Fax Machines, Ham Radio Leading Egyptian Protest
Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, politics, Today's Chili
What’s a country to do when its government has instituted one of the largest Internet blackouts in history? Simple: turn to older technologies. Protesters in Egypt are adopting a number of outdated pieces of tech, from dial-up modems to ham radio to fax machines.
The modems are actually being provided by a number of activist groups like We Re-Build and Telecomix, getting people online to voice complaints via sites like Twitter (the proper hastags, incidentally, are #egypt and #jan25). As the BBC points out, a number of ISPs in countries like the US, France, Spain, and Sweden are waiving fees and setting up the means for making calls to Egypt to help circumvent the informational blackout.
Anonymous, the hacktivist group that gained a good deal of prominence in recent months, thanks to its role in the Wikileaks fight, has been faxing information from the whistleblowing site to Egyptian schools.
The aforementioned We Re-Build is relaying information from ham radio via phone and Morse code.
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