Egyptian 'Net Killed By Intimidation, Not a Switch 126
jfruhlinger writes "In the wake of the Egyptian revolution of the past weeks, much tech buzz has focused on the 'kill switch' that Mubarak's government used to try to stop Internet-based networking. The New York Times gives the details. As blogger Kevin Fogarty points out, the process involved less high-tech derring do and more intimidation of tech workers by regime thugs."
Not Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
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That information is only powerful if people are willing to stand up for it. One or the other is pretty useless on its own, as the rioters presumably ended up being quite uncoordinated, and the ISPs seem to have been easily shut down. If the rioters protected the ISPs then it could have been quite effective.
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It is directly related to what you said and not a straw man argument. You may disagree with it, but that doesn't make it a straw man response.
Information is useless without action. We can all know that a meteor is going to crash into the earth, but if we don't take any action (even if it is just to prepare ourselves) then that information was useless.
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It is a straw man, 100 people does not make a difference to a million-man riot, but those 100 people can make a difference in
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Did you read the response that nitrogensixteen was responding to? somersault made the exact point you are making and nitrogensixteen argued that it was a strawman
Here it is for you
That information is only powerful if people are willing to stand up for it. One or the other is pretty useless on its own, as the rioters presumably ended up being quite uncoordinated, and the ISPs seem to have been easily shut down.
Both somersault and I were stating that both are needed to be useful.
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When "their job" is to shut themselves down then I don't quite agree with what you're saying, no.
Re:Not Surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
One million tweets is more powerful than a brick.
First of all I think that's highly debatable if not flat out false. I think we like to believe that because that's what we see over here, and that's what stirs a lot of passion over here, but at the end of the day, even when the internet WAS shut off, it's the people with piles of bricks holding the square and responding to low-tech alarms of clacking two steel rods together to cause people to rush to the defense in order to continue to hold the square that won the day. If tweets were more powerful then bricks then justin beiber (sp?) fans would be running the world. But the truth is the tweets are only as powerful so far as their ability to incite, organize and deploy said bricks. In that they have a use, but there are other methods to do such things.
I think the problem with your statement that the revolutionary telco employee should stay to defend the networks comes down to basic force deployment strategy. Not every member of the telco is going to be willing to fight. If he makes his stand there alone he's just going to get locked up or shot because chances are every member of the police force or group of thugs that show up to turn the internet off WILL be willing to fight. Therefore he's far better abandoning his indefensible location and banding together with the handful of employees from every other teclo and business across the city thereby concentrating their forces into a size large enough to hold ground and force change. If the telco is truly THAT important it would be easy to convince the larger force to move in and defend it. It seems however they decided the main square was far more appropriate.
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And how do you figure that? You can't just say something like that out your ass, you need some substance.
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That's an interesting all-or-nothing binary perspective you have.
Remind me never to call you if I ever need to accomplish something substantial.
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Oh yes, you quite correctly deduce that I would agree that the current situation is hardly desirable.
However we react to this reality in two different ways:
* By saying that the people have won nothing because the dictatorship still exists.
* By saying that the people have won but one small battle in a lengthy struggle.
Only one of these views is useful for accomplishing difficult tasks in the real world. Successful revolutions are never won in a single stroke, and usually involve things getting much worse bef
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>>>That information is only powerful if people are willing to stand up for it.
There are many Egyptian Telco workers who think, 'If the government tells me to shutdown the ISP connection, I will obey, because the government knows best.' - These are the same types you find in the EU or US who say it's okay for the SA officers to stick hands down passengers' pants (i.e. grope penises) and touch women's breasts.* They think it's okay if the government does it.
*
*Pour-out baby's milk in the trash.
*Lo
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Re:Not Surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
There are many Egyptian Telco workers who think, 'If the government tells me to shutdown the ISP connection, I will obey, because the government knows best.' - These are the same types you find in the EU or US who say it's okay for the SA officers to stick hands down passengers' pants (i.e. grope penises) and touch women's breasts.* They think it's okay if the government does it.
Your experience in a free country doesn't translate quite so well to a dictatorship. The Egyptian Telco workers also think "If the government tells me to shutdown the ISP connection, I will obey, because the government will jail or possibly kill me and my family if I don't".
Don't marginalize the position and plight of those under repressive dictatorships by pretending it's akin to your own struggles in a free country. By all means fight to keep your country free. By all means point out measures in your free country that can lead to suppression and tyranny. By all means stand up against those measures. Just don't do it on the backs of those like the Egyptians fighting a very different and much harder conflict.
