By now most people have heard something on the riots in Egypt. This situation is so in flux it is impossible to say, with any accuracy what the outcome will be. For now, it appears the public is stirred to the point that nothing less than the ousting of Mubarrak will satiate the crowds. However, the more important point is: what happens after he departs? With so much confusion right now, the picture of the future of Egypt hangs by a thread, with no one seeing past the next few hours. It is beginning to feel like Iraq in that the people wanted Saddam gone, but after he was gone, there was left a vacuum which sucked in ideas, people and concepts many Iraqis found to not be in their best interests.
When Mubarrak leaves, there will be a sigh of relief, but also there will be a groan of concern, as those who wanted change are now in a position to determine what kind of change. That instability is a dangerous component, and one which could play the most important role in the type of change that Egypt has to deal with.
There are elements at work here, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, who will do what they can to wrest control into their hands, and if that occurs, you will see a paradigm shift of Biblical proportions not only in Egypt, but throughout the entire region. Watch for the MB to exert it's influence in the coming days, and watch them present themselves as a "moderate" alternative to Mubarrak and any other challengers to the throne.
From PRonlineNews Jan 27
The country has been bracing for a huge outpouring of protests after Friday prayers.
The Muslim Brotherhood has called for its followers to demonstrate after weekly Muslim prayers, the first time in the current round of unrest that the largest opposition bloc has told supporters to take to the streets.
See the original story from CNN here.
Remember Mohammad ElBaradei, the former UN head of the International Atomic Energy Association(IAEA)? He is out with the protesters, presenting himself as a "moderate" replacement for Mubarrak. The problem is, he is supported by, and he supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Watch for him to stir the pot, and watch the media canonize him as an acceptable replacement for Mubarrak.
Here are two other pieces on Egypt to help fill in the gaps and add context. Remember, it is all about context.
From Yahoo News/AFP Jan 27
When Mubarrak leaves, there will be a sigh of relief, but also there will be a groan of concern, as those who wanted change are now in a position to determine what kind of change. That instability is a dangerous component, and one which could play the most important role in the type of change that Egypt has to deal with.
There are elements at work here, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, who will do what they can to wrest control into their hands, and if that occurs, you will see a paradigm shift of Biblical proportions not only in Egypt, but throughout the entire region. Watch for the MB to exert it's influence in the coming days, and watch them present themselves as a "moderate" alternative to Mubarrak and any other challengers to the throne.
From PRonlineNews Jan 27
Egypt poised for unrest: shuts down Intenet and Twitter
Hours ahead of what are expected to be massive displays of anti-government ferment across the world’s most populous Arab nation, the internet went dark in parts of Egypt early Friday, and text messaging appeared to be blocked.The country has been bracing for a huge outpouring of protests after Friday prayers.
The Muslim Brotherhood has called for its followers to demonstrate after weekly Muslim prayers, the first time in the current round of unrest that the largest opposition bloc has told supporters to take to the streets.
See the original story from CNN here.
Remember Mohammad ElBaradei, the former UN head of the International Atomic Energy Association(IAEA)? He is out with the protesters, presenting himself as a "moderate" replacement for Mubarrak. The problem is, he is supported by, and he supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Watch for him to stir the pot, and watch the media canonize him as an acceptable replacement for Mubarrak.
Here are two other pieces on Egypt to help fill in the gaps and add context. Remember, it is all about context.
From Yahoo News/AFP Jan 27
Egyptian Internet cutoff 'unprecedented': Renesys
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Egypt's four main Internet service providers (ISPs) cut off international access to their customers in a near simultaneous and unprecedented move, an Internet monitoring company said.
"Virtually all of Egypt's Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide," said James Cowie of Renesys, a New Hampshire-based firm which monitors Internet routing data in real-time.
"In an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet," Cowie said in a blog post.
"Critical European-Asian fiber-optic routes through Egypt appear to be unaffected for now," he said.
"But every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world," Cowie said.
"Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air," he said.
Cowie said Renesys observed a "virtually simultaneous" withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks at 2234 GMT on Thursday, "leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange Internet traffic with Egypt's service providers.
Cowie said one exception was the Noor Group, which still has 83 live routes to its Egyptian customers.
He said it was not clear why the Noor Group was apparently unaffected "but we observe that the Egyptian Stock Exchange (www.egyptse.com) is still alive at a Noor address."
Egypt has been rocked by days of protests against President Hosni Mubarak.
Mobile telephone networks were severely disrupted in the country on Friday along with the Internet.
Mobile phones and the Internet have been used by activists to organize the most serious anti-government demonstrations in decades, amid warning by the Interior Ministry that it would take "decisive measures" against protesters.
The protests were inspired by the groundbreaking uprising in Tunisia which led to the ouster of veteran Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years in power.
And this from Yahoo/AP Jan 27 by Jordan Robinson
Almost simultaneously, the handful of companies that pipe the Internet into and out of Egypt went dark as protesters were gearing up for a fresh round of demonstrations calling for the end of President Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule, experts said.
Egypt has apparently done what many technologists thought was unthinkable for any country with a major Internet economy: It unplugged itself entirely from the Internet to try and silence dissent.
