Re: NYTimes: Egypt Leaders Found ‘Off’ Switch for Internet

Wed Feb 16 19:28:22 UTC 2011

On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 9:09 AM, Marshall Eubanks <tme at americafree.tv> wrote:
>
> On Feb 16, 2011, at 12:15 AM, Joly MacFie wrote:
>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/technology/16internet.html
>>
>> There has been intense debate both inside and outside Egypt on whether the
>>> cutoff at 26 Ramses Street was accomplished by surgically tampering with the
>>> software mechanism that defines how networks at the core of the Internet
>>> communicate with one another, or by a blunt approach: simply cutting off the
>>> power to the router computers that connect Egypt to the outside world.
>>
>
> I do remember some intense debate, here and elsewhere, but I somehow don't remember those as being the primary debate parameters.

Interesting article though.

There are several good pieces to take-away from that article (not
really 'news', but still healthy with the occasional refresher):

"Individual Internet service providers were also called on the carpet
and ordered to shut down, as they are required to do by their
licensing agreements if the government so decrees."

"When he, too, noticed that domestic fiber-optic cables were open, he
had a moment of exhilaration, remembering that he could link up
servers directly and establish messaging using an older system called
Internet Relay Chat. But then it dawned on him that he had always
assumed he could download the necessary software via the Internet and
had saved no copy."

Operating local IRC networks is good, as is having local OS mirrors,
such as Debian/Ubuntu and let's not forget, having a resilient DNS
configuration (root zone copy hint 101: "dig @k.root-servers.net. .
axfr").   A securely distributed
"network-contingency-plan-autocrat-generic-all.deb" could be useful,
as well.

Cheers,
Martin