Egypt’s information ministry reported Monday evening that all mobile-phone networks will be shut down in the country in advance of Tuesday’s “march of millions” in Cairo. And Noor Group, the country’s last operating Internet service provider, has also been shut down, effectively taking the country offline. In response to the overall lack of service, Google is now offering a “speak-to-tweet” service, which allows those without an Internet connection to leave voice-mail messages that will be automatically converted into tweets.
Since Internet access was first limited last week, Egyptians have been finding creative solutions to communicating. The hacker group Anonymous has been circulating a document called “20 Ways to Circumvent the Egyptian Government’s Internet Block.” Some mobile-phone service will be supported by Vodafone and France Telecom. Some Egyptians have even resorted to ham radios — utilizing both voice and Morse codes — and fax machines are also being used.
from NY Magazine; similar info posted below in a comment by Kyla from slashdot.org.
Kyla – Ham radio is very much alive and well: I’m one. There has been a bit of a boom in fact, with licenses much easier to get now, and cheap, if not free, technology for sending text messages is available. The Egyptian hams may be using some of the new tech, but perhaps no one is saying too much so as to keep the government from shutting down the airwaves.
It does happen: ham radio disappeared during WW2, shutdown officially for the duration, many, if not most, operators getting drafted for the war effort. I actually wish the Egyptian ham radio aspect had not been reported: they may be shut down if the military feels it ‘appropriate.’
I guess “stepping down” is overstating things a bit.
According to this, the question of whether or not some of the looters were actually cops has been clarified. They were. A misguided attempt by Mubarak to consolidate his position as the protector of safety?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020100903.html
Human Rights Watch confirmed several cases of undercover police loyal to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime committing acts of violence and looting in an attempt to stoke fear of instability as demonstrations grew stronger Tuesday against the autocratic leader.
Peter Bouckaert, the emergency director at Human Rights Watch, said hospitals confirmed that they received several wounded looters shot by the army carrying police identification cards. They also found several cases of looters and vandals in Cairo and Alexandria with police identification cards. He added that it was “unexplainable” that thousands of prisoners escaped from prisons over the weekend.
“Mubarak’s mantra to his own people was that he was the guarantor of the nation’s stability. It would make sense that he would want to send the message that without him, there is no safety,” Bouckaert said.
Over the past three days, state television has been reporting alarmist news about violence and criminals among the demonstrations in an attempt to discredit the democratic movement.
The rights group’s findings came as pro-democracy demonstrators converged on Tahrir Square in Cairo, vowing to bring 1 million people to the streets of Egypt.
yes — officially he’s “not going to seek reelection” in september & says he wasn’t planning to anyway. haha.
also at the USA link kyla provided:
•Egyptian Culture Minister Gaber Asfour said the “revolution” by the country’s youth was spontaneous and served as a wake-up call for the government.
•Jordanian Prime Minister Samir Rifai resigned, and King Abdullah asked Marouf Bakhit, a former prime minister, to “launch a genuine political reform process,” the Royal Court said in a statement. Hamza Mansour, head of Jordan’s Islamic Action Front, said Jordan’s largest opposition group wants “an entirely new process, we don’t want new names.”
•The Western-backed Palestinian government in the West Bank said it will hold council elections “as soon as possible.”
Mubarak is stepping down:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-02-02-RW_egypt01_ST_N.htm
Tim Karr of Free Press and CUNY Professor C.W. Anderson. Karr on Democracy Now! about the communications blackout in Egypt, the companies selling the technology, a proposed bill in the US giving executive shutdown power, the activist-twitter-activist circle, and more:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/1/digital_darkness_us_uk_companies_help
AMY GOODMAN: So, explain the difference between Narus and Vodafone. What roles do each play?
TIM KARR: Well, Narus provides a technology that sits on routers throughout the Egyptian network, that filters and spies on communications. It’s a surveillance technology. Narus was started by Israeli security experts. And they specialize in selling this. They sell it to other governments. Vodafone is a mobile phone technology system. The Vodafone Egypt is another joint venture there that also has a large Egypt control, which allows them to pull the switch on cell phone communications.
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AMY GOODMAN: What about the bill that’s being introduced here—I think it’s by Senators Lieberman and Collins—that would allow the U.S. government to shut down civilian access to the internet?
TIM KARR: It’s Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. It was introduced in the last session.
TIM KARR: It was introduced in the last session by Senators Lieberman, Carper of Delaware, and Collins of Maine. It made it through the Homeland Security Committee in December, but it died by the end of the session. A Wired story from earlier this week indicated that they intend to reintroduce this bill. And the problem with the bill is that it creates in the executive branch the capacity to cut down what they call critical—to shut down critical infrastructure in the case of a national threat. So, we are—at Free Press and others, ACLU and others, are trying to make sure that that legislation, if it goes forward, doesn’t have that specific language in it.
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C.W. ANDERSON: Sure. I mean, there’s been a lot of debate, I think, in the media about whether what we’re seeing in the Middle East and elsewhere is sort of a Twitter revolution. And I don’t think anyone would seriously call it that. You know, people make revolutions, not technology. But when you learn about the early days of Twitter, you can see why a service like Twitter would be useful for people trying to coordinate decentralized, large protest actions.
Some of the people involved in the very early days of developing Twitter as a company were actually involved way back in 2004. I’m sure you remember the Republican National Conventions protests in New York and the DNC protests in Boston. Some of the people involved in the very early days of Twitter were very instrumental in helping set up SMS texting systems that allowed protesters to communicate with other protesters and also the media, and organize sort of spontaneous, decentralized actions in New York and in Boston. So, some of those people—it was called TXTMob. And Jeremy Scahill, working for your show, has written about the TXTMob service back in 2004.
So, some of those folks doing that, hacking that technology in New York in 2004, ended up demonstrating technologies like that to the folks starting Twitter. And it’s not to say that radical activists created Twitter, but they certainly brought the ideas, the ideas of sort of these decentralized communications, to the folks who were setting up this larger company.
a timely reminder….
http://sarthanapalos.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/a-guide-how-not-to-say-stupid-stuff-about-egypt/
Ya know……. we really do rely on the internet a whole heck of a lot. Other recent news headlines have mentioned that a “kill switch” for the internet access we enjoy in the US is being considered…. I’ve not read any of that closely, but I do feel we might do well in advance of any such event, or any other massive interruption of this service we rely on for so much, to begin to put back up systems in place.
The idea of a resurgence of ham radio is pretty appealing right now.