Egypt Cuts the Net, Net Fights Back 232
GMGruman writes "Egypt's cutoff of the Net enrages the Netizenry, who are finding a bunch of ways — high tech and low tech — to fight back, from dial-up to ham radio, from mesh networks to Twitter. Robert X. Cringely shows how the Net war is being waged, and asks, Could it happen at home, too?" Sure, it could.
On the same topic, reader dermiste writes
"In reaction to the Egyptian government crackdown on the Internet, the French non-profit ISP French Data Network set up a dial-up Internet access. This way, anyone in Egypt who has access to a analog phone line and can call France is able to connect to the network using the following number: +33 1 72 89 01 50 (login: toto, password: toto)."
Re:What's the Catch? (Score:3, Informative)
They ARE offfering it for free, it is an association, there is nothing in it for them. They are fierce defenders of net neutrality, they have been around for quite a while now.
Re:Toto...?! (Score:5, Informative)
No, it's just the French equivalent of "foo". The sequence "foo bar biz baz" is "toto titi tata tutu".
If you want to bless the reigns, you should worry more about what's happening in Jordan, rather than Egypt.
Re:Toto...?! (Score:3, Informative)
Yes "toto" is common fill-in for passwords and first names. It's more like "joe" than "foobar".
Re:What's the Catch? (Score:5, Informative)
Also, the number is probably already blocked.
If you read their comments there are links to other alternatives, including this interesting link that some how uses cellphones[1], and more people are pitching in.
Also, they have offered some statistics:
[1]: http://manalaa.net/dialup [manalaa.net]
Re:effect of the 'net overstated? (Score:5, Informative)
There are 2 reasons Mubarak tried to block Internet access:
1. It was being used by protesters to coordinate - reporting on where police were concentrated, where people were gathering, etc.
2. It had this video [youtube.com] of a civilian getting shot by police while he was backing away. Mubarak probably thought that by blocking access to the video the Egyptian people wouldn't figure out that the cops had crossed that line.
It hasn't worked. As a longtime /. sig once put it: The Internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.
Re:GSM Roaming (Score:2, Informative)
Not much likelihood of GSM roaming. Take a look at a photo of Egypt at night from space.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/5146231463/
Egypt *is* the Nile. And not much near the borders...
Re:What's the Catch? (Score:5, Informative)
>>>are they charging an arm and a leg? I mean, I know they're Not for Profit, but that doesn't always meant they offer all services free. If they ARE offering it for free... I can't help but wonder what their angle is.
>>>
I don't know why you're surprised. DIALUP internet only costs me $7/month. Netzero and Juno offer it for free (see links below). It's not that much of a burden for the Non-profit ISP to offer free access to egyptians.
And the datarate is only ~30 kbit/s via analog lines, so you could carry over 300 users in the space of one DSL or cable customer.
http://www.juno.com/start/landing.do?page=www/free/index [juno.com]
http://isp.netscape.com/ [netscape.com]
Re:effect of the 'net overstated? (Score:2, Informative)
That "longtime /. sig" is a quote by John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, creator or the alt.* Usenet hierarchy, major contributor to the GNU project, fifth employee of Sun Microsystems, co-author of the predecessor to DHCP, beard wearer. The correct quote is "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
Not the "real" Robert X. Cringely (Score:4, Informative)