Watching Egypt: How Do We Foil Internet Shutdowns
Posted by Mike E on January 29, 2011
The internet has connected people in unprecedented ways. All kinds of things go viral — and apparently even the overthrowing of governments (at certain moments).
Not surprisingly governments have also developed means of cutting of these connections at key moments. Israel “dropped an electronic curtain” when they attacked Gaza. In Iran and now Egypt, governments attacked the social media as people took to the street. In China, Internet control, segmentation and surveillance has been built in. The U.S. (which claims to be pro-freedom of information) tried to turn theWikileaks availability into a crime.
We need to deepen our understanding of how to use social media better (in preparation of forces for resistance and uprising). And (at the same time) we need to think strategically of what it will mean when the state cuts them off (as will inevitably happen at some point of struggle).
Slashdot reports (followed by an extensive discussion):
“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).”
The following is interesting both for what it says, and for the ways it tries to pool input in the midst of events. It is from Lifehacker. Thanks to RedFags for pointing it out.
How to Foil a Nationwide Internet Shutdown
by Adam Dachis
The Egyptian government cut internet connections across their country to silence protests, leaving nearly all of its citizens without online access. But they weren’t entirely successful. When governments shut down broadband and mobile connections, here’s what to do.
What’s Going on Now?
If you haven’t been keeping up with the story, here’s the gist. Citizens across Egypt are protesting their government in unprecedented numbers, and its believed that the internet played a major role in the protests. So what did the Egyptian government do? First, they started blocking domain name servers (DNS)—the phone book of the internet—but citizens circumvented this limitation by using proxy servers. In reaction, the government cut broadband connections to the web and forced mobile providers to do the same. For more details, read Gizmodo’s take on how Egypt turned off the internet. The result: a nationwide internet blackout that’s preventing Egyptian citizens from communicating online. To put it bluntly, this sucks. But it’s still not good enough. We’re going to look at how Egyptian citizens can (and are) circumventing the problem.
Old School Internet
Unless the Egyptian government kills all of the phone lines as well, you might remember one means of getting online that broadband has since relegated to obsolescence: dial-up. While there’s no Egyptian ISP that will allow internet access to Egyptian citizens, other countries will, meaning any Egyptian citizen with long-distance calling capabilities can break out their old school 56k modem and dial-up an ISP in another country. (Sure it’s going to be a slow connection, but you can survive.)
Several ISPs—such as Budget DialUp—offer dial-up numbers all over the globe. Some ISPs in other countries are offering free access to Egyptians specifically in response to the Egyptian government’s actions. According to twitter user @ioerror, French ISP FDN is one of them:
Egypt can use this number for dial up: +33172890150 (login ‘toto’ password ‘toto’) – thanks to a French ISP (FDN)#egypt #jan25
Others report that even DSL is still a possibility:
@SultanAlQassemi DIAL-UP ISP IS WORKING. DSL still working#Egypt,Try their Dial up numbers (0777 7770),(0777 7000) SPREAD THE WORD #jan25
While dial-up isn’t an ideal means of getting online for most of us, it’s still a perfectly effective means of connecting when your government shuts down the internet. And until the Egyptian government shuts down all landline access—another huge step up the censorship ladder—there’s not much they can do to completely shut down the internet.
Do you have resources that can help?
If you know of additional options to help Egyptians stay connected and keep the lines of communication open, please share in the comments or contact us directly. We’ll keep updating the post with new information as we find it.
Here are the resources you’re sending in as we get them:
You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Seamus said
Any infro re Egypt’s secular Left ? I heard one interviewee refer to the involvement of ” Secular Socialists ” in the Uprising but no organzations were mentioned .
At on time the Egyptian CP had some base but they were attacked by both the Govt. and the Muslim Brotherhood and seriously damaged .
Farraday said
Yes, please, all Egyptians, dial +33172890150 for “abject stupidity”.
Again we come to the point that you are utterly ignorant about what “the Internet” is, who made it, who controls it :
Do you know how easy it is for the Egyptian government to (ask telecom operators to) change the GTT for “+33172890150″ to re-rout to an internal number that will provide “dial up” services to Egyptians ?
Do you know how easy it is to find out who dialed this number ( which subscriber ) ?
