Google decision to end military AI drone work reboots old memories

A major US corporation, arguably the richest and most powerful on the planet, has just adopted an explicitly anti-war decision to not renew a contract that would involve using artificial intelligence [AI] to kill people. It did this, in large part, because of opposition from its employees. Although the workers, like Google, stood to benefit economically, they rejected it on moral grounds. THIS IS HUGE! The application of AI to the art of war, which is the business of killing people, is one of the most dangerous technological frontiers facing us. It is the scientific nightmares of "Terminator" and "The Matrix" engineered into the living world. This nightmare future can only be created if the techie proletariat, the only ones capable of creating it, allow their skills to be manipulated by the masters of war to this end.

Now Google, propelled by its workers, has reversed an earlier decision that was pushing them, and us, closer to that dark future. It is understandable that this news has receive little attention in the corporate-owned media, but those on the Left should be demanding the same, or better, from all the other tech giants. Friday CNET reported:

Google reportedly not renewing contract for Project Maven drone program
Backlash against the company's involvement in the project led to the decision, according to Gizmodo.

By Abrar Al-Heeti
Google reportedly won't seek another contract for Project Maven, a Pentagon pilot AI program that could be used for drone strikes.

Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene made the announcement at a Friday employee meeting, people familiar with the matter told Gizmodo. Strong backlash against the company's involvement in the project reportedly led to the company's decision not to continue to pursue the project. Greene said Google decided to work on Project Maven "at a time when Google was more aggressively pursuing military work," Gizmodo reported.

According to BuzzFeed News, Greene said "We've always said this was an 18-month contract that we did, so it ends in March of 2019." She added, "There will be no follow-on to Maven." More...

Gizmodo covered this in story in greater detail, owing to their access to internal Google emails:

Google Plans Not to Renew Its Contract for Project Maven, a Controversial Pentagon Drone AI Imaging Program
By Kate Conger
1 June 2018
Google will not seek another contract for its controversial work providing artificial intelligence to the U.S. Department of Defense for analyzing drone footage after its current contract expires.

Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene announced the decision at a meeting with employees Friday morning, three sources told Gizmodo. The current contract expires in 2019 and there will not be a follow-up contract, Greene said. The meeting, dubbed Weather Report, is a weekly update on Google Cloud’s business.

Google would not choose to pursue Maven today because the backlash has been terrible for the company, Greene said, adding that the decision was made at a time when Google was more aggressively pursuing military work. The company plans to unveil new ethical principles about its use of AI next week. A Google spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about Greene’s comments.

Google’s decision to provide artificial intelligence to the Defense Department for the analysis of drone footage has prompted backlash from Google employees and academics. Thousands of employees have signed a petition asking Google to cancel its contract for the project, nicknamed Project Maven, and dozens of employees have resigned in protest.

Google, meanwhile, defended its work on Project Maven, with senior executives noting that the contract is of relatively little value and that its contribution amounts merely to providing the Defense Department with open-source software.

But internal emails reviewed by Gizmodo show that executives viewed Project Maven as a golden opportunity that would open doors for business with the military and intelligence agencies. The emails also show that Google and its partners worked extensively to develop machine learning algorithms for the Pentagon, with the goal of creating a sophisticated system that could surveil entire cities. More...

Linux Hardware Partners T-Shirt ~ 1997 while Linux
was still in the "ignore you/laugh at you" stage.

A kind of class warfare has gone on at Google over many questions. It appears that for now the less greedy, more ethical side has won something on this one. That Google would take the lead on this, among the tech giants, would surprise few in the IT world. Google has not yet drifted that far from its Free Software Movement roots. Google was the product of the Linux community, and even today runs on Linux. Google became the principal financial sponsor of another Linux-based Open Source Software [OSS] project, Android, that short-stopped Apple's plans to monopolize the emerging smartphone market.

Google came out of a research project done by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were graduate students at Stanford. The project was nicknamed "Backrub," written in Java and Python, themselves open source projects, and run on Linux servers at http://google.stanford.edu. These were the early days for Linux. It was less than five years old.

with Linus Torvalds - 1996

About the same time Page and Brin were sending their first project web crawlers out to explore and catalog the Internet in March 1996, I was founding the first Linux Users group in Los Angeles. I was president of Linux Users, Los Angeles [LULA] for eight years.

