<nettime> Ben Rooney: Egypt Cuts Off The Net. Net Fights Back (Wall Street Journal Tech Blog)

["Patrice Riemens" <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

bwo Michael Polman/ Antenna

original at:
http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/01/29/egypt-cuts-off-the-net-net-fights-back/


Egypt Cuts Off The Net. Net Fights Back

By Ben Rooney

Protestors in Egypt are using dial-up to get round net blocks

Egypt´s sealing off the country from the rest of the internet has provoked
a series of low-tech initiatives aimed at allowing at least some sort of
connection.

Yesterday a small French ISP, NDF opened up a dial-up line to allow access
to anyone with a modem.

The international dial-up numbers only work for people with access to a
telephone modem and an international calling service, which not all
Egyptians have.

However, an Egyptian couple have published a comprehensive guide on how to
use the mobile phone network to connect to international dial up internet
providers.

"In a nutshell we need to dial another international ISP, but since most
of our homes back in Egypt have no international phone-call capability we
will by-pass this by linking to the mobile-phone network which is by
default has international capability but unfortunately a little pricey (~2
LE a minute) but sufficient to make urgent communication on internet," the
couple wrote on their blog.

The post goes into great detail on how users can circumvent the blocks put
in place by the Egyptian government.

Other such sites are springing up across the net. We Rebuild, which
describes itself as "a decentralized cluster of net activists" has
compiled an Egypt resource page which lists all of the ways in which
activists are using the net, and other resources.

Elsewhere there are reports that China has blocked mention of Egypt on
Sina Weibo, the biggest Twitter clone in China. A search for "Egypt" on
the Sina microblogging service brings up a message saying, "According to
relevant laws, regulations and policies, the search results are not
shown", says Aljazeera.





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