Also, great show of “solidarity” with the oppressed people of the world. What a great expenditure of electricity to run your macbooks and dells and what great heaps of megabytes of server space filled with tweets, vids and comments in support of the Egyptian people. Oh, how could I forget, also a great expenditure of carbord and crayola for the piss poor signs held at the support rally.
I can’t dare to think what world would be today it Vietnam was protested on Tweeter, if MLK blogged on WordPress, if Mao made posted links on his website to funky videos of some lefty washouts for which the greatest contribution to the left cause is filming oneself with a “smartphone” while trying to be a piss-poor imitation if Victor Jara …
Oh, if only the people of Chile could have “harnessed the power of the Cloud”, if only Allende could have fucking tweeted !
How come most of the real solidarity, most of the real protests, where there is real involvement, real consequences and real results, happens in societies with the least (or none) “the Internet” access, while the land of the always-connected-always-liked-on-fecesbook-always-recording-1080p-HD-multitouch-me-i-am-rich-iOS4-multitasking-cloud-power-social-network is doing the lest protesting, with the non-existent results, taking no risks in order to avoid all consequences while, like a lobomized capitalist, enjoying all the benefits of the system they hate so much ?
Name one “intellectual” that came out of Harvard that isn’t a fascist white supremacist, white man’s burden crap ? What the fuck is the left doing on Facebook, which came out of Harvard, as an elite, exclusive, social-status display service ? What the fuck can you do on Facebook what you can’t do on IRC, that hasn’t been going on on IRC for 15 years or so ?
Do you know what the FUCK will be a really feat of solidarity ? Sending the people of Tunis and Egypt food, medicine and WEAPONS. You know, like they did in the dark ages, before “the Internet”. But I guess, then FBI and CIA are going to come down for you and cornhole you with the Koran. And then who the the fuck is gonna cry me a river on wordpress and tweeter over the tragic life of the oppressed people of this miserable world ?
So, in the end, I do not WANT the Egyptians to “stay connected” because they will become lethargic, ignorant idiots like you, who can only do something if a capitalist corporation first creates a “social network” service for them to click on from their corporate capitalist macbook or dell, connected though the corporate capitalist AT&T or Vodafone.
Workers of the world, tweet!
Of, if only workers could take over the Farmville!
SlabTzu said
@Farraday … wow, I can feel the frustration in your words. You ask powerful questions, but you kind of ask too much from the most brainwashed populace of the world. To answer just one of your questions:
“How come most of the real solidarity, most of the real protests, where there is real involvement, real consequences and real results, happens in societies with the least (or none) “the Internet” access, while the land of the always-connected-always-liked-on-fecesbook-always-recording-1080p-HD-multitouch-me-i-am-rich-iOS4-multitasking-cloud-power-social-network is doing the lest protesting, with the non-existent results, taking no risks in order to avoid all consequences while, like a lobomized capitalist, enjoying all the benefits of the system they hate so much ?” – Farraday
Well because corporates invest the most into this population to think the way they wish us to think, and to vote the way they wish us to vote, they even endorse pro-voting campaigns, because they have complete control over them. It’s always a different game for Romans than it was for the rest of the empire. Yes we’re easily fooled, but it has more to do with television/radio than the internet, where alternative independent coverage lives. Why do you think Obama’s FCC took away net neutrality? Because being connected is a threat.
About bringing folks food and medicine … I dont think being connected is in the way of that. When Cynthia McKinney was bringing supplies to Gaza, they used to internet to keep the world posted of their whereabouts and progress. They were blocked, yes, but still managed to share with the world the footage of the attack on their aid ship. It was crucial documentation to counter the lies coming from Israel.
The concern here is basically for journalism free of corporate control, not people going to celebrity gossip sites or hulu. Sharing of videos, and up to date information, etc. I know of no other way to to keep up to date besides being online. And sadly most of my people don’t even know that much.
I know some journalists (and Egyptians via FB) that are on the scene right now, but are having problems sending us their work ever since the internet crack down. So maybe, just maybe this article is extremely important … welcome to the global revolution.
@Mike E … YOURE AN ONLINE ZOMBIE SLAVE!!! Joking, man. Good concern you posted up here, it’s the type of thinking that gets anarchists into trouble. Love it. I think your ideas are good temporary solutions to the black out of voices in Egypt.
