Ethiopia's Government Has Shut Down the Internet in a State of Emergency

iafrikan.com

80 points·tefo-mohapi··8 comments

I have taken on 2 guys in Addis to work on our startup. They have barely been online for 2 weeks and can't do their job. By the looks of things I might have to let them go. Sad for them and the country.

I understand that global internet connectivity usually occurs through a large telecom in a lot of African countries and governments can shut down that connection, but I wonder if a focus on creating decentralized networks can help people continue to communicate directly with one another.

How would this work on mobile though? 802.11 mesh networks with P2P mobile? At some point you need to air interface on the tower to route anywhere beyond the local LAN no? And unfortunately as you've said these are government entity.

Does anyone think this could happen on a larger scale? With the decentralization of DNS upon us, is it possible for a region to be cut off?

It's not only possible, but easy isn't it? Couldn't they just cut the cables leaving the country?

The article mentions they targeted primarily mobile communications. Well, a quick Google search for a map shows only a couple dozen cell phone towers in Ethiopia, so it's not hard to seize them all.

And China shows that it is perfectly capable of controlling internet access for a billion people.

Already under 10 countries have shut down the internet in africa around election time. It is very possible

What a shock that Calais is packed with, among other nationalities, Ethiopian people. To be honest, it seems like internet cutoffs are the least of the bad news coming out of that region on a daily basis.

They asked Trump who asked Bill Gates to "close up the internet".

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