Intelligent Tech
Egypt Goes Dark, Cuts Off Internet And Mobile Networks
For the first time in modern history a major Internet economy is being shut down. The Egyptian government appears to have cut off web and mobile phone access to much, if not most of its citizens ahead of a weekend of mass demonstrations against Hosni Mubarak. The country’s controversial president has been in power for nearly 30 years and local people are calling for regime change.
Mobile phone networks have reportedly been disrupted, leaving millions without access to text messaging or phone calls.
The country’s key Internet Service Providers are also off the air, says James Cowie, the chief technology officer of Internet monitoring firm Renesys on his blog. “Virtually all of Egypt’s Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.”
Government sites like egypt.gov.eg are offline, as are local media sites like www.ahram.org.eg.
Another Internet monitoring firm, BGP Mon, says that 88% of the “Egyptian Internet” has been taken offline, according to its analysis. “Yesterday there were 2,903 Egyptian networks, originated from 52 ISP’s,” researcher Andree Toonk says. Today there are only 327 Egyptian networks left.
How did this happen? Renesys observed an almost simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the “Internet’s global routing table” just after midnight, local time, last night: “Approximately 3,500 individual BGP [Border Gateway Protocol] routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange internet traffic with Egypt’s service providers.”
Facebook also confirmed to Reuters that it had seen a drop in traffic from Egypt this morning, while Vodafone released a statement this morning confirming it had suspended services in the area:
All mobile operators in Egypt have been instructed to suspend services in selected areas. Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it. The Egyptian authorities will be clarifying the situation in due course .
Activists have taken to Twitter to report on the situation while the local dialup network NOOR appears to still be online. One tweet that has been doing the rounds recommends that locals who have NOOR access or a working Wifi router remove their passwords in order to share access with neighbors.
What makes this digital blackout different to previous ones such as Iran, where governments blocked access to Facebook and Twitter, is its all-encompassing route of taking all major ISPs offline. “The government seems to be taking a shotgun approach by ordering ISP’s to stop routing all networks,” says Toonk of BGP.
The government’s stance in this is also still unclear: Earlier this week Egyptians had been unable to access social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, but the government subsequently denied that it had blocked access. Now it appears this was just the beginning a much bigger clampdown.
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[...] to blogs.forbes.com For the first time in modern history a major Internet economy is being shut down. The Egyptian [...]
… AND OUR CONGRESS IS CONSIDERING LEGISLATION TO ALLOW BIG BROTHER TO CUT OFF OUR INTERNET!!!
Is anyone surprised by this???
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[...] 29. Jan, 2011 0 Comments Egypt dark, cut to Internet and mobile networks Government appears to have closed Internet access throughout the country ahead of the mass demonstrations. Read more on Forbes [...]