Weekend tech reading: How Egypt shut down the Internet

[Matthew DeCarlo]

How Egypt did (and your government could) shut down the Internet How hard is it, exactly, to kill the Internet? Egypt seems to have been able to do it. But Egypt's situation isn't exactly the same as that in the Western world. And even though Egypt only has four big ISPs, the fact that everything went down after midnight local time suggests that it took considerable effort to accomplish the 'Net shut-off. Ars Technica

China blocks 'Egypt' on Twitter-like site China has blocked the word "Egypt'' from the country's wildly popular Twitter-like service, while coverage of the political turmoil has been tightly restricted in state media. China's ruling Communist Party is sensitive to any potential source of social unrest. 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.'' News.com.au

Swedish ISP will automatically encrypt all traffic to protect privacy under new data retention laws When Sweden first put in place its IPRED law, which required ISPs to hand over identifying info on people accused of file sharing, one of the first ISPs to respond was Banhof, who immediately put in place a new policy to delete all log files. Now that Sweden is pushing forward with a data retention law that would require ISPs to keep log files, Banhof has taken things up a notch by encrypting all traffic on their network via a VPN. Techdirt

Google Android Honeycomb ported to the NOOKcolor: Doesn't really work yet The good news is that the first version of Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb has been ported to an existing Android tablet. Xda-developers forum member deeper-blue combined data from the preview SDK Google released this week with a kernel for the NOOKcolor eBook reader to get the software up and running on the tablet. liliputing

QuakeCon 2011 dates announced id Software's annual event of fragging and sharing pornography, QuakeCon, has been dated for 2011. QuakeCon 2011 will run from August 4 until August 7, 2011, id's fellow ZeniMax Media subsidiary Bethesda Softworks has announced. QuakeCon will once again invite a horde of gamers to the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas. Shacknews

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https://www.techspot.com/news/42201-weekend-tech-reading-how-egypt-shut-down-the-internet.html

 

[matrix86]

"China blocks 'Egypt' on Twitter-like site"

Uh oh, looks like China's afraid of retaliation from its citizens. I would just love to see how an Egypt-like situation would play out in China. Hopefully the Chinese are as smart as we stereotype them to be and learn ways around the block. I'm sure there are already a few who know the news...and a few is all it takes. I have a few pin-pals in China who hate their government...might have to send them a newspaper

 

[ramonsterns]

I hope China revolts. It would be interesting.

 

[Luay]

Americans are brainwashed. The revolt needs to start in your country for more important and less obvious reasons. Watching a US Presidential Election is like watching WWE.

 

[Guest]

Google "tiananmen square massacre". I think that is how china would respond...bloody!

 

[Leeky]

Americans are brainwashed. The revolt needs to start in your country for more important and less obvious reasons. Watching a US Presidential Election is like watching WWE.

I think the USA is fairly unique for presidential elections, due to the geographical size of the country, and all of its states.

The election campaign is always going to be "showy" when you have such a large area to cover, and many millions of people possibly bidding for you.

 

[matrix86]

Sorry Luay, but I fail to see how starting a revolt in our country is going to effect the rest of the world. Another civil war is the LAST thing we need right now while other countries are trying to sneak in and kill us. This is what happens, though, when your country keeps sticking its nose in other peoples business...can't you tell how much I just love my government
You have to really think about these things. In Egypt, all citizens revolt the government and focus their energy on that. Here in the US, revolting against the government mean more crimes and murders. There are a lot of people in our country who would much rather spend time killing and stealing just because they'll be able to get away with it. I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the US, criminals could care less what else is going on. They see a perfect opportunity, they take it.
There is a lot that goes on in our government that we don't like and that most likely is taking us down the wrong path, but for now we still have rights and freedoms...much more so than most other nations. A reformation in the US would be as drastic as that of Egypt or even China. Now if our government did have a kill switch for media and used it and if they started censoring people about certain subjects, then yes, we would be a good example for other nations. But for now, we're just way too broke to afford a bucket to piss in and there's not a whole lot that would be changed (at least not a lot that's visible).
I don't know, just my thoughts. A revolt in the US would just raise crime rates and put us further in debt. But if US citizens did decide to revolt, you bet your *** I'll be standing beside them. I bet our past presidents would even rise from the dead to help us...poor suckers are probably turning in their grave knowing what's become of the system they started, lol

 

[Luay]

It wasn't the "showy" part that I meant was similar to the WWE in particular, it's that a person or an organization top of the political pyramid decides who will be president, and then present that person to the public as their new soon to be elected president. Just in case that person might not get enough votes to win the presidency, a complete ***** (aka, Gore (who actually won but that was taken care of), Kerry (remember him?) and McCain) is presented as his competitor.
It isn't a "two party rule" either. It is one party with two wings. A democratic wing that is appointed when there is economical restructuring on the horizon and the leash is loosened on the public, and a Republican wing when the economy is going down, the leash is tightened and it's time to bombard and loot a defenseless country. Oversimplified but hey, it's IT why I browsed here in the first place.

 

[red1776]

(aka, Gore (who actually won but that was taken care of)

No Luay...he did not win. In order to win a presidential election, you must do what is required to win. That is garner 270 electoral votes. the electoral college is put into place to assure that the election represents the entire country, namely the 'flyover' land between the coasts. Other wise the election would be decided by a few large cities on either side of the country and leave the vast expanse in between unrepresented...you know, the people who feed the country. oversimplify that smart-***.

 

[Guest]

Nah something like this will never happen in the U.S. again. Just keep giving the people here football, American Idol, and other cr@p to keep peoples attention elsewhere. Couple that with the fact that the country no longer believes in something called "personal responsibilty", most people are just happy with being told what they need from higher ups.

 

[Guest]

Here in Europe we saw it that way too, Gore won and the Bushites made sure of the dynasty continuing

 

[EDO219]

Good articles. However, the NSA has implemented kill-switches and filters on our intercontinental Internet traffic as a last resort. I'm not sure about Internet access within the United States' borders, though.

 

[Guest]

The 2 main political parties in the US are like the WWE with the fake brand split. The Republicans are Raw and the Democrats are Smackdown but both brands are owned by the same people. The same with the two political parties, their continuity of agenda is startling with the numerous laws that strip the rights of the American citizen.