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>>>"I will obey, because the government will jail or possibly kill me and my family if I don't".
And this is different from refusing a search in the EU or US - how? I don't know about Europeans, but I've read about several Americans jailed for refusing to assent to a search, or changing their mind and trying to leave the airport, or refusing to open their car trunk at random police stops (et cetera).
You act as if we somehow have more "freedom" just because we elect our dictator (sorry - Mubarak cal
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You act as if we somehow have more "freedom" just because we elect our dictator (sorry - Mubarak calls himself "president")
No, YOU are acting like the Egyptian people under Mubarak's dictatorship had as much "freedom" as Americans. That's a gross insult to the suffering and persecution that the Egyptian people were suffering, and it's shameful.
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>>>"I will obey, because the government will jail or possibly kill me and my family if I don't".
And this is different from refusing a search in the EU or US - how?
I'm not sure what fucking world you live in, but no one in the EU or US has been killed recently for telling the TSA to go fuck themselves. Get some fucking perspective, the EU and US are NOTHING like that.
Someone should ship you off to one of these places so you actually understand what real suffering is. And now, 'they turned off my internetz' is not fucking suffering, which no one has ever done to you anyway.
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Sorry, you couldn't be more wrong. The intimidation by the government in Egypt is the same as that used in the US or elsewhere in the 'free' world. The difference is the scope and magnitude of that intimidation and the ability of others within the system to stand up to that behavior.
Scope and magnitude can make all the difference. Scope and magnitude can dramatically effect the practical realities of situations and the appropriate way to deal with it. Scope and magnitude is why the GP is right, and you can't treat the Egyptian situation the same as you would if it were in the U.S. Because the situations are very much not the same, due to scope and magnitude.
We may be in the same boat, but we're on the upper decks and they're in the cistern.
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Perhaps there are personnel working at those telco's that understand that information is more powerful than a brick thrown at a police officer.
Perhaps there were people working at the telco that knew that Mubarak shutting off the internet would fuel the protests.
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1) They complied with orders to shut down the routers because AK-74's were pointed at them.
2) They complied with orders to shut down the routers because they believed that would in fact aid the rebellion.
You decide.
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A razor:
1) They complied with orders to shut down the routers because AK-74's were pointed at them.
2) They complied with orders to shut down the routers because they believed that would in fact aid the rebellion.
You decide.
OR
3) The Internet wasn't nearly as insturemental in the process as everyone is making it out to be and the truth of the matter the peoples actions ... not text messages, tweets, and walls mosts overthrew the government.
You live in a really fucked up haze if you think twitter or facebook had anything to do with it other than letting people outside the area know what was going on.
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well literally, the kill switch is the trigger on the gun...
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You don't need a gun to kill. You only need your bare hands or a well-placed kick. QED it's not the gun or knife or blunt instrument that kills - it's the owner of the hands/legs
People kill.
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You don't need a gun to kill. You only need your bare hands or a well-placed kick. QED it's not the gun or knife or blunt instrument that kills - it's the owner of the hands/legs
People kill.
You don't need a person to kill. Animals and acts of god can kill without the person, the only constant is the person being killed. QED it's not the person that kills, but the victim.
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Well it is true that life is the leading cause of death, with a 100% mortality rate.
On another note, this reminds me of an old saying: God made man, but Colt made them equal.
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For Egypt?
No. The kill switch is two boats dragging a plough on the sea floor. One in Alexandria bay, the other one in the Red sea. In fact the Alexandria bay should be enough.
It has happened unintentionally a few times. So if someone wants to do it intentionally it is not that difficult. The areas are clearly marked on maritime navigation maps.
It will also take out most of the Middle East and drop most of the capacity to India and Pakistan to a trickle as a side effect.
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Yeah, exactly. If I recall, Vodafone also reported that Mubarak strong-armed them into sending out mass text messages to pro-Mubarak supporters, police and other government workers to get them to go out and beat up the protesters in Tahrir Square those two days. That's why the counter-demonstrators showed up suddenly and then disappeared suddenly two days later.
or you could just infiltrate the government (Score:2)
like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rene_Carmille [wikipedia.org] did.
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Or as we used to say in the 80s:
"Well..... Duh." I already knew this. The Egyptian government shutdown the ISPs the same way governments have shutdown Newspaper companies in the past --- by issuing threats.
In fact our OWN government did the same thing to get Amazon and Paypal to stop accepting donations to wikileaks.com.
But I guess it's necessary for Reporters to *document* these events rather than just guess (like I did).
