[Chapter-delegates] Egypt blocking Facebook & Twitter

[Marcin Cieslak]

On Fri, 28 Jan 2011, David Solomonoff wrote:

>
> I can immediately think of a few:
>
>   * diaspora - decentralized Facebook alternative
>     https://joindiaspora.com/

Diaspora code poses numerous issues, including those
that can affect security and privacy of users[1] 
therefore it should be considered carefully.

I don't know how situation has changed since but
concerns expressed in the article seem to be 
well founded and severe.

>   * BATMAN ad hoc mesh network http://www.open-mesh.org/
>   * StatusNet open source microblogging platform - why use twitter -
>     easily blocked - when you can make your own - and put it back
>     online with a different name and IP if it's blocked http://status.net/
>   * VoIP over ad hoc mesh
>
> I'm sure people can think of many more - the problem is that while the 
> protesters are rejecting an overly centralized political system they continue 
> to rely on overly centralized communication networks and services.

There is an effort going to set up a ham radio connectivity.  I
have also had rumours with people accessing some ancient X.25
installations.

I am concerned that there is a lot of discussion about blocking
Facebook or Twitter and much less about the actual network-level
connectivity itself. We have all learned to ignore the presence of
the IP network that mostly "just works". Facebook or Twitter may
be gone in 2 or 3 years from now, but some kind of universal network
will probably stay, and we should be remininding this all the time.

My other concern - and this is about virtually all countries right
now, not only Egypt - is the overreliance on the traditional
telecommunication operators that concentrate large pieces of network
and keep control of the backhaul.  Of course, I think I understand
the reasons for it, the economies of scale, the need to invest and
manage the telco infrastructure, but most countries I know (especially
here in Europe) have special provisions for emergency shutdown of
telecommunication networks in tough times.  So we shouldn't be
surprised to see the same happening in any country that posesses
some noteworthy infrastructure.

As I kid I have witnessed a total telecommunication blackout in
December, 1981 in Poland. This was done with a very limited military
force. Even today we think it's all ubiquituous connectivity - but
I bet anybody who works in this industry can easy name some obvious
points of failure in their area.

And, finally, we should not forget DNS (this was already discussed
here with regards to the recent actions of the United States
government).

It would be nice to have an alternative, like mesh networks and
citizen-built infrastructure, but I wonder how many users are
prepared to invest in the decentralized system with their own money.

//Marcin

[1] http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/09/22/security-lessons-learned-from-the-diaspora-launch/