How to Foil a Nationwide Internet Shutdown

How to Foil a Nationwide Internet Shutdown

How to Foil a Nationwide Internet Shutdown
The Egyptian government cut internet connections across their country to silence protests, leaving nearly all of its citizens without online access. But they weren't entirely successful. When governments shut down broadband and mobile connections, here's what to do.

What's Going on Now?
If you haven't been keeping up with the story, here's the gist. Citizens across Egypt are protesting their government in unprecedented numbers, and its believed that the internet played a major role in the protests. So what did the Egyptian government do? First, they started blocking domain name servers (DNS)—the phone book of the internet—but citizens circumvented this limitation by using proxy servers. In reaction, the government cut broadband connections to the web and forced mobile providers to do the same. For more details, read Gizmodo's take on how Egypt turned off the internet. The result: a nationwide internet blackout that's preventing Egyptian citizens from communicating online. To put it bluntly, this sucks. But it's still not good enough. We're going to look at how Egyptian citizens can (and are) circumventing the problem.

Old School Internet
Unless the Egyptian government kills all of the phone lines as well, you might remember one means of getting online that broadband has since relegated to obsolescence: dial-up. While there's no Egyptian ISP that will allow internet access to Egyptian citizens, other countries will, meaning any Egyptian citizen with long-distance calling capabilities can break out their old school 56k modem and dial-up an ISP in another country. (Sure it's going to be a slow connection, but you can survive.)

Several ISPs—such as Budget DialUp—offer dial-up numbers all over the globe. Some ISPs in other countries are offering free access to Egyptians specifically in response to the Egyptian government's actions. According to twitter user @ioerror, French ISP FDN is one of them:

Egypt can use this number for dial up: +33172890150 (login 'toto' password 'toto') - thanks to a French ISP (FDN)#egypt #jan25
Others report that even DSL is still a possibility:

@SultanAlQassemi DIAL-UP ISP IS WORKING. DSL still working#Egypt,Try their Dial up numbers (0777 7770),(0777 7000) SPREAD THE WORD #jan25
While dial-up isn't an ideal means of getting online for most of us, it's still a perfectly effective means of connecting when your government shuts down the internet. And until the Egyptian government shuts down all landline access—another huge step up the censorship ladder—there's not much they can do to completely shut down the internet.

Do you have resources that can help?
If you know of additional options to help Egyptians stay connected and keep the lines of communication open, please share in the comments or contact us directly. We'll keep updating the post with new information as we find it.

Here are the resources you're sending in as we get them:

Harness the power of the cloud and TOR to get Egyptians a better connection
SailMail
You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

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brendonwbrown
08:22 PM

I don't know what they were protesting, but if their government shut down their internet for it, it must have been good.

See 1 reply

Maave
07:40 PM

You break out the ****ing wifi-modded satellite dishes, slap up repeaters, then pipe sources clear across the border.
[www.engadget.com]

Another fun one would be an out-of-country basestation with ham/SATCOM access. See if there are any ham operators in the area or jack those left over Cold War SATCOMs like the Portuguese and Brazilian radio pirates.
Edited by Maave at 01/28/11 7:45 PM


hahn
06:26 PM

I just bookmarked this page just in case .... then suddenly realized.

Now I have an emergency kit Document on my laptop.


flinx1
05:33 PM

Take away my internet connection and I'd be burning down the parliament too :P.


Logos11
05:09 PM

Might want to keep a copy of the above handy, because if Sen. Lieberman gets his way, the entire U.S internet population will be one button away from getting its internet service yanked....and to think I thought we lived in a democracy; silly me!
leonardtj approved this comment

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AJMandourah
04:12 PM

I think VPN service can do the tricck also.
In addittion of using google publicDNS, a good combination.
WiFi promoted this comment
Antrikshy approved this comment

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Lite: an adventurer is me!
04:11 PM

Has anyone checked to see if EgyptSat is still working or not?

See 6 replies

Java-Princess
03:54 PM

We should publicly thank FDN and anyone else who is providing free access to the beleaguered Egyptians. I'll start - Thanks FDN, you did good for your country.


Melde
03:36 PM

Alright, so looking at this Tor site - to help the people of Egypt, should I be setting up "Relay traffic for the Tor network" or "Help censored users reach the Tor network"? I know it seems obvious, but still not sure what to do after turning it on.


hj85d3g
03:16 PM

Cool! I'll save this in my "Apocalypse" folder
Melde promoted this comment

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rex7
03:14 PM

A post that I would like to see:

Is there some way that I can set up a free number and share my DSL connection with the folks in Egypt who need it? How would it work? Can I set up a VOIP number, and somehow connect at least one person through a modem? Is my question incredibly naive?
AcidSpoon is hoping for a second wave promoted this comment


toniperdido
02:54 PM

Smoke Signals.
AcidSpoon is hoping for a second wave promoted this comment


BeerManMike
02:12 PM

Just let me google how to setup a dial up connection, free numbers and how to get started...

