In a move unprecedented in the history of the Internet, the Egyptian regime of Hosni Mubarak has ordered all ISPs operating in the Arab country to cut their international connections to completely silence the protests that began on 25 January against the Egyptian government and now have their peak with an outpouring of opposition groups in Cairo.
The Egyptian government's decision means in practice 20 years back in the calendar, a world without Internet or mobile, also blocked throughout the country to avoid the sending of SMS among the participants in the marches. The government blackout of the four major operators of Internet-Link Egypt, Vodafone / Raya, Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr-did this last night after leaving inoperable access to Facebook and Twitter, the two social networks used by young Egyptians to coordinate, organize demonstrations and give encouragement to each other.
The consequence is that the Arab country has dawned gagged. This Friday all businesses, banks, cafes, schools, embassies, government agencies and any individual from your computer can not access the Internet to communicate or find out what is happening in the streets of their cities and in the world, according to Renesys able to confirm an Internet security firm based in Massachusetts (USA).
The most effective and brutal censorship in 2011. Mubarak's government, meanwhile, is silent and still with no explanation. Access from Egypt to the website of El Pais, for example, have fallen suddenly. Yesterday, there were 800 hits from IP addresses located in Egypt and the day before about 900, to 13.00 today there have been only six visits.
Unprecedented boycott Renesys experts are following the development and impact of the decision by the Egyptian authorities. According to them, shortly after last midnight (Egyptian), routers (routers in English) 3,500 Egyptians left to announce BGP routes, leaving the rest of routers without the necessary information to exchange traffic with Egyptian servers.
Currently you can not access virtually any Egyptian leadership from anywhere in the world. To Renesys, the situation is much worse and completely different from the "modest manipulation" that took place in Tunisia, where the riots erupted that forced exile of the dictator Ben Ali. In the Arab country were blocked only some routers.
It is also a step further regarding the censorship applies Iran, where Ahmadinejad's regime remains deliberately slow Internet to connect even more complicated. The boycott held this morning by Egypt has removed the country from the map literally global. Vodafone, the largest mobile operator in the world and that adds more customers in Egypt, said in a statement Friday that all mobile phone companies in the country have been ordered to suspend their services.
The British firm points out that Egyptian law empowers the government to take such decisions, so their only way out was ignoring the mandate of the authorities, reports The Wall Street Journal. The sources of Vodafone are assured that the Egyptian authorities give more details throughout the day.
What happens when you disconnect a modern economy and deprive the Internet to a population of more than 80 million people? What will happen tomorrow, on the street or in the financial markets, they ask in Renesys. These are questions that are now in the air, while a continuing street protests against Mubarak.
Comprehensive control Egypt, with 83 million inhabitants, has more than 16 million users through Internet, according to the annual report of Reporters Without Borders about censorship on the Internet (in PDF and in English), including the Arab country in the list of countries that apply some degree of censorship of content on the Web According to the report, May 2010, the Egyptian Government has carried out since 2007, a tight control on the pretext of fighting Islamist terrorism, with creation of a special department within the Ministry of Interior.
Facebook, for example, is subjected to constant scrutiny by the authorities, which store data, addresses and emails of hundreds of activists, some of whom have been arrested for the opinions expressed in the network happened without any order judicial authorization. Control over Internet traffic also requires suppliers to provide the Government with much data demands of its users.
The same applies to mobile phone companies. Anonymity is not possible in the Internet cafes in cities like Cairo. Everyone who is connected in such places at risk of being subjected, unbeknownst, a genuine police Reconnaissance wheel. The authorities often put pressure on the owners of these establishments that provide users' personal data.
Many cafes charge their customers to submit their documentation to get to change the code that allows them to get on the Internet. Reporters Without Borders strongly condemned Friday the Egyptian authorities' decision to cut Internet and receive SMS messages in the big cities, and has described the events of "exceptional measure of censorship." 
The Egyptian government's decision means in practice 20 years back in the calendar, a world without Internet or mobile, also blocked throughout the country to avoid the sending of SMS among the participants in the marches. The government blackout of the four major operators of Internet-Link Egypt, Vodafone / Raya, Telecom Egypt and Etisalat Misr-did this last night after leaving inoperable access to Facebook and Twitter, the two social networks used by young Egyptians to coordinate, organize demonstrations and give encouragement to each other.
The consequence is that the Arab country has dawned gagged. This Friday all businesses, banks, cafes, schools, embassies, government agencies and any individual from your computer can not access the Internet to communicate or find out what is happening in the streets of their cities and in the world, according to Renesys able to confirm an Internet security firm based in Massachusetts (USA).
The most effective and brutal censorship in 2011. Mubarak's government, meanwhile, is silent and still with no explanation. Access from Egypt to the website of El Pais, for example, have fallen suddenly. Yesterday, there were 800 hits from IP addresses located in Egypt and the day before about 900, to 13.00 today there have been only six visits.
Unprecedented boycott Renesys experts are following the development and impact of the decision by the Egyptian authorities. According to them, shortly after last midnight (Egyptian), routers (routers in English) 3,500 Egyptians left to announce BGP routes, leaving the rest of routers without the necessary information to exchange traffic with Egyptian servers.
Currently you can not access virtually any Egyptian leadership from anywhere in the world. To Renesys, the situation is much worse and completely different from the "modest manipulation" that took place in Tunisia, where the riots erupted that forced exile of the dictator Ben Ali. In the Arab country were blocked only some routers.
It is also a step further regarding the censorship applies Iran, where Ahmadinejad's regime remains deliberately slow Internet to connect even more complicated. The boycott held this morning by Egypt has removed the country from the map literally global. Vodafone, the largest mobile operator in the world and that adds more customers in Egypt, said in a statement Friday that all mobile phone companies in the country have been ordered to suspend their services.
The British firm points out that Egyptian law empowers the government to take such decisions, so their only way out was ignoring the mandate of the authorities, reports The Wall Street Journal. The sources of Vodafone are assured that the Egyptian authorities give more details throughout the day.
What happens when you disconnect a modern economy and deprive the Internet to a population of more than 80 million people? What will happen tomorrow, on the street or in the financial markets, they ask in Renesys. These are questions that are now in the air, while a continuing street protests against Mubarak.
Comprehensive control Egypt, with 83 million inhabitants, has more than 16 million users through Internet, according to the annual report of Reporters Without Borders about censorship on the Internet (in PDF and in English), including the Arab country in the list of countries that apply some degree of censorship of content on the Web According to the report, May 2010, the Egyptian Government has carried out since 2007, a tight control on the pretext of fighting Islamist terrorism, with creation of a special department within the Ministry of Interior.
Facebook, for example, is subjected to constant scrutiny by the authorities, which store data, addresses and emails of hundreds of activists, some of whom have been arrested for the opinions expressed in the network happened without any order judicial authorization. Control over Internet traffic also requires suppliers to provide the Government with much data demands of its users.
The same applies to mobile phone companies. Anonymity is not possible in the Internet cafes in cities like Cairo. Everyone who is connected in such places at risk of being subjected, unbeknownst, a genuine police Reconnaissance wheel. The authorities often put pressure on the owners of these establishments that provide users' personal data.
Many cafes charge their customers to submit their documentation to get to change the code that allows them to get on the Internet. Reporters Without Borders strongly condemned Friday the Egyptian authorities' decision to cut Internet and receive SMS messages in the big cities, and has described the events of "exceptional measure of censorship."
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