/life/

How Egypt turned off the internet.

2011-01-28T17:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, something unprecedented happened: Egypt turned off the internet. A nation of 80,000,000 instantly disconnected. So how'd they do it?

Phone Calls

There was no giant lever or big red button involved, but in reality it was almost as easy: the Egyptian Government simply issued an order for ISPs to shut down service.

"Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it," Vodafone Egypt explained in a statement shortly after. Along with Vodafone, Egypt's other three major ISPs, Link Egypt, Telecom Egypt, and Etisalat Misr, all stopped service. Jim Cowie, the co-founder and CTO of internet monitoring firm Renesys,told the WSJ:

What is most likely is that somebody in the government gives a phone call to a small number of people and says, ‘Turn it off.' And then one engineer at each service provider logs into the equipment and changes the configuration of how traffic should flow.

It was likely as easy as that.

BGPs

Renesys saw the effects immediately. Some 3,500 Border Gateway Protocol or BGP routes—the places where networks connect and announce which IP addresses they are responsible for—disappeared in an instant:

At 22:34 UTC (00:34am local time), Renesys observed the virtually simultaneous withdrawal of all routes to Egyptian networks in the Internet's global routing table. Approximately 3,500 individual BGP routes were withdrawn, leaving no valid paths by which the rest of the world could continue to exchange Internet traffic with Egypt's service providers. Virtually all of Egypt's Internet addresses are now unreachable, worldwide.

But Stéphane Bortzmeyer, an IP communications whiz, surmised that Egypt pulled the plug on the net literally: "BGP is the symptom, not the cause. The cables have simply been unplugged."

Withdrawing BGP routes (or just unplugging cables) is a much more effective way of blocking the internet than, say, turning off DNS, in which case users could use DNS from overseas to access the internet. Compared to Tunisia, where certain BGP routes were blocked, or Iran, where internet connections were simply throttled, Egypt's disconnection is a severe one.

Disconnected (Almost)

As of last night, Renesys estimated that 93% of Egyptian's networks were unreachable, with only one service provider, the Noor Group, still serving its customers. It's unclear why they're the only ones who didn't get turned off, though some are speculating that its role as service provider for the Egyptian Stock Exchange is what's keeping it online.

Reports from Egypt suggest that citizens may be able to use dial-up to access the internet, and LifeHacker has the nitty gritty on how to do it. It's not going to be fast, but it seems like for a vast majority of the Egyptians, it might be the only option. [Renesys, DomainIncite]

Gone for a week

2010-11-19T16:34:00.001-08:00

I won't be updating for a week or so, because I will be livin' it up in the Bahamas! :D

Android on iPhone???

2010-11-18T15:40:00.000-08:00

Alright guys this is something I came across while on the internet. This is totally cool. If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, This is for you!

What You'll Need:
All you'll need to get started is an iOS device; Right now, the iPhone 3G has the best support, and that's what we're using in this guide.
Step One: Jailbreak Your iPhone

You've got a number of jailbreaking options, including PwnageTool, Redsn0w, and Blackra1n. Pick one that works on your platform, download it, and walk through the jailbreak process. (I'm not going to detail the jailbreak here since the latest jailbreaking methods often change a little, but at this point, jailbreaking an iPhone is a relatively simple process.)
Step Two: Install Bootlace in Cydia

In order to do this, you'll need to launch Cydia from the homescreen, tap on the Manage button, select Sources, then tap Edit, then Add. The repository you'll need to add is repo.neonkoala.co.uk. Tap Add Source, let Cydia work its magic, and then tap on your newly added repository and install Bootlace.
Step Three: Run Bootlace and Patch the Kernel

Leave Cydia, and launch Bootlace. If Bootlace isn't on your homescreen after you leave Cydia, restart your iPhone and it should be there. Then just launch Bootlace, and let it download and patch the kernel. When it's done, tap on Reboot and wait for your phone to reboot.
Step Four: Install OpeniBoot

Now launch Bootlace again, tap the OpeniBoot button, and tap Install, then Continue. OpeniBoot will download and install.
Step Five: Install iDroid

Once OpeniBoot is installed, tap the iDroid button, tap Install, OK, and then wait. iDroid—which is essentially the Android OS customized for your iPhone—will download and install. This will take a while, so be patient, and if your battery is low, you may want to plug in your phone you start.
Step Six: Reboot and Play Around with Android

Now you've installed Android on your iPhone. Time to play around with it. Just tap on the QuickBoot button from inside Bootlace, tap the Android icon (the one of the little Android proudly holding an Apple), and confirm that you want to reboot into Android.
How Does It Work?

