Egypt Leaves the Internet (Renesys blog)

The only realistic way to have a system which would be out of Government control would be some mesh-based wireless network which had a decentralised naming system. In a country like Egypt there are obvious geographical problems with an idea like that, and even in a best case you'd need a substantial amount of coverage for it to be practical.

I think it basically has to be acknowledged that there is essentially no technical solution that can fend off such an attack: fundamentally, Governments that are unable to exercise control over such key infrastructure are not really in power in the first place.

Of course governments have had no problem just making pretexts out of thin air in order to squash political dissent. The majority of governments carry out acts of violence against their own citizens as just a matter of course and then dream up justifications well after the fact.

You are proposing to side-step the question of taking over tv stations/ISPs/telephone exchanges by building a second communications network alongside the existing one. This won't work for two reasons 1) people who are revolting because £50 a month wage minus £30 rent can't buy food will not have the necessary equipment, 2) The Egyptian government can use some of the $1.3bn military aid from the US to buy 2.4GHz radio detector vans to drive around and arrest regime opponents with their own network.

Classically in Barcelona and St. Petersburg the revolutionaries were able to take control of the telephone/telegraph exchange and prevent the state from organising itself effectively. The same logic applies today, just that the IP infrastructure that is also important in organising a revolution or its counter-revolution.

Absolutely though. We need to be always on the cutting edge of technology and do whatever is possible to have free and clear communication independent of our governments.

This happenned in Iran too. News tried to downplay the issue at first. Cries to the American government to help ensure democracy fell on deaf ears because it was not politically expedient for Obama to address Iran at the time. But the rest of the world still heard about it despite government best effort to supress and control information.

When I listen to the BBC and CNN all I see is government officials or friends of states wondering outloud how other middle eastern countries are going to be able to surpress their own issues for the sake of stability. I just listenned to a half of a hour of Senator Clinton and a talking head hinting at how the protests could lead to the reestablishment of a militant Muslim government and other radio folks were discussing how this threatens the Palistinian peace process because the Eqyption government served as a important advocate. Stuff like how the prisoners 'broke out' if prison.

What we know, if we pay attention, is that the government released the prisoners to insite violence and use videos of that to try to paint the protesters as inherently violent, anarchistic, and wild law breakers. We know that it's really people grouping together to put pressure on a politically and economically repressive dictator that should of stepped down decades ago.

We also know that a free and open society is the best way to ensure peace in the region.

I am very happy that I no longer have to depend on the media to gather news. Quite frequently they get quite a bit wrong, extremely slow to get information to the public and they frequently have their own political agendas.

Another thing to remember is that this man is a friend of the USA government. I just hope that he does not snap and decide to let the military loose. Getting information out realtime can help prevent this... because otherwise they are not going to get any support from any other government in the region or abroad.