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You don't need a kill switch when you have people with guns.
Isn't the trigger a kill switch?
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That's not really giving it enough credit. Sure, one of the uses is "kill". But you can also use it to "maim", "wound", "destroy" (equipment) or just "intimidate" (fire a burst into the ceiling).
The pen may be mightier than the sword, but I suspect the modern combat rifle pwns them both (and the intarweb as well).
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I wonder, should we redefine "rubber hose cryptography" to "wrench cryptography"?
Isn't a gun... (Score:2)
Just a portable kill-switch?
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I don't get why more people don't understand this. A country can physically control the Internet. Why? Because they can break the telco with axes.
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No need for guns, a big stick works just as well.
What's the difference? (Score:2)
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Same thing, different name.
The difference is only one of who was involved in the planning. If you involve the telcos/isps/etc then they can plan for it. Otherwise, the "plan" is a list of telco sites and some guys with automatic weapons in jeeps.
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To be more exact the telcos are mandated to plan for that. In most countries. Including some of the ones which are erroneously referred to as free western democracies.
Kill switch it is... (Score:3)
Still sounds like a kill switch to me - whether Obama presses a physical red button under his desk or he makes a phone call to threaten corporate employees with jail or physical harm or else, still a kill switch to me. This is semantic bullshit.
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This is semantic bullshit.
I understand your viewpoint, but disagree. I think it is better to have the discussion and set the ground rules for when such action should be taken. Maybe the answer is "never", but it's better to hash that out now rather than after it is used.
To put it another way, if we collectively refuse or restrict to grant the government use of a "kill switch", it becomes very difficult for a future president to take such action without risk of impeachment. If we don't talk about it and set ground rules, then future
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If someone threatens to kill you, it doesn't matter much what the law says.
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What I find funny about the so-called "kill switch" is this - if there was an Actual Emergency (omg, the hackerz are coming), and the freakin' President calls you up and says "we need to turn off the connections right now"... who *isn't* going to do it?
The job still commands some respect during emergencies.
(If you're feeling less charitable, substitute "Presidential phone call" with "Secret Service/FBI agents", and you'll get the Egypt-equivalent. Folks forget that even if you take your principled stand, t
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Exactly.
1968. Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. 15 minutes before the special transports cross the border a group of men in civilian clothing enters each and every airport air traffic control station across the whole of Czechoslovakia. The controllers are left standing facing the wall with one knucklehead holding a gun to their heads. In the meantime the other "gentlemen" which come after the knucleheads sit down at the workstations and continue to guide all aircraft which are traversing the Czech and
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If someone threatens to kill you, it doesn't matter much what the law says.
“If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.”
-Dalai Lama
(Seattle Times, May 15, 2001)
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If someone threatens to kill you, it doesn't matter much what the law says.
No argument there. What I'm saying is that, at least in the US, I would hope that the President would at least consider existing rule of law before threatening someone's life. Prior to the "kill switch" discussion, there was nothing in place. Now at least there is a bill being considered which sets up rules and a process that a President would, in theory at least, have to follow.
IMHO, this is a *good* discussion... not only does it force the government to be a bit more transparent and predictable, but it is
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I understand your viewpoint, but disagree. I think it is better to have the discussion and set the ground rules for when such action should be taken.
That conversation has happened, and the answer is "whenever the President feels like".
But in the USA it's more then 1 place that will (Score:2)
But in the USA it's more then 1 place that will need to be shut down and even then how many web sites in the usa will still be up as you will need cut off alot of data centers to trun the net 100% off in the usa.
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Arguably, it's not necessary to go that far. There's only a handful of tier one carriers, if you can force them to stop routing all traffic within the US, you may not shut down the Internet in the US entirely but you'd definitely cripple it.
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In our country, that will never happen. The moment legislation comes up that says, "The US can unilaterally order commerce shut down for X reason" is the day that our entire corporate structure goes into attack mode. It will be fought on every level from lobbyists up to Supreme Court assaults for decades.
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Maybe you are right, but did anyone every thought to see the day when the Department of Homeland Security would have the authority to take over dns zones without warrants or explanation?
Don't say "never" when it comes to government censorship and coercion. If they have the power, they will use it.
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Yes, the same as you and me and corporations. The difference is that the corporations can and will be able to afford to sue the government to back them off as they will have a horse in that race.
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Still sounds like a kill switch to me - whether Obama presses a physical red button under his desk or he makes a phone call to threaten corporate employees with jail or physical harm or else, still a kill switch to me. This is semantic bullshit.
