How Egypt Cut Off the Internet

How Egypt Cut Off the Internet

news.yahoo.com

The Kill Switch
While images of a big red button housed inside a Plexiglass case that can only be unlocked by two simultaneous key twists of top government officials seem to fit the idea of how such an internet kill switch would work, the reality is far more mundane. In Egypt's case, the internet service providers that operate within the country agree to let the government shut down the commonly-used DNS servers if they see fit to do so.

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The intelligence agency invented the www and I assume all of it layers and protocols.My point being is that they might say they are working on a kill switch,and that to me means that they already have several versions they are testing. Isn't is similar to the US trying to pressure Wikileaks from leaking more.Not that I support Egyptian Govt cutting off the internet. If US is advising, then they have to look at themselves.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Surfrat


I would think if they simply shut down the DNS servers of the ISPs within Egypt, simply using a DNS server outside the country such as Google's could be a possibility.

Edit: On second thought it might not work. It could let a device get outside (maybe) but there would probably be problems communicating with anything still connected to those DNS's. There's always alternative ways with technology though

This is exactly why people like this need to be supported: Internet activist: Why I want to buy a Satelite - Free Internet for Everyone

In case this sort of thing happens in some country in the world, the Government won't be able to restrict internet use in case of emergency. People will be able to communicate with the outside world, ask for help, or just report on what's going on. Yet,... nobody seemed to think the thread was important enough to keep going. Oh well.

Mubarak: I have request the government to step down today.

Watch Al Jazeera English: Live Stream
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It would be worth looking into foreign satelite internet providers. It may be expensive, but could also potentially be worth it. For example, here in the US if the government cut off the internet but I had satelite internet from a provider in Canada, the US government wouldn't be able to cut off my access very easily.

Originally posted by 2manyquestions
This is exactly why people like this need to be supported: Internet activist: Why I want to buy a Satelite - Free Internet for Everyone

If things got bad enough, just shoot down the satellite. We have proof of concept. A single missile from an Arleigh-Burke class destroyer has done it. So have the Chinese.

reply to post by schuyler


In that case it seems that warbird03's suggestion seems best,.. but.... are foreign countries allowed to shoot down satellites that belong to other countries? Isn't that an act of aggression? If the satellite doesn't belong to the Egyptians or the Chinese, how do they have the right to shoot it down and deprive people all over the world of the internet? Seems like that would be a no-no.

reply to post by warbird03


Sadly i dont think it works that way. Your dns(domain name servers) and ip(internet protocal)addresses are provided by your isp(internet service provider) which is provided from a block of ip's they host along with their own dns servers. If your isp shuts down their dns, You go nowhere. You cant just throw in a secondary set of random dns ip's since your main ip is still tied to the isp's blocks. There is no such a place as www.yahoo.com. The world DNS servers routes you to the ip host of that domain name. Thats why, if you had a website and changed hosting companies, it takes 24-72 hrs for the worlds DNS servers to populate the new ip. If all the users knew the IP address of twitter or facebook, it might fly, but i dont think so.