Erictric

Internet in Iran Goes Down Days Before Planned Protests

February 11 marks the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. People in Iran were using the Internet and SMS services to let the world know that on February 11 they were going out to the streets to protest. Websites such as Twitter and Facebook were used to organized rallies and manifestations. Alas, it appears that just days before such protests took place the Internet in Iran has coincidentally gone down. Internet connections are said to be slow and even text messaging capabilities have been interrupted.

Iran Communications Minister Reza Taghipour said in a statement:

“The cause of the reduced Internet speed in recent days is that part of the fibre-optic network is damaged. The breakage will be repaired by next week and the Internet speed will be back to normal.”

He also went on to blame the text messaging interruptions on “changing software.”

Last year, the Internet and social networking sites played a big role during the 2009 Iranian election protests. It’s a bit suspicious that both Internet and SMS capabilities are down just days before a new series of protest are about to take place in the country.

[ Yahoo News ]

China Censors Google’s New Ideology On Search Censorship

When news broke yesterday that Google would no longer be filtering/censoring search results for China’s localized Google, the entire tech/media world was all over it, it seemed. And while many of us who are familiar with the tech world very well know Google’s intentions on search in China, it seems as if the Chinese don’t even know.

That’s because China’s state-run media outlets are censoring the story, in an a somewhat ironic but not surprising twist.

“Some big Chinese news portals initially carried a short dispatch on Google’s announcement, but that account soon tumbled from the headlines, and later reports omitted Google’s references to ‘free speech’ and ’surveillance,’” wrote Andrew Jacobs, Miguel Helft, and John Markoff in a New York Times report earlier today. More »

Breaking: Google Reconsidering Approach to China Amid Cyber Attacks and Pressure to Censor Results

Google announced today on a post on the Official Google Blog that in mid-December the company suffered a cyber attack originating from China. After much investigation, Google has concluded that many accounts from many human right activists in China were the main target. Google has also found out that at least 20 other large companies were attacked. And although Google does not mention it directly, it’s insinuated that the Chinese government had something to do with the attacks.

Google also feels that the pressure to censor results to the people of China has grown more and more ever since Google.cn, the Chinese version of the popular search engine, was launched back in 2006.

For these reasons, Google is making radical changes to the way the company operates in China. Google announced today that they will no longer censor results on Google.cn. A decision that could in fact lead the company to completely stop operations and close its offices in China. Something that Google is very well aware of and a sacrifice they are willing to do to preserve the principles of freedom of speech. More »

Finland Guarantees Every Citizen The Right to Broadband with New Law

The Finnish government has just put in place a new law which guarantees every Finnish citizen (all 5.5 million of them) the right to high-speed internet access beginning on July 2010, according to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The connection will be limited to one megabit at this point in time but the Finnish government plans to increase speeds to 100 megabits by the end of 2015 for all citizens.

This is feasible considering the taxation rate in that neck of the woods is extremely high. But my question is, when will good old Uncle Sam jump on the bandwagon for broadband access all over the US?

[ via TechCrunch ]

United States Government Creates a URL Shortening Service

There’s nothing we like more than seeing our tax dollars being put to good use — and today, I present to you: Go.USA.Gov, a URL service set up by the United States government. Before you flip your chips though and try to shorten YouTube URLs for Twitter, let me just say that the service will only shorten .gov, .mil, or .si.edu URLs (which are usually pretty huge).

Currently, the project requires that a user account be created, and you need to be a government worker to sign up for said account. According to the site, the service will be launching later this month.

As of this writing, about 250 ‘go.usa.gov’ URLs have been created with nearly 16,000 clicks.

How’s that for venture capitalism? We’re all paying for this! I’m so proud!