While the focus was on the developing an open alternative to Microsoft world domination, the social and political implications of the technology we were promoting was always a part of the discussion. In 1999 we help launched one of the first websites designed to reconnect refugee families in response to what was happening in Kosovo. We were able to do this by networking with Linux users worldwide connected through Linux International, and since I am digging through old papers and emails that have no record on the Internet, this is the core of the argument I made to get things rolling, 15 April 1999:

Kosovo: The pen is mightier than the sword.

And it was printing that gave the pen that power. Well the PC is the modern pen and the Internet is the publisher. I’m not saying that occasionally the sword isn’t necessary, as I believe it is in the present instance. I merely want to point to the enormous power of information technology in the sphere (spear) of war. The Serbia government understands this. Just look at their website: http://www.gov.yu/kosovo_facts/index.html

“The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia recognizes and guarantees the rights of the members of the national minorities to the preservation, development and expression of their ethnic, cultural, language and other specific features, and the use of their national symbols, in accordance with the International law”

Yea, right. Goebbels never had it so good. In the face of their acts on the ground, these lies in cyberspace cannot go unopposed. Fortunately for us, it is not just governments who can set up websites. I think Dan summed up the two things that we are well equipped to do:

“1. carrying out a campaign of public education to educate the average Serb about the human costs of ethnic cleansing, and
2. documenting on video as much of what Serbia is doing as possible, and showing it to the Serb people.”

Certainly we can put together a website (or provide technical assistance to others) that exposes what is really going on. Facts can be presented as documents, reports, photos, sound and video. I agree with John on how this could be done. And certainly we can enter into a dialog with the enemy. If we can email them and can post to discussion groups, we can get our point of view heard. Sure our posters may be quickly torn down by the opposition, but its easy enough to re-post them.

I also know that it is almost impossible to charge hearts and minds of people given over to ethnic hatred. I’ve run into Southerners who are still fighting the Civil War, and these Serbs are still fighting a war that took place over 600 years ago. But I personally believe that the only ultimate salvation of humanity lies overcoming precisely such hatred. Therefore, I think it is worth the effort.

Although we were located in Los Angeles, we didn't feel such goals were beyond our reach because the Linux user groups community gave us contacts worldwide, including 85 in 19 cities in Yugoslavia, so soon we were sending out this appeal:

We represent a special interest group who’s goal is to assist in reuniting Kosovo refugees. Specifically, we are establishing an internet web server and database to facilitate refugees with locating families and loved ones. Your assistance\advice would be greatly appreciated towards accomplishing this goal. 

Our initial appeal led to some very interesting email exchanges. We thought it absolutely revolutionary that we could now communicate on a person-to-person level with ordinary people on all sides of a conflict half a world away. We were no longer prisoners of media reporting on a distant conflict. We could make our own news, and did. Now that the Internet has matured into facebook and Twitter, we expect this sort of thing, but in 1999 to be able to circulate independent reports and images of what was happening in Kosovo was mind blowing! Although, I have to admit that all Linux users didn't see things the way we did. I especially remember one fellow from Belgrade that suggested that the best way we could help out was to convince the Pentagon to use more Microsoft products.

Even then, that was a hard sell, the Pentagon was finding disfavor with Redmond's shaky products. When computer crashes can cost lives, half-baked solutions become hard to shallow.

Anyway, after an initial attempt to do our own thing, we discovered an NGO successfully doing the same thing, and folded our efforts into its. It was the first time such a thing was being tried. It was the first time, in eons of war, that such a thing was even possible! I argued in an email:

I think that one master database is the best solution for Kosovo refugees. That avoids duplication and allows for all efforts to be concentrated. It means one place to gather information, and one place to search.

It means one link on the web page for refugee information. One URL to publicize among relief workers, news media, refugee organizations, etc.

Thanks to the web, one site can full fill this worldwide need. Also, thanks to the web, all who want to can participate in this effort.

We are less interested in building another independent database than we are in supporting a unified effort led by those that are closer to the crisis.

What I think we can offer is the necessary systems infrastructure for such an effort, namely bandwidth and hardware. Thorough our ties to the Internet and corporate communities in Southern California, and especially given the current atmosphere, I feel confident we can scrounge an almost unlimited supply of both.  We can also provide people in this area with a wide range of programming and sysadmin skills to help to put together and maintain the site.

What domain name it is under, and who manages it, these are separate questions.  As you know, this can be done from anywhere in the world.  