Experts say it's unlikely that what's happened in Egypt could happen in the United States because the U.S. has numerous Internet providers and ways of connecting to the Internet. Coordinating a simultaneous shutdown would be a massive undertaking.
"It can't happen here," said Jim Cowie, the chief technology officer and a co-founder of Renesys, a network security firm in Manchester, N.H., that studies Internet disruptions. "How many people would you have to call to shut down the U.S. Internet? Hundreds, thousands maybe? We have enough Internet here that we can have our own Internet. If you cut it off, that leads to a philosophical question: Who got cut off from the Internet, us or the rest of the world?"
In fact, there are few countries anywhere with all their central Internet connections in one place or so few places that they can be severed at the same time. But the idea of a single "kill switch" to turn the Internet on and off has seduced some American lawmakers, who have pushed for the power to shutter the Internet in a national emergency.
The Internet blackout in Egypt shows that a country with strong control over its Internet providers apparently can force all of them to pull their plugs at once, something that Cowie called "almost entirely unprecedented in Internet history."
The outage sets the stage for blowback from the international community and investors. It also sets a precedent for other countries grappling with paralyzing political protests -- though censoring the Internet and tampering with traffic to quash protests is nothing new.
China has long restricted what its people can see online and received renewed scrutiny for the practice when Internet search leader Google Inc. proclaimed a year ago that it would stop censoring its search results in China.
In 2009, Iran disrupted Internet service to try to curb protests over disputed elections.
And two years before that, Burma's Internet was crippled when military leaders apparently took the drastic step of physically disconnecting primary communications links in major cities, a tactic that was foiled by activists armed with cell phones and satellite links.
Computer experts say what sets Egypt's action apart is that the entire country was disconnected in an apparently coordinated effort, and that all manner of devices are affected, from mobile phones to laptops. It seems, though, that satellite phones would not be affected.
"Iran never took down any significant portion of their Internet connection -- they knew their economy and the markets are dependent on Internet activity," Cowie said.
When countries are merely blocking certain sites -- like Twitter or Facebook -- where protesters are coordinating demonstrations, as apparently happened at first in Eqypt, protesters can use "proxy" computers to circumvent the government censors. The proxies "anonymize" traffic and bounce it to computers in other countries that send it along to the restricted sites.
But when there's no Internet at all, proxies can't work and online communication grinds to a halt.
Renesys' network sensors showed that Egypt's four primary Internet providers -- Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr -- and all went dark at 12:34 a.m. Those companies shuttle all Internet traffic into and out of Egypt, though many people get their service through additional local providers with different names.
Italy-based Seabone said no Internet traffic was going into or out of Egypt after 12:30 a.m. local time.
"There's no way around this with a proxy," Cowie said. "There is literally no route. It's as if the entire country disappeared. You can tell I'm still kind of stunned."
The technical act of turning off the Internet can be fairly straightforward. It likely requires only a simple change to the instructions for the companies' networking equipment.
Craig Labovitz, chief scientist for Arbor Networks, a Chelmsford, Mass., security company, said that in countries such as Egypt -- with a centralized government and a relatively small number of fiber-optic cables and other ways for the Internet to get piped in -- the companies that own the technologies are typically under strict licenses from the government.
"It's probably a phone call that goes out to half a dozen folks who enter a line on a router configuration file and hit return," Labovitz said. "It's like programming your TiVo -- you have things that are set up and you delete one. It's not high-level programming."
Twitter confirmed Tuesday that its service was being blocked in Egypt, and Facebook reported problems.
"Iran went through the same pattern," Labovitz said. "Initially there was some level of filtering, and as things deteriorated, the plug was pulled. It looks like Egypt might be following a similar pattern."
The ease with which Egypt cut itself also means the country can control where the outages are targeted, experts said. So its military facilities, for example, can stay online while the Internet vanishes for everybody else.
Experts said it was too early to tell which, if any, facilities still have connections in Egypt.
Cowie said his firm is investigating clues that a small number of small networks might still be available.
Meanwhile, a program Renesys uses that displays the percentage of each country that is connected to the Internet was showing a figure that he was still struggling to believe. Zero.
On The Web: http://renesys.com/blog/
"Virtually all of Egypt's Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide," said James Cowie of Renesys, a New Hampshire-based firm which monitors Internet routing data in real-time.
"In an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet," Cowie said in a blog post.
"Critical European-Asian fiber-optic routes through Egypt appear to be unaffected for now," he said.
"But every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world," Cowie said.
"Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all their customers and partners are, for the moment, off the air," he said.
Cowie said Renesys observed a "virtually simultaneous" withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks at 2234 GMT on Thursday, "leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange Internet traffic with Egypt's service providers.
Cowie said one exception was the Noor Group, which still has 83 live routes to its Egyptian customers.
He said it was not clear why the Noor Group was apparently unaffected "but we observe that the Egyptian Stock Exchange (www.egyptse.com) is still alive at a Noor address."
Egypt has been rocked by days of protests against President Hosni Mubarak.