Indeed.
If the law gets passed here in the US to allow a killswitch, they aren't actually going to install a big red button anywhere. It's simply going to make it legal to do exactly what they did in Egypt.
And when the decision is eventually made to hit that killswitch, nobody is going to reach for a big lever to pull. They're just going to place some phone calls to some ISPs. And those ISPs will do what they're told to, or law enforcement will show up to make them do what they're told to. Just like in E
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Also, don't forget that Obama already has statutory authority to do this under section 706 of the Communications act:
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"There's absolutely no reason to believe he wouldn't use it."
If they have the power, they will use it; history asserts this with 100% certainty.
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Really? When has it been used?
It hasn't.
You're statement is 100% false at this time.
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whether Obama presses a physical red button under his desk
Hmm, I'm imagining it now:
"My fellow Americans,
I sincerely apologize for shutting down the Internet. You see, I asked them to put the Internet killswitch on the left side under my desk, they accidentally put it on the right side, right next to the trap door button. The ambassador from Bulgaria was in the oval office, and I don't know if you've ever met a Bulgarian, but I'm pretty sure they are all assholes. Anyway, he said something about Chicago, and that really pushed my button so I decided to pu
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Which is more likely to be used frivolously: a red button on Obama's desk that he can press any time he feels like it, or an order sending out troops to point M-16s at network operators? If the "kill switch" requires a lot of work and potentially a lot of mess to u
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That's a good point, but again...just because "law" authorizes or prohibits an action, it doesn't mean the law is necessarily and morally justified.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malum_prohibitum [wikipedia.org]
because Staples has good lobbyists (Score:2)
repression... that was easy!
Oh, come on. (Score:2)
Is this the third or fourth article explaining exactly the same thing to make it to the front page? How many more "stories" featuring rearrangements of previously reported circumstances are we supposed to sit through?
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42
P.S. Congrats on finally figuring out the question.
Is anyone surprised ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is anyone really surprised by this ? However, I don't think it was just as simple as sending over a bunch of goons - or even a "Brooks Brother's Riot."
The Egypt Internet cutoff was technically done by stopping the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) announcement of most Egyptian address blocks. BGP itself was not taken down, and the circuits themselves did not alarm. This was most likely not achieved by cutting cords or unplugging routers (which would have downed BGP, at the least). Pulling the plug, any general can do, but most generals don't know anything about BGP.
My guess is that there was a contingency plan for this (maybe as a military defense measure), that that plan took some thought by a technically savvy person, but, having a plan, it probably wasn't much more than a few phone calls to execute it. This can be compared to Burma (which really did just pull the plug - the link light was lost at the other end).
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The Egypt Internet cutoff was technically done by stopping the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) announcement of most Egyptian address blocks. BGP itself was not taken down, and the circuits themselves did not alarm. This was most likely not achieved by cutting cords or unplugging routers (which would have downed BGP, at the least).
Most likely the internet-facing interfaces on the routers were shut. Technically, it wouldn't be hard to make it possible to do this remotely (via and SNMP set, or ssh/telnet scripted 'conf t;int gig0/1;shut').
It's hardly rocket science, and I wonder about all the people who wondered "did they stop the BGP process on the routers?", or "did they hack the BGP protocol" or similar.
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Sure, it's not hard to do, if you have a little knowledge and have enable to the right routers. Again
- the internet facing interfaces remained up and
- BGP remained up.
I would expect if it were just threats (shut down tonight or else) different ISPs would do it different ways. This seems to reflect centralized planning to me.
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That's the thing - generals don't need to. That's what staff officers are for, the general says "I want this done" and the staff figures out how to make it so - or tells the general that it can't be done, or at least not exactly what he wants.
Craftsmanlike... like a wrench. (Score:3)
It was individual, craftsmanlike, one-intimidation-at-a-time thuggery, plain and simple, according to HRF.
How appropriately used...
Obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com].
C'mon (Score:2)
Did anyone really believe that Mubarak had a red button labeled "Kill Internet" in his office?
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Yes, and I've got photographic evidence [pbase.com].
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Of course (Score:2)
If you have control, you just have to ask politely - like for AT&Ts phone data.
One step up: you just hint at things and companies get the cue.
And better yet: Let the businesses figure out, what is good for them.
Quick, supress this story! (Score:2)
"It was individual, craftsmanlike, one-intimidation-at-a-time thuggery..."
We don't want to give corporate management any ideas.
In Other News... (Score:2)
Duh.
Did anyone think differently?
