tactically sound move by the US, although it isn't terribly likely to work - the Chinese government are simply too cautious and not as inclined as the US governme

Re:

[nagora]

Don't be an asshat. I'm not judging Iran for supporting the insurgency in Iraq (as with the nukes issue - they'd be crazy not to) - I'm just saying its a fact, and that China amongst others are supporting Iran in this enterprise because it suits their interests.

That's true but you grossly overstated it in your OP. China is not bleeding the US dry by supporting Iran. The US is losing some cannon fodder in return for huge stockpiles of oil and the chance to test new technology in actual combat situations. T

Re:

[Markspark]

there's really no need to worry about that.. Burma is a very poor country, and has no oil, so i see no reason why Bush would want to "liberate" the Burmese people.

Burma has lots of oil

[Langfat]

Burma is a very resource-rich country. The problem is that rather than the wealth going to the people, it is funneled into the pockets of the military generals (who then splurge on their daughters' weddings) [youtube.com]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Burma has tons of oil. Chevron and Total are the two Western companies profiting the most, but China, India and Russia all have significant (read multi-BILLION dollar) investments as well..

Re:

[butlerdi]

I seem to remember that Burma has somewhere around 0.7% of easily reclaimable oil. Cant find the figure at the moment. NB They also have a shitload of Opium.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly, the situation in Myanmar is all America's fault. If they hadn't invented the Internet, then it couldn't be cut off.

Re:

[scottv67]

Would it be possible for the open source community to launch a project to essentially make it impossible for a government to cut off its own people from the outside world?

How about we (speaking as a citizen of the U.S.) keep our nose out of other countries' business? We don't need to ride to the rescue every time someone somewhere on the globe is being oppressed. If the government of Myanmar wants to cut-off Internet connectivity to its citizens, that is *not* a reason for the U.S. to meddle in that si

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[Unordained]

I'd like to think that any people desiring freedom from its government can do so without outside aid -- after all, there are almost always more civilians than military, right? I would have liked Iraq to free itself, for Afghanistan to free itself, maybe even China and Burma -- but is it really realistic to expect that with today's weapons, and today's means of communication, and today's wealth gulf between the rich and poor (where, in an oppressive regime, the rich tend to *be* the government) ... that the

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[rs79]

" Would it be possible for the open source community to launch a project to essentially make it impossible for a government to cut off its own people from the outside world? "

It's called UUCP.

In the 70s the CIA did a report on this to answer the question "can the government control email" and the report said "as long as people have phone lines and modems, no".

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[mrogers]

Would it be possible for the open source community to launch a project to essentially make it impossible for a government to cut off its own people from the outside world?

Until recently a charity called Information Without Borders was developing a promising-looking project called Sneakernet: basically an encrypted delay-tolerant network [ucsb.edu] using epidemic routing [nasa.gov] between Bluetooth-enabled handheld devices. Messages would hop from person to person across the social network until they reached an internet gateway

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[YrWrstNtmr]

Wasn't the internet supposed to be able to survive a nuclear war? I know Burma is a poor country with few resources; still, this turn of events doesn't give much support to the notion that the 'net is nearly impossible to crash.

The 'internet' hasn't crashed. Any (small) part of it that may have gone through Burma is now simply going around it.
Routing around damage, as it were.

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[YrWrstNtmr]

why USA doesn't bring democracy also to Myanmar?

And be accused again of causing death and destruction to innocent civilians? How about someone else do it this time. China, Russia, France...hell, Sweden, Hungary, Estonia, Peru...you guys go do it this time.