Iconoclasm: Burma goes dark

The NYTimes reports that the Internet has been completely cut in Burma (Myanmar). 

I remember about 15 years ago, when I was one of three engineers running the UNC/Chapel Hill backbone and drop to the Net.  One night, Serbia just cut off the rest of the former Yugoslav republics, notably the university in Sarajevo where some of our departments had colleagues.

Mail just started bouncing.

The next day, I had calls from several departments asking me to "fix it."  It made me feel a bit ill. 

I don't really know how many of these academics' contacts made it out the other side even physically intact, far less can I imagine what they must have gone through in later months in a beseiged city.

So today, I'm praying for the bloggers and monks in Burma, as the bits go dark.

-- 

Shava Nerad, News and Opinion Correspondent:

Shava’s column, Iconoclasm, published about once a week to Gather Essentials: News, is an examination of the provocative ideas emerging in media and world culture behind the news.

Shava Nerad has been working on the Internet for twenty-five years, at the boundaries of Internet and social issues.  She is CEO of Indigenis, a consulting group working at the intersection of virtual worlds, social networking, and gaming communities, and development director of The Tor Project. 

She lives in Somerville, MA with her teenage son, her fiance (a professional magician and fundraising coach), and a corgi/dachshund mutt named George.

Opinions here have nothing to do with Tor or Indigenis. 

You can find all of Shava's Iconoclasm columns at http://Iconoclasm.gather.com

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