We didn't know it at the time, but we were pioneering political uses of the Internet that wouldn't be fully realized for more than a decade with its dynamic role in the Arab Spring.

As Linux developed into an industrial strength system, the question Google is currently grappling with, participation with the war machine, became ever more pressing as the metal of this publicly owned ["copyleft"], labor donated, open source computer operating system was shown to best all others, and the Pentagon came a calling.

When the Windows NT system running the US Navy's new "Smart Ship," Aegis missile cruiser USS Yorktown crashed so badly that it had to be towed in 1998, we had great fun with it in Linux circles. We said that Microsoft had given "blue screen of death," a whole new meaning.

Soon the military was looking to Linux for the kind of stability and robustness they needed [ Imagine that: Stability and utility from a worldwide collective of volunteers versus a corporate behemoth! There is an important lesson here.] Soon, even tiny Linux companies, like my own Cosmos Engineering Company, were receiving lucrative contracts from arms makers like General Dynamics.

For some, including me, the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003 became a turning point. On 4 January 2004, I published this to the group's mailing list:

By some estimates the United States has killed more than 6.5 million people of color since the end of WWII. That is more human beings than were murdered in the Holocaust. That total includes maybe a million people killed by us during the Korean War, as many as 2 million in Vietnam, not to mention Laos and Cambodia, a million killed by sanctions in Iraq. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright thought that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was "worth it" because Iraq had WMD, except now it appears they didn't. (Our bad).

Then there are the numerous smaller massacres like the thousand of Panamanians slaughtered and bulldozed into mass graves in the name of catching a drug dealer.

Already we have killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in the name of bringing democracy to those oppressed people. Exactly what our idea of democracy for the Iraqis is is illustrated by "A statement issued by the U.S.-led authority and broadcast by the Iraqi media network Wednesday, December 31, [that] said no individual or group is allowed to organize marches or demonstrations or even gather in streets, public places or buildings at any time without a prior from the occupation command." And the fact that all across Iraq we have been shooting unarmed demonstrators.

Up until now Linux has had very little to do with this carnage, but this is rapidly changing.

'The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen Linux for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards Linux by the US Army: "Evidence shows that Linux is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to Linux-based OS."'

Linux has been designated the core OS of the Stryker Brigades being deployed in Iraq. The Stryker Brigades are based on a new rubber tired armored vehicle, the Stryker. These new units represent the cutting edge of a military that is rapidly retooling itself from being a defense against a creditable threat like the USSR, to becoming a instrument of repression of third world people's struggle for self-determination. The Stryker brigades are also highly computerized. Plans call for complete computerization down to each individual soldier wearing a computer, and all those computers will be running Linux. General Dynamics has the contract. Time was they hired my company, Cosmos Engineering to do Linux development for them, but they are way pass that now. Embedded Linux is also making important inroads in the military. It is starting to show up in smart bombs and cruise missiles.

Since it's deployment in Iraq, the Stryker Brigades have been among the most brutal of the occupation forces and this brutality is not unrelated to the computer game cocoon in which many of our forces operate. For example while we have been celebrating the Christmas holidays, soldiers from the Fort Lewis-based Stryker brigades cordoned off the city of Samara, conducted house to house searches and shot anyone who resisted. "The soldiers move cautiously into this clutch of concrete-block homes, rousting the men, women and wide-eyed children. Uninvited, the Americans head inside, poking through cabinets, closets and shelves, and peering beneath the beds...this is the boot of the American occupation"

"It provokes people's hatred," said Mohammed Ibrahim, imam of a Sunni mosque near Forward Operating Base Vanguard. "When your life is threatened with raids, and you are expecting that everyday, life becomes so cheap, so worthless that you would rather die than live."

How many innocent people did we kill over the holidays? We are spared from knowing because, as an Army spokeswoman said "We don't take Iraqi casualties" and we have forbidden the Iraqi authorities from counting the dead.

If the pentagon has its way, 2004 will be the first year that Linux is used for killing on a wide scale. I for one oppose this. What meager contributions I have made to Linux over that past 8 years, including founding this organization, have been done because I see it as an instrument to advance humanity. I will not see it turned into a instrument of death and destruction without a fight.
....
In the past my company has done work for the Army, Navy and Air Force, not to mention General Dynamics, Lockheed, Rockwell, and Boeing. I have sinned in the past, and I know how tempting fat military contracts can be, especially now when development dollars can be hard to come by. But the question facing my company, and the rest of the Linux community, now is are we developing the brains of a monster?

