[OPLINTECH] Internet-killer at Large (OPLIN4cast repost)

[Nathan Eady]

millerst at oplin.org writes:

> Did you catch the blurb in the OPLIN4Cast?  .... just can't make this
> stuff up...
>
> -----
> 4/11/11 edition of the UK Daily Telegraph...
> Woman who cut internet to Georgia and Armenia 'had never heard of web'
>
> A 75-year-old woman arrested for single-handedly cutting off the internet
> in Georgia and Armenia has tearfully insisted she is innocent and had
> never heard of the internet.

I find that claim very easy to believe, actually.  We're talking about a
rural area in the Caucasus, very much a part of the third world.

You'll note that the report says the incident took "many thousands" of
people offline.  I don't know how many thousands, but presumably less
than a million or they'd have worded it differently.  Georgia and
Armenia have a combined population of around eight million, so obviously
most people in those countries don't have internet access.  The ones who
do would presumably be concentrated in the large cities.

A couple of quick searches turn up no other reference on the internet to
the village where she was arrested (except for reports of this
cable-cutting event itself), so it's apparently quite a rural location.
It is not, for instance, findable with Google Maps.

If she hasn't been to the big city for a few years it's entirely
possible that she's never met anyone who had ever had internet access.

> ... I'm telling you, one day of Amnesty, that's all I want.  This tactic
> is getting added to the List of Things I'll Do The Instant I Can Get Away
> With It.

You want to cut off internet access to Armenia and a large part of
Georgia?  To what purpose?

-- 
Nathan Eady
Galion Public Library