Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
I will never forget the first time I cranked up a 1200 bps modem and logged onto Prodigy: that skreeeeeeeeee-chik-chik-chik sound, the anxious anticipation, the unbelievable availability of a world I hadn’t yet experienced. Sure there were books in libraries before there was a WWW but the Internet offered places and people previously out of my reach and though it took an excruciatingly long time to get to things sometimes, it was all there and somewhat reasonable at $2.99 an hour. I can’t believe that was almost 20 years ago, my how time flies when you’re streaming endless amounts of porninformation via the precious tubes.
I couldn’t imagine being in the middle of total societal breakdown without the Internets. Thankfully Egyptians are a clever lot and don’t have to imagine such a thing either.
At least 30 different dial-up services are being offered to the Egyptian people to circumvent the shutdown, according to Paris-based French Data Network, a group founded in 1992 to make data accessible. The group opened up one such “small window” on the Internet network to help Egyptians access the Web.
“This is definitely an open attack from a state against the Internet,” the group said in a statement on its Web site. “FDN has decided to open a small window on the network.”
Internet traffic volumes in Egypt slumped in a “coordinated fashion” shortly after midnight on Jan. 28 after demonstrators took to the streets demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, according to Internet security firm Arbor Networks. More than 90 percent of Egypt’s Internet networks are currently down, the Geneva-based nonprofit Internet Society said today.
I remind dear reader that "They" have been trying to take over the Internet here at home for years. Each time the legislation seems to sputter and each time a new crop of Congressional asshats pops up with a new bill looking to install an Internet kill switch or otherwise regulate the wild world wide web. That’s like trying to regulate stars in the sky but don’t tell them that, they need something to do.
The latest is the Cyber Security and American Cyber Competitiveness Act (S. 21), sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and chairs of seven committees with jurisdiction over cybersecurity: Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.). (via Infosecurity)
Our tubes, ourselves!
