Egypt 'hijacked Vodafone network'

Thu Feb 3 19:20:04 UTC 2011

On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:59 PM, Scott Brim <scott.brim at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 02/03/2011 10:14 EST, Marshall Eubanks wrote:
>>
>> On Feb 3, 2011, at 9:24 AM, andrew.wallace wrote:
>>
>>> Mobile phone firm Vodafone accuses the Egyptian authorities of
>>> using its network to send pro-government text messages.
>>>
>>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12357694
>>
>> Here is their PR
>>
>> http://www.vodafone.com/content/index/press.html
>>
>> Note that this is entirely legal, under "the emergency powers
>> provisions of the Telecoms Act"
>
> Which is legal, Vodafone's protest or the government's telling them to
> send messages?  afaik the agreement was that the operator would have
> preloaded canned messages, agreed on in advance with the government, and
> now the government is telling them to send out arbitrary messages they
> compose on the spot.
>
>

I wonder if these messages were blockable by the end-user or if they were being sent as a service announcement from Vodafone.

Certainly, if the government were sending the messages under the company name then something sounds wrong about that.

What I would like is to hear from someone who received the messages and what their experiences were.

Andrew