How would you communicate if...

In Egypt, the government has shut down 4 out of 5 of the internet companies and cellular companies to reduce the ability of it's citizens organizing a resistance movement against the current political power.

If the US Government gets an Internet Kill Switch,
How would you communicate if internet and cellular communications were shutdown?

It is much easier in Egypt because there are only 5 ISP's, in the U.S. there are 4000.

 

"The Next Net" thread on [noparse]gold-silver-crypto@rayservers.com[/noparse] might be of interest.

 

Pretty interesting post by md,

 

Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down

http://www.pcworld.com/article/218155/get_internet_access_when_your_government_shuts_it_down.html

 

Thanks, that's a great resource.

 

you would go out of your home, see everyone else, and rediscover the power of well organized communities.

 

Projects to Create a Government-less Internet: Openet, Netsukuku, OPENMESH, Daihinia, Digitata, Freifunk, wlan ljubljana, Tonika, B.A.T.M.A.N...

http://www.datelinezero.com/2011/01...-government-less-internet-and-why-its-needed/

 

I like this comment on the PCWorld article:

This person probably also has a system set up with radios, the OED, and a one time pad using a real piece of paper I like his thinking. Way to go, Northern lower Michigan.

 

Perhaps the answer to this lies in the past - we should, therefore, ask what did we do before we used the internet or mobile telephony?

 

Hmmm...

 

Well, as Steve notes, we talked with our neighbors and friends. We had meetings and rallies, and spread the word via posters that we plastered everywhere. We used the telephone, with hierarchic calling networks.

However, I don't see community organizing and decentralized computer networks as mutually exclusive. Indeed, they're plainly synergistic. Without community organizing, few would see the value of decentralized networks. And good communication obviously facilitates community organizing.

 

A good mainstream opinion piece which again invokes mesh networking. Mesh networking starts with community organization:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/05/rushkoff.egypt.internet/index.html?hpt=C1

 

The bigger news for me is how quickly they turned it on again. There is no end in sight to the protests and unrest yet internet-access was already restored.
Even though a very developed country by comparison this is still Africa. How long do you think a "First World" country would want turn off the internet? As everything depends on it, the question becomes what will the "powers that be" lose if they hit the killswitch compared to a civil unrest or even a revolution (which you can't stop that way anyway).
Let's not forget that these powers aren't just reigning politicians. There are always many forces at work with their own agendas, some of which also stand to gain through a political change.

Internet censorship is an all or nothing affair. You can either block it completely (and then fail at that again as we saw, dialup and so on) or you let information flow. All attempts to censor within the network can and will be circumvented unless the complete infrastructure is downgraded to the dystopian Internet2 cable like infotainment medium. We are on our way there but I wouldn't worry yet (that is shunting down the internet - there's lot to worry about elsewhere).

 

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that people with old dial-up modems were able to connect out during the blackout in egypt.

I wonder if that is possible? I have been thinking about this lol, if say the government ever hits the cut-off switch would dial-up be still usable?

 

From here