The first thing worth mentioning is that Android on iPhone isn't close to ready to use as your full-time mobile operating system. That doesn't mean it never will be, but at the moment, this is more something you'd want to do to fulfill your curiosity, wear as a geek badge, or just have a little fun and (maybe) support a really great project.
You can see how far they've come along with each phone on the iDroid status wiki. As I mentioned above, the iPhone 3G is the best supported iOS device (and currently only it and the 2G work with the method above, I believe). The biggest issue right now with the 3G is power management (PMU on the wiki), which isn't fully functional. Most importantly, suspend isn't yet working, so your battery won't likely last long. It's still come a long way from where it's been in the past, though, and having followed this project excitedly for a while, the progress they've made in recent weeks has been really impressive.
Regarding a few nuts and bolts: Your iPhone's lock button acts as the Android back button; the iPhone home button acts as the Android menu button; the iPhone's volume down button acts as the Android home button; and the iPhone's volume up button acts as... I'm not really sure what. To lock the screen, press the iPhone's home and and lock buttons at the same time. To power off, hold the lock and home buttons for a couple of seconds until the Power Off prompt appears. You can see a few other operating quirks by watching the video above.
As you can see in the video, performance isn't perfect (it's occasionally a little laggy), but again, with time, that could change significantly. Either way, the iDroid project—along with OpeniBoot and Bootlace—is something I remain extremely excited about. As a long-time iPhone user and recent Android switcher, the main thing that sets the two apart for me is the iPhone hardware, which always feels a head and shoulders above whatever Android device I put my hands on. I know a lot of people (including myself) who'd kill to dual boot and iPhone 4 with iOS and Android. (In fact, if you really want to help out, you can donate to the iDroid Project by clicking the Donate button on the top right of the iDroid Project's main page and maybe speed things along.)
If you've been playing around with Android on your iPhone, let's hear about it in the comments.

DIY Trackpad

2010-11-16T19:31:00.000-08:00

If you want an external trackpad but aren't in the mood to pay the relatively high cost, you can make one out of paper, a graphite pencil, and an Arduino.

A fellow Lifehacker on the Afrotech forums called "Dr. West" has created a clever and cheaply made trackpad that's essentially just a piece of paper. How does it work? First, to make it conductive, the paper is rubbed with a graphite pencil until its completely covered. Second, four voltage dividers are attached to the corners of the paper. Finally, an Arduino is used to calculate the contact points on two axes when your finger touches the paper to complete the circuit. Dr. West details the entire process in his post. While you'll need a grounding strip to use your paper trackpad comfortably, it's a pretty awesome example of how you can make a trackpad out of stuff you have around the house.

DIY Sliding Laptop Screen.

2010-11-14T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today I'll show you how to make a sliding laptop screen, that is perfect for air travel and everywhere else.

Music

2010-11-13T19:38:00.000-08:00

Ever since Limewire went down, it's been hard to find free music any more. But I figured out a few ways to get music now;

1. Google. That's right, Google can give you free music downloads. To use this feature copy & paste this into the search box, substituting then song/band that you want for Nirvana.

-inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:"index of" +"last modified" +"parent directory" +description +size +(wma|mp3) "Nirvana"

2. Torrents. You can find torrents for music at The Pirate Bay or other torrent sites.(I personally only use TPB as I've gotten some nasty viruses off of some other torrent sites, but do whatever =P) To download Torrents I use uTorrent; my favorite torrent downloader.

3. Bearshare. This is a totally awesome program to download your mp3. Download here

Hax

2010-11-12T16:11:00.000-08:00

If you ever decide to buy batteries always use coupons. LOL save monehs

lifehax

2010-11-06T10:09:00.001-07:00