[Chapter-delegates] Statement: The Internet Society on Egypt’s Internet shutdown

[Christian de Larrinaga]

Olivier

ISOC's statement is one of the best I've seen. But your point on the economic and societal impact with partners around the world is spot on. The disconnection policy is throwing out the baby with the bath water. 

The only link that appeared to be up as of last night was via Noor into the stock exchange (one of four links they have), but running slower than dial up. If this was by design it suggests that their authorities have a very poor understanding of the depth of the interconnectivity that maintains their economy and society not only internally but with their friends, allies and trade partners globally. 

best regards

Christian 

On 28 Jan 2011, at 23:10, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:

> Thank you for the speed at which you managed to draft this statement.
> 
> As someone who is running an ISOC  community-sponsored project, the IPv6 Matrix project, in which one of the goals is to develop hands-on practice for research students at Nile University, Cairo, to program and use IPv6 networking, I can only add my deep disappointment. I am baffled as to how we'll continue development work now.
> 
> The cutting of connections to the outside world has been done in such a crude way (deleting of routing from routing tables) that even Egypt's root nameserver for .EG is off-line and only its US-based back-up is running. As for all names in .EG - since the nameservers are not reacheable, they all time out.
> 
> [ocl at waikiki ~]$ dig www.nileuniversity.edu.eg any
> ; <<>> DiG 9.3.6-P1-RedHat-9.3.6-4.P1.el5_4.2 <<>> www.nileuniversity.edu.eg any
> ;; global options:  printcmd
> ;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
> [ocl at waikiki ~]$
> 
> With many Egyptian companies carrying out business over the net, including many businesses doing back-office work as well as software development, I'd hate to imagine what this is going to mean to the Egyptian economy. In my opinion, this is akin to nuking the economy in order to remain in power by all means possible. How unwise.
> 
> Warmest regards,
> 
> Olivier
> www.ipv6matrix.org Project manager
> 
> 
> On 28/01/2011 20:38, Anya Chambers wrote :
>> 
>> 
>> Dear all
>> 
>> Please find below a statement from the Internet Society in response to the recent events in Egypt:
>> "We are following the current events in Egypt with concern as it appears that all incoming and outgoing Internet traffic has been disrupted. The Internet Society believes that the Internet is a global medium that fundamentally supports opportunity, empowerment, knowledge, growth, and freedom and that these values should never be taken away from individuals.
>> 
>> The Internet Society considers this recent action by the Egyptian government to block Internet traffic to be an inappropriate response to a political crisis. It is a very serious decision for a government to block all Internet access in its country, and a serious intrusion into its citizens’ basic rights to communicate.  If the blockage continues, it will have a very detrimental impact on Egypt's economy and society. Ultimately, the Egyptian people and nation are the ones that will suffer, while the rest of the world will be worse off with the loss of Egyptian voices on the net.
>> 
>> However we are most concerned about the safety and security of the Egyptian people.  Alongside the rest of the world, we share the hope for a positive and lasting solution to the problems that have risen to the surface there.
>> 
>> In the longer term, we are sure that the world will learn a lesson from this very unfortunate example, and come to understand that cutting off a nation's access to the Internet only serves to fuel dissent and does not address the underlying causes of dissatisfaction."
>> 
>> It is also available on our wesbite here; http://isoc.org/wp/newsletter/?p=3091
>> 
>> Regards
>> 
>> Anya
>> 
>> Anya Chambers
>> Internet Society
>> 
>> mobile: +1 224 321 0378
>> web: www.InternetSociety.org
>> twitter: InternetSociety
>> 
>> What will the Internet look like in 10 years? 
>> Watch the trailer; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OInTXcZ4HZM
>> 
>> For more information: www.internetsociety.org/scenarios
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
> -- 
> Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
> http://www.gih.com/ocl.html
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