When another LULA member complained that anti-war posts were a violation of list etiquette,  I responded, 5 November 2003:

As our President and many other officials have made clear recently we intend to stay in Iraq no matter what. At the same time we are facing growing popular opposition to our occupation. What we are planning, and in fact carrying out, amounts to little more than mass murder because we are clearly willing to use whatever level of violence is needed to conquer the Iraqi people. Already we are selectively putting certain communities in 'lock down,' and killing or imprisoning anyone who dares oppose us. We are even shooting at journalist who try to cover it, although frankly most are so tame there is no need.

The poor Americans that have been forced to turn to the military for a job will be forced to do the killing and dying. Fortunately for us, most LULA members do not fall into that category. All that is required of us is nothing. Just carry on business as usual and let it happen.

It is my position that war is not just another subject. It is my position that when your country embarks upon a war of aggression against a much smaller, weaker country, and starts killing other people in large numbers, you lose of your right not to be bothered by it. Because we are such a powerful country, we can be in the happy position destroying another country, killing thousands of its people, and expect that it should not even be brought up in a Linux meeting. What 'white man's burden' arrogance! It has been said that all is fair in love and war. While I don't know that I would go that far, I will say that I am not terribly bothered if I infringe upon netiquette in opposing the war.

I just finish watching ABC's Nightline, which was sponsored tonight by IBM, with a Linux commercial no less. Of course they talked about the American causalities. In a more perfect world they would have also talked about the much more numerous Iraqi casualties caused by us. Then I wouldn't have to.

And in another email:

My words aren't 'inflammatory.' Cluster bombs and depleted uranium shells are. From today's L.A.Times (11/4/03) "The attack Friday night destroyed two houses in the village of Warez [Afghanistan] in the eastern province of Nuristan, killing four children, a woman and a young man..."

Let's try another tack. Transport LULA and this disagreement in time and place. Say to Nazi Germany. Would I be wrong to speak in opposition to the extermination of the Jews among Germans that found such talk 'inflammatory' and 'off topic'? Or the United States in the mid-19th century. Would I be wrong to speak out against slavery even if it was considered a divisive subject? I think not! But since at that time there would have very likely been LULA members who favored slavery and the killing of Jews, I can only assume you would have found such talk a grave violation of etiquette. Of course hindsight is easy. I seriously doubt if today any LULA member supports slavery or the killing of Jews. That is why it is so easy to take a stand on historical questions, but it is also irrelevant to do so. Today it is people in Iraq and Afghanistan that are dying, and it is we who are doing the killing. And since there are very powerful economic interests that favor this, (as there was at the time for slavery and the holocaust), the reality of these wrongs is somewhat muddied.

The Bottom Line is This:

War is simultaneously the most coercive and most destructive of all human endeavors. With the current levels technology it will lead to the complete destruction of humanity, quite possibly in our own lifetimes. It is quite obvious that war is forced upon those that are the subject of aggression. The people of Baghdad were given no say but to suffer the effects of 8,000 or so cruise missiles slammed into their town for example. But even in the aggressor nation it is generally a matter of coercion for a majority. Even with our "volunteer" army, many feel they have no real choice, and as for the financing of the enterprise, the money is appropriated from those that oppose the aggression as well as those that it support it.

It is because of this coercive nature of war that those that oppose it cannot, I repeat CANNOT, confine their activities to those who would 'opt in' to such opposition. To allow those who promote the war, and those who think they have no part in it, to go about there business in peace, is to allow the war to continue even if the majority oppose it. This simply is not an acceptable solution to the problem of humanity's success.

When I resigned as president of LULA in April 2004 to focus more of my energy on anti-war work, including producing my first feature length documentary, News Clips from the Iraq War, which was streamed on the Internet years before YouTube [which runs on Linux], by the Linux Public Broadcast Network [LPBN], I wrote:

I once had high hopes for Linux. I felt sure it could make a real contribution to the success of humanity, now more and more I have my doubts. I have a real and growing fear that if the Mr. Smith’s of Linux [a Matrix reference. Matrix was all the rage with the Slashdot crowd.] have their way, in the future they will look back and say “Wasn’t it nice that so many smart people worked to hard for free to forge their own chains."

Newsforge ran an article with the title LUG Pres Resigns Over Military Linux Use, and when Joe Barr posted a link to Slashdot with this comment:

"NewsForge is carrying the news that the founder and president of Linux Users Los Angeles (LULA) has resigned because of his opposition to the war in Iraq and the U.S. Armed Forces' use of Linux."

