masterwordsmith-unplugged

Recently, I came across this article written by Susannah Vila on 'How To Remain Connected if your Internet gets shut off". According to that article:

Burma, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, and Tajikistan, and - most recently - Egypt and Libya, are all countries where governments have controlled access to communication technologies as a way to hinder social mobilization during periods of political unrest. If you live in a country where this is a possibility, consider preparing for it.

CLICK HERE for the rest of the entry.

Pakalert Press, one of my favorite websites, also featured an article on Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down.

That article by Patrick Miller, David Daw of PCWorld said:

These days, no popular movement goes without an Internet presence of some kind, whether it’s organizing on Facebook or spreading the word through Twitter. And as we’ve seen in Egypt, that means that your Internet connection can be the first to go. Whether you’re trying to check in with your family, contact your friends, or simply spread the word, here are a few ways to build some basic network connectivity when you can’t rely on your cellular or landline Internet connections.
Do-It-Yourself Internet With Ad-Hoc Wi-Fi

Even if you’ve managed to find an Internet connection for yourself, it won’t be that helpful in reaching out to your fellow locals if they can’t get online to find you. If you’re trying to coordinate a group of people in your area and can’t rely on an Internet connection, cell phones, or SMS, your best bet could be a wireless mesh network of sorts–essentially, a distributed network of wireless networking devices that can all find each other and communicate with each other. Even if none of those devices have a working Internet connection, they can still find each other, which, if your network covers the city you’re in, might be all you need. At the moment, wireless mesh networking isn’t really anywhere close to market-ready, though we have seen an implementation of the 802.11s draft standard, which extends the 802.11 Wi-Fi standard to include wireless mesh networking, in the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of the entry.

If you have time, please read Pakalert Press - that website has fantastic articles and believe me, you will be engrossed reading that site for a loooooooooooooong time. Take care and swing by later for the next sopo post. Thanks!