Egyptian Government Shut Down the Internet

[Nathan Explosion]

Did anyone hear about this? Essentially, during the protests to oust the president, the government shut down all internet access in Egypt for 5 days.

Egypt Leaders Found ‘Off’ Switch for Internet
By JAMES GLANZ and JOHN MARKOFF
Published: February 15, 2011

Epitaphs for the Mubarak government all note that the mobilizing power of the Internet was one of the Egyptian opposition’s most potent weapons. But quickly lost in the swirl of revolution was the government’s ferocious counterattack, a dark achievement that many had thought impossible in the age of global connectedness. In a span of minutes just after midnight on Jan. 28, a technologically advanced, densely wired country with more than 20 million people online was essentially severed from the global Internet.
Several turning points helped to bring the people of Tunisia and Egypt, who have long felt abused by their governments, into the streets. View »

The blackout was lifted after just five days, and it did not save President Hosni Mubarak. But it has mesmerized the worldwide technical community and raised concerns that with unrest coursing through the Middle East, other autocratic governments — many of them already known to interfere with and filter specific Web sites and e-mails — may also possess what is essentially a kill switch for the Internet.

Because the Internet’s legendary robustness and ability to route around blockages are part of its basic design, even the world’s most renowned network and telecommunications engineers have been perplexed that the Mubarak government succeeded in pulling the maneuver off.

More Here

[Cry Havoc]

Yeah, it was all over the news for the duration of the outage.

[MannyIsGod]

Dude, no offense but this is like posting that the Spurs won the 99 le.

[Dex]

[Mr.Bottomtooth]

[Nathan Explosion]

It's not the news, but the actual story about how they did it. So quick to judge, yet so slow to actually read.

[Nathan Explosion]

I posted the portion I did not as a teaser but to show how people were amazed a country could black out something that supposedly is hard to regulate.

Also, the interesting thing is how the internet is playing a part in Iranian protests and how Iran wants to do the same. And also, Egypt may end up becoming the model to the rest of the region on how to rid oneself of an oppressive regime. The US wanted to turn Iraq into a beacon of democracy in the region, but Egypt may end up being that beacon because of the fact that it was a homegrown revolt.

[IronMexican]

It's not that it's underwhelming news. It's that it's old news.

[baseline bum]

The US wanted to turn Iraq into a beacon of democracy in the region

[MannyIsGod]

It's not the news, but the actual story about how they did it. So quick to judge, yet so slow to actually read.

I posted the portion I did not as a teaser but to show how people were amazed a country could black out something that supposedly is hard to regulate.

Also, the interesting thing is how the internet is playing a part in Iranian protests and how Iran wants to do the same. And also, Egypt may end up becoming the model to the rest of the region on how to rid oneself of an oppressive regime. The US wanted to turn Iraq into a beacon of democracy in the region, but Egypt may end up being that beacon because of the fact that it was a homegrown revolt.

Dude I'm sorry but you're just way behind the curve here. This has been talked about ad naseum in the political forum in several threads (including one where the Feds were passing a bill to be able to do what Egypt did prior to there ever being an uprising) so I don't know what to tell you other than you're late.