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Help Egypt. Join the cloud

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43 pointsinstakill20 comments

Tunisian here: What made the revolution are poor people. Period. Internet may help to spread the word, mostly to the outside world and media. But I don't think that will have much pressure on a mad government and dictator. Poor people don't have Internet.

How the Tunisian Revolution succeed: It's war (and not civilized protests) that made the revolution succeed. Police clash with angry civilians. Police cars and stations gets burned and destroyed. Hotels and resorts are key point, too. Properties that belong to the dictator are also a key point.

One Police man reported that he sleeps only 1 hour during the protests days. Protests are 24/24, non stop. Some go for it in the day and some in 3 A.M. Everything that belongs to the president is under-fire.

Big damages in Police will get it tired and exhausted. So it should last 3 or 4 weeks. The economy will stop and the police lose its' prestige. (After the clashes, the police men are afraid from citizen).

Unless this happens, there will be no change. It needs time and patience. Even if the dictator escapes, there will be a need for protests against the remaining of the system and the population should work forward clearing what has remained.

I hope all the best for the Egyptian and the rest of the Arabic World.

What do you think will come out of all this?

I'm not sure about the Arabic world. However, Tunisia may see a strategic and amazing change.

Today I went to the café and all people are talking about politics. They talk about the new government, the elections, the prime minister, the old dictator...

How can you stop these people, in 6 months. You absolutely can't. Then, we'll meet again in the election. It's another turning point. Because, we need someone reliable.

If you have read wiki-leaks, there were many opportunities for investment in Tunisia. Ben Ali mafia were asking 50% stake, they were charging investors for nothing and implying that they take the constructions themselves. Lot of opportunities lost.

We have a strategic position, a young generation, a good educated portion. We can attract much more tourism and investment. Certainly that will need time, but I think becoming a developed country in the next 15 years is now possible!

I'm not 100% sure of that, but if the internet in Egypt is actually blocked by not advertising BGP routes at the ISP level, my guess is TOR will not even work at all. Can anyone confirm?

A suggestion for Anonymous: prepare WiFi and dial-up equipment packaged as one-step setup appliances and packaged for outdoor installation. These could be used to establish some sort of information infrastructure, then abandoned in hidden locations on rooftops. Having such equipment prepared and ready to ship out would make it much harder for regimes to cut their people off from the rest of the world.

Equipment could be shipped DHL to nearby countries and smuggled in. DIY cellular and satellite uplink are also possibilities.

Packet Radio is another good possibility.

DIY cell tower:

http://kb9mwr.blogspot.com/2010/09/diy-emergency-cell-tower....

If this could be used to just support SMS over packet radio, that would still be useful.

This is circulating on twitter right now:

#egypt Anonymous dialup service provided by www.fdn.fr on +33172890150 login toto password toto MASS RT PLZ

There are a number of other numbers being posted.

EDIT: apparently Noor Dialup is still working too: 0777 7770

EDIT2: much more info on getting online in egypt: http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/howto-stay...

The best way to help Egypt is not to let the mainstream news change the subject in 48 hours after their predetermined news-cycle (or average American attention span) ends.

BBC/PBS might be the only news outlets to cover this in two weeks, everyone else will be doing pieces on Valentines Day.

I don't understand why you think that keeping the attention of random Americans helps Egypt at all. They are building this revolution themselves without any of our involvement, and they'll keep going and succeed without caring that we're watching them on TV.

I think it matters a lot more how their neighboring countries act, not how frequently people in New York or Oklahoma think about them.

I'm implying that international news coverage inhibits the powers-that-be from doing super horrible things like keeping thousands of protesters in prison, or even killing thousands.

It would be nice if their neighboring countries helped them directly, but that doesn't seem to happen in the middle-east?

However if the news stops reporting, just like all the multi-national conglomerates have obediently pulled the plug on their cellphones and sms so they can make money after this is over, the people are kinda doomed as there will be no outside pressure.

I cannot remember the last time I heard Iraq mentioned on the mainstream news since we still have 50k troops there, there is zero followup.

The US finances Egypt's current military state. If Obama's approval rating start to dip due to people calling their representatives to drop the military finance, it might happen, with enough angry Americans.

How much bandwidth would be required to let this run for a week? Mine's capped at about 50GB.

Isn't all the internet in Egypt blocked? Like you can't connect to the outside. How would a TOR network help? You still need to have IP connectivity to reach TOR nodes outside of your country.

I don't understand why you Americans are getting an erection for all these "revolutions" in the Arab world. These are not revolutions, this is rioting by ignorant mobs. There are no institutions for democracy in these places, and democracy will not come out of it. The best case scenario is that the current socialist/paternalistic dictatorships will be replaced by enlightened, modernizing dictatorships like they had in Chile, Taiwan or South Korea. But let's face it, if this hasn't happened up till now, it ain't gonna happen.

>if this hasn't happened up till now, it ain't gonna happen.

Flawless logic.

Sorry to be raining on your parade here. The first wave of "democracy" the Arabs had is when the colonial rulers left and they ethnically cleansed their countries from Jews and established Soviet-style "people's democracies". Then we have Gaza, which also had a people's revolution and is now even more of an impoverished and belligerent dictatorship. Now we are getting a similar "revolution" in Lebanon.

But don't let facts interfere with your worldview.

There are no facts here yet. Egypt is still as we speak literally in the midst of chaos. You cannot yet know what will be built from the rubble and neither can anyone else, except those who will be doing the building.

The only political force that is sufficiently organized to take power in Egypt is the Muslim Brotherhood, so it's pretty obvious what is going to come out of this.

Then we have Gaza, which also had a people's revolution and is now even more of an impoverished and belligerent dictatorship.

You mean under Israel, right?

No, they were economically better off "under Israel". Of course, life cannot be reduced to just economical issues.

Yeah, right. Tell that to America in 1770.

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