Holy cow, Egypt!

[rockmanj]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12307698

Who has been keeping up with this?

[darkshadow]

The power of an angry mob always manages to impress me somehow.

[rockmanj]

I am fascinated by this whole episode. It looks like the president of 30 years is going to be deposed and the Middle East looks like it might be looking different there in a short time.

[Kraco]

Interesting happenings. At least when viewed from thousands of kilometers away... You could hardly call the Middle East or the northern Africa the most stable regions in the world, but I suppose for a big tourist country like Egypt this is out of ordinary.

[XanBcoo]

Al-Jazeera is doing streaming coverage of all this:
http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

[Death BOO Z]

things are a bit shakey in the middle east (well, shakier than usual).
Egypt, Lebanon, the Palestinian authority.
Sudan and Tunisia, obviously.

[David75]

Someone really needs to develop nanonetworks connectivity on hanheld devices. I guess we're almost there already. Since those devices become more and more affordable, being able to connect multiple devices without the need for GSM antennas or/and telecom network would be a major step against dictatoship.

What happened in Tunisia was easier thanks to social networks, but they still need state infrastructures. Hopefully the guys in charge are so old they didn't even know that...
In Egypt however, they quickly stopped the internet, they know already, like China, that the network is to be controlled and feared.

Should nanonetworks become a large reality, you'd only needs phones with charged cells... then you only need one phone to have information leak out of the country... leak in also. I can't wait to see that, even in very poor countries it becomes possible. After all, 5 billion people own a cellphone out of the 6 billions living on earth.

[Kraco]

It's not like the governments would be completely out of options but it's true they would be out of the very cheap, quick, and simple passive option of cutting the lines and shutting down the cell towers. The active solution of employing interference and hunting down individuals is undoubtly much more cumbersome, though they already would need to rely on that to silence satellite communications.

[David75]

I thought of satellite phones. For the moment they aren't exactly cheap to buy and use. But they could already be a portal to the outside world... and they only need one to operate at the right moments...
But that's more of a generation in the next 10 years or more, for that solution to be very efficient.
Nanonetwork is already possible. It's just not common/easy enough yet. Only a matter of right devices and usage modes.

[rockmanj]

That is something that might be discouraged by governments that could have reason to worry about their populace rising up against them (just playing devil's advocate here). There was this article too: http://lifehacker.com/5746046/how-to-foil-a-nationwide-internet-shutdown?skyline=true&s=i

[Animeniax]

Would we really care what is happening in Egypt if they didn't have all those historical monuments?

[David75]

Nice ideas, forgot about dial-up because it's almost completely out from comps here... and you do not get drivers anymore. But I'm sure there are lots of comps still working under win95 or 98 there. Or even one of the many linux flavors who knows.
I also thought about the wifi extensions.
But in both cases, you're wired and not very free of movement like you are with a smartphone. You can easily hide it, you can freely run if needed. It is only when it's charging it's really exposed, but you can always think of battery charging or anything.
The big plus is that they record sound and video too, so whenever you get fast access, you can upload proof.

[rockmanj]

I do think they are an excellent idea, but I think Vodafone cut service, so even if people do have smartphones, they are unusable. Even if people do not have the internet, there is something to be said about good old fashioned organizing.

[David75]

Absolutely, every means of communication have to be used.
Regarding service shutdown, this is why we need nanonetworks, or mesh networks beetween phones. Each phone becomes a provider to every other phones around and they can communicate without cell towers... only beetween themselves.
Then data travels through the network, and the first phone getting a signal out can upload to the outside... like people living near borders and catching another countries signal.
It could also be through wifi, satellite or any other way out.

My idea is that the Tunisian revolution had been there for years. It then exploded, and the networks were assisting in propagating the wave and have the world as witness.

[Sapphire]

There's a crapload of videos on this (http://www.youtube.com/citizentube?feature=ticker) playlist.

Military going CRAZY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUxmWzFHkyw&feature=related).

[darkshadow]

That's not the military, that's the police >_>.

[Ryllharu]

Yeah, the police are the ones violently opposing the protesters. The army is the one keeping the peace in a reasonable manner. The army searches for weapons and the like at checkpoints before letting them through and allowing them to gather.

[rockmanj]

When does the march started? Or has it already taken place? (I just woke up).

[Sapphire]

Holy crap, the police has all that crap?

[Marik]

After 18 days of protests, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned and handed power to the military.

Mubarak Steps Down as President, Army Takes Over (http://abcnews.go.com/International/egypt-mubarak-steps-president-cairo-erupts-joy/story?id=12891572)

Al Jazeera English: Live Stream (http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/)

[Archangel]

God fucking dammit! I can't beat Marik to anything, not even world news...

Anyway yeah, just saw the news

[rockmanj]

Kind of an interesting piece on this whole thing: http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/its-free-blog/2011/feb/08/money-power-egypt-protests/

[Kraco]

So, now the country's under a military junta (and the military being heavily influenced and funded by the USA).

[rockmanj]

So, now the country's under a military junta (and the military being heavily influenced and funded by the USA).

Basically... :(

[poopdeville]

That's actually not a bad thing. The Egyptian military is broken up into two forces: the Egyptian version of the Republican guard (i.e., a paramilitary force loyal to the president) and a normal military force made up of average Egyptians, and loyal to the Egyptian population. There is no "monied military class". The military has sworn to bring real western-style democracy to Egypt. Elections will (probably) be held soon. It might not be as quickly as the protesters want, but it should happen. Mubarak has even stepped down as president.

Iran is shitting their pants right now. Their Republican guard is full of a religious and ethnic minority. The general military is full of conscripted Persians, who strongly dislike the Arab minority in power, and are known to be unwilling to attack Persians (just like the Egyptian military, but even more divided)

Anyway, a military junta is (almost) always "in charge" after a revolution. Somebody has to do the fighting in order to win it.

[Kraco]

So, you are hopeful and think they will go down Turkey's way? The military being enlightened and ensuring undesirable elements won't rise to power using democracy? (I'm, of course, speaking in practical terms here, not in virtuous terms.)

[poopdeville]

Yes, I think so. I think we saw a bit of evidence of that. The military publicly said they would support a free election in September, and apparently pressured Mubarak to leave, privately. Mubarak literally left Egypt. A lovely victory for (mostly) peaceful change. There's still a lot to be done, but I am rooting for the Egyptians.

[Xelbair]

So Egypt will either turn into totalitarian country ruled by military, or a country with fake democracy and a figurative president who will be guided by military. Remember what's important in military - chain of command - so don't expect real democracy even through most soldiers are average Egyptians - top brass will probably try to rule.

[poopdeville]

Or it will turn into a real democracy...

It is not as though the "revolution" is over. It has merely just begun. The UN has already said it will sanction free and fair elections. If they don't happen, the revolution will continue, and the "top brass" will face the same problem Mubarak did: the average soldier won't attack Egyptians over this issue.

Your cynicism doesn't go far enough. The top brass only has power because of the work and fighting ability of the average soldier. A general without an army is just a man in a pretty uniform and stupid hat. Both know this, and the politics of that situation dictate what will happen.

[Kraco]

Since we are talking about a core Islamic country, I would be far more worried about islamists eventually disposing of democracy than the military. Unlike the military, the fundamentalists actually have a way of keeping what they gained for an eternity. It's the very thing the Turkish military always feared and thus toppled governments occasionally, ironically enough gaining disapproval from the old democracies, who apparently would have been happier with another giant theocratic country if it was born democratically - no matter if it's upheld tyrannically like they always are.

Democracy has the great weakness of only continuing as long as everybody (significant) inside it wants it to continue.