Digital Trends
The Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in an old monastery in the Sinai desert in 1844, where it had lain for around 1,500 years. The sheer fact of its existence was surprise enough. But that was attributed to the dry desert air and the fact that the monastery itself had never been the site of any armed conflict.
The Codex consisted of about 1,460 pages, each around 16” by 14”, written on parchment leaves in Greek. After the discovery it was split between Egypt, the UK, Germany, and Russia.
Myanmar – the country formerly known as Burma – has been judged the most restrictive country for bloggers, according to a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The junta ruling Myanmar blocked all Internet access for a while during uprisings in 2007.
Coming second on the list is Iran, where blogger Omid Mir Sayafi died in Tehran’s Evin jail. He’d allegedly insulted the country’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in his blog.
Among the other countries named and shamed in the report are Syria, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, China, Turkmenistan, and Egypt, where over 100 bloggers were arrested last year.
A new report from the World Information Access Project finds that authoritarian regimes around the world are arresting bloggers more often in an effort to cut down on political dissent, exposure of government corruption, or spreading information a government doesn’t want its people—or the world—to know about. And the number of known blogger arrests is probably lower than the actual number who have been detained for publishing their views on the Internet.
Apple continues to sign agreements with international mobile operators to bring the company’s iPhone to a larger market, just as the company is reportedly prepping to launch a new 3G-enabled version of the device, along with version 2.0 iPhone software. Today’s announcement come’s from France’s Orange, which issued a one-sentence statement saying it has reached an agreement with Apple to distribute the iPhone in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Switzerland later in 2008, as well as Orange’s African markets.
International mobile operator Vodafone—which owns part of the U.S.’s Verizon Wireless—has announced that it has reached an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten international markets—including Italy, where Telecom Italia had recently been reported to have made a non-exclusive deal with Apple to sell a 3G iPhone.
In addition to Italy, Vodafone says it will offer iPhones in Australia, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Greece, India, Portugal, New Zealand, South Africa, and Turkey. Vodafone hasn’t released any other information, including which version of the iPhone it plans to sell: the existing GSM/EDGE model, or the forthcoming 3G model.
China, North Korea, Burma…they’re places where protest has been crushed. But yesterday people demonstrated against Net censorship in virtual locations from those countries. Organized by the group Reporters Without Borders, the first Online Free Expression Day invited people to create avatars and take part in demonstrations in virtuallocations where protest would not be allowed in the real world. In a statement RWB said, “From now on, we will organize activities every 12 March to condemn cyber-censorship throughoutthe world. A response of this kind is needed to the growing tendency to crack down on bloggers and to close websites." “Today, the first time this day is being marked, we are giving allInternet users the opportunity to demonstrate in places were protests are not normally possible. We hope many will come and protest in virtual versions of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square,Cuba’s Revolution Square or on the streets of Rangoon, in Burma. At least 62 cyber-dissidents are currently imprisoned worldwide, while more than 2,600 websites, blogs or discussions forumswere closed or made inaccessible in 2007.” UNESCO had originally supported the demonstration, but later withdrew its support. RWB lists 15 countriesas Internet Enemies (Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe) which censor Net use and imprisondissenting voices. Another 11 – Bahrain, Eritrea, Gambia, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Yemen – are classed as “countries underwatch.”
The International Telecommunications Union head of development Sami al-Murshed has refused to rule out sabotage as the cause of several undersea cable breaks that almost cut off the Middle East from the rest of the Internet in the last few weeks. Speaking to the AFP, al-Murshed while attending a cyber-crime conference in Qatar. “We do not want to preempt the results of ongoing investigations, but we do not rule out that a deliberate act of sabotage caused the damage to the undersea cables over two weeks ago.”
A week after damage to undersea fiber-optic cables severely crippled Internet access in much of the Middle East and India, repairs on the cables have finally begun. Work has commenced on two of the three cables that were severed last week, but finishing the repairs could take another week.
Flag Telecom’s Europe-Asia cable and another known as SEA-ME-WE 4 were both cut last Wednesday off the coast of Egypt, while another Flag cable, FALCON, was severed on Friday near Dubai. Flag sent ships to repair both of its cables on Tuesday, despite extreme weather conditions on the site of the Europe-Asia cable repair that could hamper the process. Repairs on that cable are expected to take six to seven days, while FALCON repairs should be done in three to four.
Outsourcing has become a major bone of contention in a number of countries. You call for help or tech support and find yourself talking to someone in India. Well, for the moment your probablywon’t. The undersea communications break that occurred near Egypt on Wednesday is having major repercussions. Not only has it disrupted Internet access to much of the Middle East andIndia, but the associated phone problems have hurt the call center business in India. According to the BBC, about 50% of India’s bandwidth is down,and when you consider that outsourced business in the country, serving IT and other businesses, is worth $48 billion, that’s a major blow. "The companies that serve the US eastcoast and the UK are worst affected," Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of India, told AP. "The delay is very bad in some cases. They have to arrange back-up plans or they have to accept the poor quality for the time being until the fibre isrestored." It could take up to a week for full service to be restored, experts say.
If you live in India or the Middle East, there’s a good chance you’re not able to read this right now. Two undersea communications cables in the Mediterranean were severed yesterday,severely disrupting Internet services and international phone calls across the Middle East and India, the Associated Press has reported (and, incidentally, taking outquite a few of those Indian call centres). It’s estimated that 70% of the Internet service in Egypt is down, and 60% in India. The damage could take up to a week to fix. Aspokesman for DU, one of the ISPs in Dubai that’s been affected, told AP that the fault was in a cable between Palermo, Italy and Alexandria, Egypt. In astatement the company said, "We are working actively with the submarine cable system operators (FLAG Telecom and SEA-ME-WE 4) to ascertain the reasons for the cables being cut."However, there’s no suggestion of terrorism. The current theory seems to be that a ship’s anchor did the damage near Alexandria.
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