I just wanted to add, that video uploading and sharing can take an entire day on dialup, running up the phone bill like crazy. But if it’s the only choice we have, there are important things to consider and to prepare for. As I think *preparation* should be a primary goal in terms of if eventually happening at home.
Current operating systems and browsers on 56k or 28k dial up modems will run sluggish, but not if we’re using telnet emulation, emulating the way we used to log on before the world wide web, via BBS’s (Bulletin board systems). Using this kind of software would allow for the best and fastest way to use archaic speeds of 56k or 28k.
It still won’t help video upload speeds. But video can be downgraded for quicker sharing, but its going to look really pixelated. Using a telnet emulator will still allow for quick chatting, emailing, picture sharing, and even file sharing.
But it should be prepared and maximized for “when the time comes” … and tested. In short, we need developers to redo this kind of software and prepare it for journalism and activists. Update it to play video, and even render it in low quality and even port it to mobile devices. Allow it to updates blogs that can be seen from normal online browsers and even give it extra email features we all take for granted today, like mass emailing and threading, encrypted chatting and encrypted emailing.
There would have to be interconnected BBS networks, and not just a single server in a single place as well. As Farraday pointed out, a paranoid government in its last breaths can shut down the dialup number and even reroute it. Fail safes will have to be prepared. And there are many, many ways to do this. There can be a multi level cloud of servers, which all connect to an outside cloud of servers. As one level of servers is taken out, the second one automatically activates in its place. Organizers will have to constantly tell users the new numbers in the worse case scenario. Hiding/encrypting the list of who called what, is beyond me.
Part of the preparation will require a team of developers and activist networkers and coalition builders to connect everyone, and hand out “In case of emergency CDees” with the software. A good exercise would be to begin to connect activist offices via IRC or other chatting methods (like chat software that connects all the major chat programs into one) to begin to bring people closer to the idea of being connected with each other … struggles categorized in chat rooms …
… and its true what Farraday says, what the hell are we doing on facebook? Im on it, and I get up to the minute news on it, but I also know in my heart we require an independent social network that challenges this Goldman Sachs supported network to fight mass corporate brainwashing. We do need to be in control at some point. Maybe one day we can have our own Satellite.
But yes … we need to “prepare”. I like the sound of that. Yeah … let’s “prepare”!
Mike E said
Just a passing note:
Nothing in this post is intended as advice or as proposals. It reflects the kind of discussion that currently goes on (with their weaknesses) — and it helps indicate the kinds of issues that communists need to deal with (going forward). Our own discussion of methods and solutions has not yet happened.
Again: Posts on kasama are not intended as prescriptions — or as approved advice. This is hard for some people to understand (trained by all-knowing leninist organs that assume one-to-many processes)? Not clear on the concept.
Posts are a focus of discussion — approval, amplification and correction. Or as an object warning.
* * * * * * *
In fact, (in line with two of your questions) — revolutionaries of the past used the media and technology of their times (newspapers, radio, soapboxes, couriers, etc.)
It would be strange (and wrong) if revolutionaries of this century didn’t understand and exploit the incredible new features of digital communication (social networking, online archives of information, etc.)
It is hard to wrap a head around the incredibly infantile and false set of arguments here. First, all kinds of radical activity has come out of Harvard (including revolutionary communist). Second, even if the institution-as-institution is a center of empire (which it is) it hardly means that only “white supremacist” things emerge (or that any discovery, software, thought emerging from there is suspect and dangerous).
What can we do on facebook that we can’t do on IRC? Well, reach people. No one uses IRC, while hundreds of millions use facebook.
Our Kasama project (btw) started on Rosa Harris’ IRC channel fifteen years ago. And many of our methods were first tested and refined there.
On another note: Farraday, your insulting tone toward others in this discussion is outside the framework of this site (as developed on IRC). If you want to keep posting here, show a little respect towards others.
PatrickSMcNally said
> I can’t dare to think what world would be today it Vietnam was protested on Tweeter
It’s not a matter of what would have occurred if Vietnam had been protested on Tweeter. Had Tweeter existed in 1945 when the Vietnamese war against the French began then it is quite plausible that the war might have ended decisively at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Antiwar protests which occurred in 1965 might have happened 20 years earlier.