It ignited a discussion [i.e. flame-war] that extended to 1361 comments.

In the fourteen years since that discussion, the Pentagon has largely been able to count on the greed and cooperation of the tech industry. This new decision by Google represents an important move in the right correct direction. It makes me hope that a little of its open source ancestry lives on at Google.

My other blogs on Google:
Google correct the record: Little girl was beheaded by Assad not ISIS [GRAPHIC!] 4/30/17
Why are they protesting Google?  6/19/13
Coming Soon: Obama versus Google 5/19/11
Google Supports Revolts | Anonymous does too! 2/27/11
The Google Search for Wael Ghonim 2/9/11
Google Goes Rebel, Supports Egyptian Protest 2/6/11
The Internet Takeover: Why Google is Next 12/05/10
EFF on the Google\Verizon Net Neutrality Proposal 8/30/10
Court rules -> Google Must Be Evil & Maximize Profits 8/30/10
Google-Verizon: What is the Free Press Agenda? 8/13/10
Will Android make Google Money? 8/10/10
Google Verizon Announce Terms of Deal 8/9/10
Why I like Google: Reason #38 6/6/08

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for our posts on the 2016 US ElectionClick here for a list of our other blogs on SyriaClick here for a list of our other blogs on Libya

Google correct the record: Little girl was beheaded by Assad not ISIS [GRAPHIC!]

Originally titled "Open letter to a Putin Propagandist"

This is going to be a brutal post, but then it has been that kind of day, because all day a Putin propagandist has been tweeting me pictures of jihadist beheadings as if to say these are the people I support, these are the White Helmets, these are the Syrian revolutionaries. He wants us to think all the people Assad is killing deserve to die, and he hopes to distract me from the more important work of exposing more prominent Putin apologists. I call him a Putin propagandist because I have taken a look at his timeline and he tweets for the whole gamut of Putin projects.

So he has been baiting me all day:

@clayclai You never responded, did you?

— Tim Owen (@oddlots) April 30, 2017

So let this serve as my respond. Not to him, of course, waste of ink, but to all who follow me and may have seen his tweets, and to the world at large, because now this has become a bigger project, and let me tell you why:

Beheadings are a gruesome thing, and shocking to most people. The conflict in Syria has become very much associated with beheadings - especially in the West where the focus is on the crimes of ISIS and the jihadist terrorists.

From right-wing "Eye of Vigilance" website

There is one image of a little Syrian girl that had been beheaded that has never left my mind in all the years since I first laid eyes on it. It is one of the images that keeps me up at night - writing posts like this in support of the Syrian struggle, year after year. It is the kind of image that once seen, and never be unseen, probably because it doesn't deserve to.

Oh, the caption is wrong, she was actually beheaded by Assad's artillery, but if you find it on the Internet, most likely you will be told it is the picture of a Christian girl beheaded by ISIS. If you do a Google search on this image with their image search feature, you will get an incredible 25 billion hits like this, and Google's description is: Best guess for this image: isis crimes against christians.

That is the lie that now has become accept fact because of the diligent work of Putin propagandists and Assad apoligists to cover their crimes, but I know better because I first used this image in a piece for The North Star titled Barack Hussein Obama: Enemy of Syrian People on 21 September 2012, just 5 days after she was killed and a month after Obama told Assad that he was OK with this and much, much more with his famous "red-line" statement. On the day he issued it, I called it a "green-light" for what was done to this poor child.

When I published my main research piece on that question, Barack Obama's Courtship of Bashar al-Assad, 14 September 2012, this little girl had only two more days to live. That was long before ISIS started beheading people in Syria, and even today the Assad regime is responsible for 95% of the killing, but there has been this concerted effort to convince us that the jihadist terrorists are the main problem. I have been subject to that today by a Tim Owen.

Syrian Revolution Digest

This is where I first saw it, on Ammar Abdulhamid's Syrian Revolution Digest, the same day she was murdered by Assad's army, 16 September 2012.  If you restrict the Google search on this image to dates before 2013, suddenly the 25 billion, that' s BILLION with a "B" returns drop down to a relative handful, but you can find out what really happened to this little girl.

Abu Okasha in Karachi, linked to a picture on Twitter on the evening of her murder:  Brutality of Maloon Assad, Recent Massacre ( Viewer Discretion ) 16 September 2012, 10:56 PM. The next day someone posted this image to Flickr.

