ARLA/CLUSTER: Egipto: Amadores de Radio enviam mensagens em CW.

[João Costa > CT1FBF]

Anonymous Internet Users Team Up To Provide Communication Tools For
Egyptian People

 "Internet not working, police cars burning," sent out one Egyptian.
"Today marks a great day for Egypt," sent out another.

These messages weren't coming from mobile phones or computers, but
from an amateur radio sending out Morse Code somewhere amidst the
chaos in Egypt.

The Egyptian government's efforts to limit communications within the
country has triggered a wave of activism from an international group
of free speech activists on the Internet called Telecomix.

Organizing using chat rooms, wikis, and collaborative writing tools,
this largely anonymous group has worked to inform Egyptians about
their communications options while receiving incoming messages from
them. Telecomix has previously worked on free speech efforts in
Tunisia, Iran, China and other countries who have tried to censor or
block parts of the Internet.

Egypt has been identified as a "top priority" for Telecomix on one of
its network sites, We Re-Build. It has a wiki set up as a one-stop
shop with the latest chat rooms and resources for the ongoing efforts.

There are roughly 20 extremely active members, 50 active and some 300
total including lurkers, according to chat administrator Christopher
Kullenberg from Gothenburg, Sweden.

"Think of Telecomix as an ever growing bunch of friends that do things
together," Kullenberg says.

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AdvertisementFor the majority of users, anonymity is stressed and real
identities are rendered obsolete.

Said one chat user, in awe from Australia: "I'm new here, just trying to help."

Here's a timeline of recent events for the group:

When Internet and mobile services were cut off in Egypt on Thursday
night, though landlines were operational, members immediately got to
work to send information to Egyptian fax numbers. Searching for a
common string of characters found in Egyptian fax machines numbers on
Google, they discovered a large amount of numbers.

At first, they sent out Wikileaks cables to these numbers, but then
they determined the Egyptians didn't need additional motivation.
Instead, they were interested in information on how to communicate
with each other and the outside world. The activists thus began
providing instructions for using dial-up modems and amateur radios,
known as Ham radios, which the Egyptian people could use to
communicate.

The group says it's also worked on receiving and decoding amateur
radio messages, sent on frequencies recommended by the group of
activists. While these groups have only been able to receive a small
amount of messages of a short length with an unknown source, the
Egyptian people's use of amateur radio to transmit messages represents
an interesting utilization of old-fashioned technology to circumvent
government restrictions.

Most activists behind these messages tell The Huffington Post they
wish to remain anonymous. But besides Telecomix, other Internet groups
have assisted, including "Anonymous," which has helped by sending out
large amounts of faxes into Egypt. "Anonymous" was also involved in
denial of service operations against organizations who took actions
against Wikileaks. They've also participated in many other operations,
with targets ranging from Scientology to Gene Simmons.

Have these efforts proven effective in helping the Egyptian people?
"We cannot really tell," said Kullenberg. "Opening up communication
channels is enough for us. What that leads up to, is up to the people
communicating."

Said another user, wd40_: "Time will tell."

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