Internet, Facebook blackout hits Algeria as protests gain strength

"The protests and Internet crackdowns in these countries have revived talk in the United States of giving the president an Internet kill switch."

I would hope that these events would be useful in convincing the people of the US that it is a bad idea to give the president a kill switch. The internet wasn't turned off in Egypt to help the Egyptian people, after all, and, if it is going down in Algeria, it isn't for their benefit, either.

That articles is light on details. Renesys, who did a great job reporting on what was happening with Egypt's networks, is keeping an eye on the situation. Hopefully they'll have some details tomorrow:

http://www.renesys.com/blog/2011/02/watching-algeria.shtml

It sounds to me like Bouteflika might be volunteering to be next.

edit: I should note, as the renesys link above, that all of Algeria's prefixes are still being advertised publicly, so if they are blocking the internet at this point it is some kind of internal filter and not an Egypt-style total cutoff.

I'm visiting Morocco in about 10 days. They seem relatively stable compared to Algeria, but I've seen reports of marches being organized there as well. It will be interesting.

Google has not taken a hit so the internet as a whole does not seem to be blocked.

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/?r=US&l...

lies, im algerian and there is no blackout here