This more complete record shows the bereaved father holding his headless daughter, and some of the art produced, probably by children that have been force to absorb such brutality into their psyche. Think of them when you get mad at me for showing you this.

In December 2012 Uncovering the World, a blog featuring uncensored events and news, did this picture layout:

They had no axe to grind in the Syrian conflict. They were just reporting what happened. But since then nefarious forces have gone to work the bury the true nature and real perpetrators of this little girl's murder. Those that wish to deflect blame from Assad and gin up our fear of ISIS have appropriated the last image of this little girl, and through their sheer power to propagate a lie on the Internet, have buried the truth about her murder with billions of lies.

And they have been successful. They have convinced everyone, even Google, that this is most likely an example of ISIS crimes against Christians. While I don't think Google wants to be part of a Putin/Assad driven propaganda campaign, I think in this case, that is what they unwittingly have become.

Tim Owen, reminded me of the tragic case of this little girl again, and made me want to do something. I know we can never bring her back to life. We definitely don't have that kind of power. We can't even  be sure that she had a proper burial, anyway that was more than four years ago. We can't even do much to keep other Syrian children from a similar fate. Maybe a hundred thousand Syrian children have followed her into the grave already.

But we can still make sure she is properly remembered on the Internet. We can demand that the truth be told about her murder and that the image of her headless body not be used to strengthen the position of her killers.  With that in mind, I am hereby kicking off a campaign to ask Google to not fall victim to the Putin propagandists brute-force attack, re-evaluate the available information about this image, and correct their description to point the finger at Assad rather than ISIS.

Please sign my first ever Change.org Petition 

Google correct the record: Little girl was beheaded by Assad not ISIS

Syria is the Paris Commune of the 21st Century!

Click here for my posts on the 2016 US Election Click here for a list of my other blogs on Syria Click here for a list of my other blogs on Libya

Why are they protesting Google?

I've known and used Google even before it was a corporation, so when I heard they were going to protest Google in Venice, I went just to see what it was all about.

Google was started by a couple of guys at Stanford who had the lofty goal of making all of humanity's knowledge available to all of humanity. In the 16 years since they started, they have come incredibly close to fulfilling that goal.

At the protest, I was turned off early by what appear to be harassment of two black, female Google security guards that obviously had no clue that this protest would be happening by the leaders of this group of ~50 demonstrators. After Mark Lipman finished his argument with the security guards, he went on to complain that Google provides "no jobs and no opportunities for the poorest in our community, who need it the most."

It seems that Google is to be blamed for "gentrifying our community." Apparently they pay their employees too much. If they moved a sweetshop to Venice would that satisfy this group?

True enough, Google requires mainly highly-skilled employees. The future requires mainly highly skilled employees. Have these protesters investigated the many ways Google has made it relatively easy to gain those skills, even in some of the lowest income communities in the world?

And BTW, Google has a strong history of hiring from their community, the Open Source community. When I was president of Linux User, Los Angeles [LULA] they would regularly recruit through me because they believe in hiring first those who had contributed to this community.

In 2004, when Google was in Santa Monica, near where the anti-war movement was protesting Bush at SM airport, the Google office practically emptied out to join the protest. Afterwards, a Google employee that had come from LULA invited me in for free sodas and a tour.

Most people use the Internet everyday. Few have a deep understanding of how it was built and by who.

Speaking of Google employees, everybody knows of (1) Larry Page, (2) Eric E. Schmidt and (3) Sergey Brin. How many know of David C. Drummond, a black man who joined Google 11 years ago and is number 5 in their management team. I mention this so you don't think they just hire black people for "lowest income" jobs.

After I returned from the Google protest, I watched an Al Jazeera report on Google's latest project to fulfill their mission: Solar powered WiFi access points lofted high with hot air balloons. Google sees it as a way to extend Internet access to the least connected and poorest people in the world.

One of the demands of the protest was that Google "give back" to the Venice community. The day before the protest, some Google engineers were giving a programming class for youth at the Abbot-Kinney library. I didn't hear anybody at the rally mention that. Did they even know about it?

Even before Google moved to Venice, I was told, on the q-t, by the person delivering food to homeless people in Venice, that Google was funding the regular food drops.