NOOOO!!!!!
Revolutions promoted this comment


Jason Douglas
02:09 PM

why does gizmodo/lifehacker post things like "how the terrorists hid their bombs" or "How to help wiki leaks"?
Just two examples, but I feel like they are endorsing radical behavior.
Adam Dachis approved this comment

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mrjeremiahross
01:59 PM

Theoritically, they may be able to setup some wireless point to point T1 type technologies at the borders and use a mesh network for limited access.

This would not service regular individuals, but would allow for some communication to the outside.

This is risky as s### however; and could be stopped if the Egyptian government wanted to impede upon the spectrum.

I can't imagine that Egypt would be willing to crush the commercial sector in this fashion.
Edited by mrjeremiahross at 01/28/11 2:00 PM


kondrik
01:47 PM

I will now be waiting for the "hack together a free (and fast) satellite internet hookup from an old directv dish and spare parts" article.. Any takers?


policeman1280
01:36 PM

Hahaha, lol @ internet revolutioners. The people that are "dialing up" and shit are just blogging about what they see from their window (in case they don't live in a basement). They talk about THE PEOPLE IN THE STREET, that are climbing tanks and actually DO stuff. Internet is nice, but it has never been necessary to trigger revolutions. That's a geek's dreamworld in which he can imagine that he has real power.
mrjeremiahross promoted this comment
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AgentRockstar
01:32 PM

Does anyone know the airspeed velocity and distance that can be covered by an unladen European swallow? I'm going to send several to Egypt with this article attached... should only be about .5 ounces...
Haneyg promoted this comment
Edited by AgentRockstar at 01/28/11 1:33 PM

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kcunning
01:25 PM

Does this really deserve the 'Dark Side' tag? If you're fighting for your right to speak freely to the world, and your government is doing it's best to stop you... Well, I'm pretty sure that you're the one wearing the white hat.
CamJN promoted this comment

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waltcoleman
01:21 PM

In the mean time, isn't the US Government debating an internet "kill switch" over here...in case of a "cyber" emergency?

The last thing a free society needs is government killing communications.
mrjeremiahross promoted this comment


TheOtherHalf
01:20 PM

Growing up and living in suburbia, I can't imagine what it must be like to be in a city full of turmoil like Cairo right now. I wish there was some way to help, but I can just hope and pray for the best. Egypt was cooler when Hatshepsut was Pharoah.


MaCuban
01:01 PM

Egypt is a HUGE cross connect for almost every top tier data pipe going from Europe to Asia. I wonder if there were any effects from this. Probably not as the companies pulling the plug where not top tier though.
PrairieMoon promoted this comment


drongch
12:49 PM

I'd like to point out a few (possibly unrelated) things:

With the Iranian riots, twitter and facebook was prominent in the media for "spreading the word"

What very few have mentioned after that was the authorities began their crackdown by identifying accounts and arresting local citizens or threatening relatives of exiles.

Withing a few weeks, pro-government tweets were in the majority. This passed embarassingly by by the same folks who were championing the rise of social media.

I'd like to say:
I do not know the situation in Egypt, or what triggered these riots and who are the major players. I applaud LH's stance to keep lines of communication open. I have put up the preceding paragraphs for food for thought just in case people get carried away. Stay safe. Be well. Good luck and God Bless.


BlackBush
12:47 PM

Cars with satellite internet hooked up to computers powered by the car's generator. Probably add wifi broadcasting ability to the computer. Thus circumventing the landline internet.

Can't jam the skies!
CamJN approved this comment

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Giorgio Anselmi
12:45 PM

What about Amazon Whispernet? Does it depend on local 3G coverage as well?

The Amazon Kindle allows you to freely surf on the Internet in a selected number of nations through Amazon "private" 3G network called Whispernet. In other nations, like Italy (where I live), you can only surf if you're under WiFi.

This said, even if you're in a no-surf nation, you still can do a number of things. Buying books online wherever you are won't be useful during street riots, but you (provided you have a profile) can also highlight and publish snippets of text on Facebook and Twitter. It's usually for discussing a specific book passage, buy you can write whatever you want in the note, so even if it would appear next to the book passage (cover included), it could effectively have anything written on it. Even an SOS or important information.

Of course, if it relies on local 3G it would be as dead as everyone else. Reply
Pwnage promoted this comment