> Sending the people of Tunis and Egypt food, medicine and WEAPONS.
The Soviet Union was able to send weapons to the Vietnamese, and this was one of the facts which made me most mourn the passing of the USSR 20 years ago (despite my never having had any illusions about Brezhnev). But who else do you have in mind when you say that “they” did this before the internet? The main antiwar movement of the 1960s certainly didn’t do this.
brainstorm said
The topic of this post refers to foiling internet shutdowns. Dial-up connections to an international provider are one way to circumvent the blockage of information from inside the country to the outside world. This is, of course, assuming that phone connections are not shut down and that the phone infrastructure is stable enough to sustain an internet connection in your area. Sometimes you can barely hear a person on an international call, let alone keep a 56 Kbps data connection up. In a lot of countries people generally don’t have landlines, and any phone they might have would be cellular. To give a sense of the class divide, in Egypt (pop. ~83 million) there are 10 million landlines and 60 million mobile phones — and it’s difficult to connect to the net via a mobile.
At the same time, there is the issue of maintaining communications within an affected area. This is very important for people on the ground to be able to coordinate their activities especially if the cell phones and internet are both shut down. One potential solution uses WiFi. With a Pringles can and about $5 worth of equipment, one can rig up a directional antenna to a WiFi network adapter with a documented range of 10 miles (http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/448). Assuming one has a good line of sight between network nodes, one arranges connections between predetermined points and configures the wireless routers to act as repeaters. This type of network is completely independent of the Internet and would provide a sufficient range to network people in an urban area at high speeds. An antenna on one of the old Cabrini Green towers, for example, might have been in the line-of-sight of tens of thousands on Chicago’s north side.
One alternative to this that would circumvent problems with line-of-sight that WiFi presents is using the AX.25 protocol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio) to transmit data over radio. The significant trade-off with this much older technology is that the speeds are equivalent to the modems of the 1980s (1.2-9.6 Kbps); good enough for some basic text-only message transfer, but impossible to transfer images, sounds, or anything of significant file size. Nevertheless some have achieved high-speed results by modifying WiFi hardware to use over amateur radio frequencies, with ~5 mi omnidirectional/17 mi directional ranges (see http://www.qsl.net/kb9mwr/projects/wireless/plan.html).
As these kinds of connections require a degree of preparation, one drawback is that they would be best implemented prior to the emergence of a crisis situation necessitating their use. However, this certainly doesn’t mean that they would be impossible to rig up on short notice.
lpa said
I believe the type of wifi network being described by Brainstorm is a “mesh network”. Here is the Wikipedia page describing how it would work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesh_networking
I don’t know a lot about networks, but it seems that learning more about establishing mesh networks could be important.
zerohour said
Farraday writes:
Aside from the arrogant condescension, is there any material basis to show that internet access has led to a general decrease in intelligence or an increase in ignorance?
Mike writes:
Exactly. Does anyone think that if Marx, Lenin or Mao had access to the internet they would have rejected it? Marx would have refused to use a technology that would have put him in direct contact with thinkers and activists all over the world? Leinn and Mao would have refused to use a medium to communicate with millions of people at a time? Is there really no value in having a means to present one’s own narrative around the world in realtime? To be able to have information exchange and even line struggle on and international scale?
You think it’s not a good thing to have real time information on troop movements and positions during a coup? Or even without a coup, how about a different means of interaction between the people and the state that may allow for a bit more transparency?
IRC? Please. Either you know nothing about the importance of user interfaces, and the capabilities of social media, or you think your blinkered opinion is a substitute for observable facts.
I have to think that this is a generation-based critique that reflects a deep ignorance of the ways in which the internet has shaped the lives of those who grew up immersed in it. The internet isn’t about exchanging data in some bland way (why not use Terminal and just send text?) but incorporates technology allows for some degree of corporate-mediated “self-expression”. Whether this fits into someone’s idea of how people are supposed to communicate is irrelevant – it’s how people do communicate.
No one here has argued that the online world should supplant direct physical interaction for organizing, but it’s been changing the social and political landscape in ways that many radicals in the US have yet to catch up with. Those who want to have any relevance had better catch up ,or get used to impotently shaking your fist in history’s rearview mirror.