Gadgets Get Around Communications Block

Egyptians armed with low-tech electronic gadgets like dial-up modems, landlines and old-school satellite phones are finding ways to get their message out, despite efforts by the teetering government to block communication, reports Diane Macdeo at foxnews.com.

Those who had been using social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to distribute images and video to the outside world have had to come up more creative ways to communicate after the Egyptian government blocked Internet and cell service, a move that many are calling unprecedented.

"The Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet,"



Renesys, a U.S. Internet monitoring firm reported, on its blog. "…every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world."

Vodafone also issued a statement saying, "All mobile operators in Egypt have been instructed to suspend services in selected areas. Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it."

"This is a completely different situation from the modest Internet manipulation that took place in Tunisia, where specific routes were blocked, or Iran, where the Internet stayed up in a rate-limited form designed to make Internet connectivity painfully slow," the Renesys blog said. "The Egyptian government's actions tonight have essentially wiped their country from the global map."

Chris Weber, managing partner at Casaba Security, called the Egyptian government action "pretty scary," but says there are things even they can't block.

"If Egypt's shut down their main pipeline to the Internet, the Internet is designed in such a way that it's a mesh, so even if the main pipeline is down there are still other ways to get in," Weber told FoxNews.com.
One way: Satellite phones that communicate directly with satellites rather than cell towers.

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