Mobile telephone networks were severely disrupted in the country on Friday along with the Internet.
Mobile phones and the Internet have been used by activists to organize the most serious anti-government demonstrations in decades, amid warning by the Interior Ministry that it would take "decisive measures" against protesters.
The protests were inspired by the groundbreaking uprising in Tunisia which led to the ouster of veteran Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years in power.
And this from Yahoo/AP Jan 27 by Jordan Robinson
The day part of the Internet died: Egypt goes dark
Egypt unplugs from Internet as protests loom; 'unprecedented in Internet history'
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- About a half-hour past midnight Friday morning in Egypt, the Internet went dead.Almost simultaneously, the handful of companies that pipe the Internet into and out of Egypt went dark as protesters were gearing up for a fresh round of demonstrations calling for the end of President Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule, experts said.
Egypt has apparently done what many technologists thought was unthinkable for any country with a major Internet economy: It unplugged itself entirely from the Internet to try and silence dissent.
Experts say it's unlikely that what's happened in Egypt could happen in the United States because the U.S. has numerous Internet providers and ways of connecting to the Internet. Coordinating a simultaneous shutdown would be a massive undertaking.
"It can't happen here," said Jim Cowie, the chief technology officer and a co-founder of Renesys, a network security firm in Manchester, N.H., that studies Internet disruptions. "How many people would you have to call to shut down the U.S. Internet? Hundreds, thousands maybe? We have enough Internet here that we can have our own Internet. If you cut it off, that leads to a philosophical question: Who got cut off from the Internet, us or the rest of the world?"
In fact, there are few countries anywhere with all their central Internet connections in one place or so few places that they can be severed at the same time. But the idea of a single "kill switch" to turn the Internet on and off has seduced some American lawmakers, who have pushed for the power to shutter the Internet in a national emergency.
The Internet blackout in Egypt shows that a country with strong control over its Internet providers apparently can force all of them to pull their plugs at once, something that Cowie called "almost entirely unprecedented in Internet history."
The outage sets the stage for blowback from the international community and investors. It also sets a precedent for other countries grappling with paralyzing political protests -- though censoring the Internet and tampering with traffic to quash protests is nothing new.
China has long restricted what its people can see online and received renewed scrutiny for the practice when Internet search leader Google Inc. proclaimed a year ago that it would stop censoring its search results in China.
In 2009, Iran disrupted Internet service to try to curb protests over disputed elections.
And two years before that, Burma's Internet was crippled when military leaders apparently took the drastic step of physically disconnecting primary communications links in major cities, a tactic that was foiled by activists armed with cell phones and satellite links.
Computer experts say what sets Egypt's action apart is that the entire country was disconnected in an apparently coordinated effort, and that all manner of devices are affected, from mobile phones to laptops. It seems, though, that satellite phones would not be affected.
"Iran never took down any significant portion of their Internet connection -- they knew their economy and the markets are dependent on Internet activity," Cowie said.
When countries are merely blocking certain sites -- like Twitter or Facebook -- where protesters are coordinating demonstrations, as apparently happened at first in Eqypt, protesters can use "proxy" computers to circumvent the government censors. The proxies "anonymize" traffic and bounce it to computers in other countries that send it along to the restricted sites.
But when there's no Internet at all, proxies can't work and online communication grinds to a halt.
Renesys' network sensors showed that Egypt's four primary Internet providers -- Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr -- and all went dark at 12:34 a.m. Those companies shuttle all Internet traffic into and out of Egypt, though many people get their service through additional local providers with different names.
Italy-based Seabone said no Internet traffic was going into or out of Egypt after 12:30 a.m. local time.
"There's no way around this with a proxy," Cowie said. "There is literally no route. It's as if the entire country disappeared. You can tell I'm still kind of stunned."
The technical act of turning off the Internet can be fairly straightforward. It likely requires only a simple change to the instructions for the companies' networking equipment.
Craig Labovitz, chief scientist for Arbor Networks, a Chelmsford, Mass., security company, said that in countries such as Egypt -- with a centralized government and a relatively small number of fiber-optic cables and other ways for the Internet to get piped in -- the companies that own the technologies are typically under strict licenses from the government.
"It's probably a phone call that goes out to half a dozen folks who enter a line on a router configuration file and hit return," Labovitz said. "It's like programming your TiVo -- you have things that are set up and you delete one. It's not high-level programming."
Twitter confirmed Tuesday that its service was being blocked in Egypt, and Facebook reported problems.
"Iran went through the same pattern," Labovitz said. "Initially there was some level of filtering, and as things deteriorated, the plug was pulled. It looks like Egypt might be following a similar pattern."
The ease with which Egypt cut itself also means the country can control where the outages are targeted, experts said. So its military facilities, for example, can stay online while the Internet vanishes for everybody else.
Experts said it was too early to tell which, if any, facilities still have connections in Egypt.
Cowie said his firm is investigating clues that a small number of small networks might still be available.
Meanwhile, a program Renesys uses that displays the percentage of each country that is connected to the Internet was showing a figure that he was still struggling to believe. Zero.
On The Web: http://renesys.com/blog/
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