#25jan and #Egypt hastags being blocked from appearing in global trends. Follow#Egyption that is an intentional misspelling. [via: @jmsardo]

All mobile operators in Egypt have been instructed to suspend services in selected areas. Under Egyptian legislation the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it. The Egyptian authorities will be clarifying the situation in due course . [Source]

I like that it is preceded by a link on making it easier to use smartphones (in Europe).

Completely sans irony, naturally.

As we know, Egypt is now in a communication black hole.

Last night the government cut off all phones, mobiles, Internet and SMS connections to stymie what will be the climax of the Egyptian Jan 25 Revolution.

But, the Egyptians will not be left alone for long, because technological saviours such as Tor are helping us on the outside to forge “tunnels” of communication to those inside Egypt.

Here’s how we can all get involved:

Tor is a network of tunnels through which information and internet sites can be requested and passed back anonymously, allowing users to access sites like Twitter, Facebook and Gmail even when they are blocked. Your support will allow the Egyptian people to connect to sites like Facebook, as the encrypted traffic will pass through your donated bandwidth, avoiding firewalls set up by the government. If you have the know-how and are willing to make the committment, follow the links to the right to The Tor Project’s download page, and then read their guide to running a bridge.

Set it up and pass it on.

Repression will not win.

I love it, though it does remind me how work-driven this year has been.

In some ways it’s almost a wake-up call: I can’t help but hope that the 2011 version has equal amounts of travelling jinks, but more non-work related joys.

I am currently on a family vacation in Italy but I had to post what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent my husband. Apparently they have a new service where they send the male guardian a text every time a “dependent” leaves the country. They don’t state which country the dependent left for but simply state that they did leave.

My husband tells me he got the same text when I left for Germany. I am an adult woman that has been earning my own income for over a decade now but according to the Saudi government, I am a dependent till the day I die because of my gender. [Source]

It is interesting that the tracking text does not detail the destination country – it would be too optimistic to imagine that it is concealed in the name of privacy.

No doubt coming soon: the Google App Wife Tracker: a dastardly fusion of Google Street Maps meets patriarchal yearnings to seek, control and curtail the freedom of every woman over the age of 18.

As of today, there is a new FB privacy setting called “Instant Personalization” that shares data with non-Facebook websites and it is automatically set to “Allow.”

Go to Account > Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites > What your Friends can share about you> Edit Settings, and uncheck all the options.

BTW if your friends don’t do this, they will be sharing information about you.

Thank heavens for vigilant status updates…

Pakistan now joins Syria, China, Vietnam and Iran – albeit temporarily.

The group, Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!, calls on its 43,000 supporters to draw the Prophet today.

The ban, issued by the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, will last until 31 May.

However, a number of Islamic lawyers have indicated the group as sound reasoning for a comprehensive suspension.

Ironically, the group’s objective resides in free speech – though it seems to have broached the fine line between freedom and offense:

[The group] hurt us very badly, very seriously. They should have regard for sentiments of Muslims, and they should not repeat such displays. They should know that if they are going to do such activities, certainly their business will suffer. [Source]

(As an aside, when I tried to find the Facebook page it returned no results, save for a group requesting its removal – Facebook admin possibly beaten Pakistan at its own game of censorship?)

On a lighter level, Tweet theories are already running rife that it is the United States behind the blackout, as “They want to track Osama. If there’s no recent activity on his profile, they know he’s in Pakistan.”

Yup. Osama must be beating his cave walls in frustration as his Farmville plot descends into chaos and his Fishville inhabitants go belly-up.

Arab nations are leading a “historic” charge to make the world wide web live up to its name.

Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are the first countries to have so-called “country codes” written in Arabic scripts.

“All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left,” said Kim Davies of Icann in a blog post.

One of the first websites with a full Arabic address is the Egyptian Ministry of Communications. [Read on...]

How utterly, fabulously marvellous.

And overdue.