How Egypt Was Able To Shut Down The Internet

Yesterday the reports started coming in that the Egyptian government, in an effort to stop the unmediated flow of information regarding the week-long protests against them, effectively turned off the Internet, thereby stopping citizens on the ground from updating the world via social networks, blogs, email, and other forms of communication. Cell communication, home Internet, maybe even landlines. How was the government able to silence so many so quickly and could it ever happen here?

First, it should be noted that the Egyptian government has denied blocking any websites. However, in the early days of the protests, there were apparent efforts by someone to block the biggest social networking sites: Twitter and Facebook. Protesters and activists had been using these sites heavily to coordinate, set up events, and check on each other. So they’re the natural targets of whoever would want to curb the protests. Shortly after news of the blockage started to circulate, I saw several postings on Twitter pointing to How To articles on using proxies, which can get around them.

The halt of Internet traffic out of Egypt came on Thursday at 5:28 p.m. ET according to BGPmon, who stated on their blog that 88% of traffic is just gone. Minutes later journalists reporting on the protests disappeared from their IM clients. According to a CNN report, Egypt’s infrastructure is fairly diverse, yet the government was able to get to multiple sources of traffic at around the same time; “…shutting off [international network communication] would require the state to have access to all international internet connections in the country and the actual physical locations where the connection, either via optic fiber or via satellite, are connected to the Egyptian national network,” a source told the Wall Street Journal.

Most Egyptians apparently access the Internet through their phones rather than via a computer. So when first SMS, then all cellular service went down, protesters were cut off almost entirely from the world and each other. Vodafone, a global cellular provider,  issued a statement saying that they and other cellular companies were told to stop services and complied.

Could this happen to us? Currently, the Obama administration’s stance is that Egypt’s actions are wrong. The Washington Post reported that “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had publicly urged Egypt not to close off access to the technology and social media that were being used to organize demonstrations,” and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted: “government must respect the rights of the Egyptian people & turn on social networking and internet.”

Even if this stance changes, the telecommunications infrastructure of the U.S. may be too diverse for such a swift and widespread shut down. Even the bill introduced last summer that raised fears of an Internet Kill Switch wouldn’t necessarily allow for such a thing. Plus, the government would have to force all of the major cell providers in the country to comply — the feds can’t even get them to agree on net neutrality.

Still, the Egyptian government’s actions have disturbed and dismayed many. We can only hope that the shutdown of communications doesn’t result in irreparable damage to the country’s citizens.

via CNN, Wall Street Journal, Bikya Masr, Washington Post, PCMag