Algeria still online
p2pnet view P2P | Freedom:- “Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations”, said the Telegraph yesterday.
Egypt, now under new management, tried the same thing, but discovered throwing people into jail and ‘disappearing’ them is one thing. Shutting down the net is, however, another and according to the Rensys blog late yesterday, so far, in Algeria, “we don’t see confirming evidence for it.”
Algerian ISPs “get their international connectivity via submarine cables from Europe, with diverse transit from a long list of providers: Level3, Cogent, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, France Telecom, and Tinet”, says the story, going on >>>
A pretty wide range of Algerian providers (Telecom Algeria, Wataniya Telecom Algeria, SPA Anwarnet, Smart Link, Orascom/Djezzy, etc.) have direct international connectivity, as seen in the BGP routing table. There’s still no Internet exchange, or at least none that’s widely advertised. All of that presumably makes a “kill switch” strategy somewhat more difficult to implement.
Algeria typically has about 135 routed network prefixes in the global routing table, and our data show that they are all still routed and relatively stable. Traceroutes inbound confirm that sites hosted in these prefixes are still alive, and spot checks of websites hosted in Algeria show that most are up and functioning normally. A few that we checked were unreachable, including the telecommunications regulatory authority (http://www.arpt.dz), the Prime Minister’s office (http://www.cg.gov.dz), and other sites hosted at Djaweb (Telecom Algeria’s hosting brand).
It’s possible new blocks “have been put in place that would not be visible from outside, such as Iran-style throttling or shutdowns of residential connections”, says Rensys, adding:
“We’ll have to wait for some assessment of drops in inbound/outbound traffic levels to spot those subtler internal changes.”
Stay tuned.
(Cheers, YKW)
Telegraph – Algeria shuts down internet and Facebook as protest mounts, February 12, 2011
Rensys blog – Watching Algeria, February 12, 2011
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan
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February 13th, 2011 at 1:35 pm
The Big Thing is, when will we in Germany and you in Canada and you in the States and you everywhere else see the same thing happening?
February 13th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
we support our president viva bouteflika
February 13th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
75% of the Algerians are with bouteflika, this is not Egypt or Tunisia everything is deferent here.
February 14th, 2011 at 1:21 am
@Abdeka:
If your people generally support Bouteflika, then why has it become necessary to bring out an entire military force to block this protest?!