Egyptians Turn To Tor To Organize Dissent Online 152
An anonymous reader writes "Even as President Obama prepares to follow Mubarak with his own 'internet kill switch', Egyptians were turning to the Tor anonymiser to organise their protests online. The number of Egyptians connecting to the internet over Tor rose more than five-fold after protests broke out last week before crashing when the Government severed links to the global internet. Information security researcher, Tor coder and writer of the bridge that allowed Egypt's citizens to short-circuit government filters, Jacob Appelbaum, told SC Magazine Egyptians were 'concerned and some understand the risk of network traffic analysis.' Appelbaum has himself been the subject of attention from US security services who routinely snatch his electronics and search his belongings when he re-enters the country and who subpoenaed his private Twitter account last December." Which helps explain why Appelbaum is helping to organize a small fundraiser to get more communications gear into Egypt.
I'm Confused (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a little confused. How does Tor work when they shut down the Internet?
Re:Net kill switch (Score:3, Insightful)
It wouldn't help a thing. This is politician solution to a problem that's not even a problem. If I were a foreign country I would be cheering the kill switch on, and when it passes, I would try every living thing I could in CyberAssualt to make them throw the kill switch. We will cause far more damage to ourselves than any cyber attack if we turn ourselves off.
but we just keep voting these ass clowns into power. the problem is not our elected corrupt officials, its the people stuck in some ridiculous idea of a party system that George Washington our 1st president warned would destroy us!
Did you vote Democrat? Then you are part of the problem!
Did you vote Republican? Then you are part of the problem!
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Partisan bullshit overtaking slashdot??? WTFF??! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Even as President Obama prepares to follow Mubarak with his own 'internet kill switch',
WTF??? I'm really getting sick and tired of this partisan garbage on slashdot. It's bad enough that it's in posters' comments, do we really have to have it force fed to us in the summaries? Hey lefties... fuck you... but you righties, a special "go fuck yourself" from me, mkay? Arrogant lying assholes... say anything to make the competition look bad, anything at all to win. Stupid, women-hating, fascist money lovers. Bite me.
Re:Partisan bullshit overtaking slashdot??? WTFF?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Wait isn't your side the one's saying love the muslims who don't mind killing their women and daughters? Seems you have some hypocrisy to work out before you start assisting others with theirs!
The people usually talking about partisan problems are the most partisan of all! And by the way. Partisan is GOOD! The more time they spend fighting on capital hill they less time they spend taking freedom away.
Re:Net kill switch (Score:2, Insightful)
> This doesn't give the president a button to push. It gives him lawyers to push, in real time, on short notice.
wow, those are nicely smith'd words. I may use that phrase if you don't mind; it really captures the essence of what our Fearless Leader(tm) has up his sleeves.
(I don't doubt the next FL will up the antie, too; they always do)