*ring*
Mubarak "Turn off your internet, or I'll send a bunch of thugs to do it for me, and beat you, and torch the place. k thx bye."
*pushes power button*
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Duh.
Did anyone think differently?
*ring*
Yes, I thought there was a huge double-pole throw switch mounted on the wall over Mubarek's desk labeled "Internet. On. Off."
Maybe ... (Score:2)
In other words, a "hardware" solution (Score:1)
As in a threat to use equipment obtained from a hardware store on the people running the networks.
Aww (Score:2)
What the hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, somebody stop me if I say something out of line.
It seems from the article that a journalist actually thought that there was a big red button somewhere labeled "INTERNET KILL SWITCH - DO NOT TOUCH". This graduate of the college of communications then makes the connection that phone calls were made instead. Really? You think so? He then makes reference to "This morning's New York Times" and then links to an article published three weeks ago. Next, he accuses this unassailable beacon of journalistic accuracy of being wrong. As a crowning achievement, he then gives valuable pagerank to a "Human Rights Defenders" website that openly states that it only exists to lecture Europe, America, and Russia about anti-Muslim crimes without speaking a single word about persecution of religious minorities in Egypt [wikipedia.org].
I'd say that journalist Kevin Fogarty is a winner all around and represents his profession^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H occupation well.
Obama must be stupid too (Score:2)
It seems from the article that a journalist actually thought that there was a big red button somewhere labeled "INTERNET KILL SWITCH - DO NOT TOUCH"
Yeah? And? Obama seems to think that he actually needs a kill switch to protect his country.
Canada didn't need a kill switch [www.cbc.ca].
Once the attack was detected in early January, Canadian government cybersecurity officials immediately shut down all internet access at the Finance Department and the Treasury Board, in an attempt to stop stolen information from being sent back to the hackers over the net. In an earlier attack, Defence Research and Development had to shutdown access to one of its servers for two months.
Obama looks about as smart as said journalist right now, and he's running the country. And the media are wetting their pants with their new "cyber terrorism" buzzword. This is all evidence that we need some serious education on the subject in this country. At every level. Seriously, wtf?
NYTimes Link is to old story (Score:2)
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OT: tags? (Score:2)
Where the hell are the tags? I was going to tag this story "xkcd" but there are no tags anywhere on the page. What happened?
In a similar vein, the scores for comments aren't showing consistently. What did the Slashdot gang break this time?
From the article (Score:2)
Bloody-minded independence and an inherent inability to follow orders: What the Internet is made of.
+1
The kill switch is not a mechanical apparatus (Score:2)
It's a legal/bureaucratic apparatus.
In case anyone, like the writer of the article, is still confused.
The specific implementation is irrelevant.
Point Missed (Score:2)
The flip of a switch or the threat of a beating; it matters very little which means is used to shut off communication. In the U.S., it's arguably impractical to send the brute squad out to every ISP, so our dictators want technological solutions. The result is the same.
Nothing changed in Egypt. (Score:1)
The Egyptians replaced one military government with another military government. It was a military coup by the people. Onto which I can only gaze in total astonishment.
In that case, it'll never happen here. (Score:2)
Jeeze! (Score:2)
Has anybody figured out yet that the internet "kill switch" is a figure of speech, a metaphor? for ordering all the ISPs to shut down? Damn! It's like the Bible. People take everything too literally.
Eben Moglen (Score:4, Interesting)
Is trying to make software preventing this kind of thing from happening again. http://lastonk.blogspot.com/2011/02/freedom-box.html [blogspot.com] by using wall wart servers and routers.
If there was a software app that allowed handheld devises with wifi to create ad hoc networks... the people in Egypt may not have even noticed when the ISP's were shut down... they would have been able to continue talking to each other via short link wireless networks.
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While I applaud Eben for his efforts [and similar people/tech], your comment brought two questions to my mind.
1. Freedom Box: will it have any better chance for widespread adoption? Is the answer to that good or bad?[1]
2.Regarding "... the people in Egypt may not have even noticed when the ISP's were shut down... ", In this scenario, who would benefit more: the government, or the protesters, by 'not noticing' shut downs?
[1] While the geek/nerd in me can see the appeal of the 'silver bullet', the anarchist
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well, if the government intent was to keep the protesters from communicating with each other and self organizing... and had goons storm the local ISP's and order them to shut down.... Ten minutes later, the protesters need to post "Head to the bridge!"
I can see something like this meaning enough people would have gotten the message to beat the goons to the bridge.
Side note, Egypt used "environmental" rules first (Score:3, Informative)