Reportedly Cuts
All Access to Internet
After cutting access to social-networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, as well as BlackBerry Internet Service, officials in Egypt have now reportedly cut off all access to the Internet in the country.
"Every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world," James Cowie, chief technology officer at Internet monitoring firm Renesys, wrote in a blog post.
The Egyptian government has apparently ordered ISPs in the region to shut down all international connections to the Web, Cowie wrote, though critical European-Asian fiber-optic routes through Egypt appear to be unaffected.
Customers of Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, and Etisalat Misr are all without access to the Internet. Renesys noted later, however, that Noor Group is still live, allowing access to the Egyptian Stock Exchange. "Did the Egyptian government leave Noor standing so that the markets could open next week?" Cowie asked.
Around 5:30pm Eastern time yesterday, Renesys "observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet's global routing table," Cowie said.
"Approximately 3,500 individual BGP routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange Internet traffic with Egypt's service providers," he continued. "Virtually all of Egypt's Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide."
Internet access issues in Egypt have coincided with mounting demonstrations in the country, many of which were organized via social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Thousands poured into the streets of Cairo starting Tuesday to protest failing economic policies, government corruption, and to call for an end of the nearly 30-year rule of President Hosni Mubarak.
In a translated statement aired on Al Jazeera Friday afternoon, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said there is a "fine line between freedom and chaos, and while I take the side of citizens' freedom to express their views, I also similarly adhere to defending Egypt's stability and security, and not to steer it into any threats that may jeopardize public safety, [where the] reprecussions on the current and future of Internet is unpredictable."
Mubarak said he has ordered the existing government to step down, and that he will name a new government tomorrow.
Similar demonstrations and Web outages are occuring in Tunisia, though Cowie noted that the Egypt Internet downtime "is a completely different situation from the modest Internet manipulation that took place in Tunisia, where specific routes were blocked, or Iran, where the Internet stayed up in a rate-limited form designed to make Internet connectivity painfully slow."
Amidst the unrest, WikiLeaks has started to release cables that it says discuss police brutality and torture, Egyptian military training conducted by U.S. officials, and human rights violations, among other things.
In a Friday tweet, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration is "very concerned about violence in Egypt - government must respect the rights of the Egyptian people & turn on social networking and internet."
PJ Crowley, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, also tweeted that the "events unfolding in #Egypt are of deep concern. Fundamental rights must be respected, violence avoided and open communications allowed."
In a Tuesday statement, the White House also said "the Egyptian government has an important opportunity to be responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people, and pursue political, economic and social reforms that can improve their lives and help Egypt prosper."
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 12:45pm Eastern with comments from Gibbs and Crowley, and again at 5:30pm with comments from Mubarak.
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