Last year, Google came in at #1 in CNN/Money/Fortune list of "100 Best Companies to Work For," so obviously they should not be welcomed to Venice. Do these protesters know that all Google employees can spend 20% of their time, that's one day in five, on personal projects? How many corporations do that?

That's how Google engineers, with official Google backing, were able to build the first Speech-to-Tweet system when Mubarak tried to shut down the Internet in Egypt during the revolution. Google, working with Twitter, made sure that anybody with access to a land-line could still tell the world what was happening in Egypt. They did the same thing when Qaddafi tried to shut down the Internet in Libya. I know of no US corporation that did as much for the democratic movement in MENA.

In Nov-Dec 2010, when the first indications of what would be called the Arab Spring were developing, Google paid schools in Cairo to help improve Google Translates Arabic. That would prove extremely important in the coming months. I personally know of at least one use that may have saved lives, and saved the day, in Tahrir Square. Likewise, they rushed to improve their Farsi when people were in the streets in Iran, 2009.

"We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran" said Google principal scientist Franz Och in a statement on Goolge's Official Blog.

And remember Wael Ghonim, the Google employee that played a leading role in the Egyptian uprising? After Wael Ghonim was released from the custody of Mubarak's thugs, he said he would like to return to work at Google if he was not fired. Outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt tweeted back "We're incredibly proud of you, @Ghonim, & of course will welcome you back when you're ready."

Google started out as an Open Source project. Like many successful Open Source & Free Software projects, it had to become a corporation to accomplish its mission. That's just the way the world works now.

But even though Google has become a giant corporation, I think I can accurately paraphrase Churchill by saying "Never before has a corporation done so much for so many for so little cost to the user."

I first discovered Google at the 1998 Linux Expo in North Carolina. They were just a Linux search engine working out of a garage then. They were, and are, a member in good standing of the Linux, Open Source or Free Software community.

True to the Free Software creed, they operate on a very different intellectual property model than all the other corporation in the world that are not part of that community.

Did those protesters even know that Google doesn't own Android? True Google has contributed heavily to Android development, but the software remains under a GPL or "copy-left" licensing. [Apache Software License, 2.0] Anybody can build an Android device without paying Google a single dime. Just try that with Iphone software. There is a big difference.

They say charity begins at home, but home for Google is not Venice, in spite the big building here that they have taken over. Google is a citizen of the world and home is the Free Software movement that spawned it. So if you want to look for Google's charitable side, you should look at all that they have done for Free Software. First, they continue to make most of the software they develop freely available under a GPL like license, then there are grant programs like the "Summer of Code"

Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers post-secondary student developers ages 18 and older stipends to write code for various open source software projects. We have worked with open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund projects over a three month period. Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together over 6,000 successful student participants and over 3,000 mentors from over 100 countries worldwide, all for the love of code.

If you use the Internet, a Droid phone, or many other Internet appliance, you benefit from code paid for by Google and made available for free. Microsoft only does that by way of exception, and then only because they have to compete with the Open Source Community.

Much of what we know about Internet censorship in China is because Google very publicly fought it. All the others, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo went along with the Chinese program without so much as a mummer of public protest.

It was much the same when Bush started demanding access to people's search records in 2006. Again, all the other search engines went along with the program. It was only when Google made clear they were going to fight it that those plans were abandoned.

Google has also taken a strong position in fighting bogus claims of copyright infringement and in support of the "fair use" exception to the copyright laws. For that reason my Vietnam:American Holocaust remains up on YouTube [434,929 views] even as it was removed from Facebook because they don't recognize fair use. When Google received a copyright infringement claim about one piece of music I used, they didn't take down this very valuable anti-war film, instead they put a link to where viewers could buy the song.

The Open Source movement is a revolutionary movement, I call it communist software. Oddly enough it was through my connections to this movement, rather than the Left, that first alerted me to the rising "Arab Spring" before anyone else in the LA Left.

Obviously, I have a long association with this movement, and with the most significant corporation spawned by that movement, Google. That's why I think Google is the best corporation in the world and that's why I come to its defense.

Since this protest has adopted as its slogan "Google: We're Watching You!," I have to assume they have seen everything I have related above. What I can't figure out is why, of all the corrupt corporations in the world, they choose to target Google.

Personally, my protest time will continue to be focused on Syria, where an uncaring world is letting 200 people a day be slaughtered by their government, with the exception of occasional flurries into other areas, like this one.

Google Supports Revolts | Anonymous does too!

I am blogging today from the So. Cal. Linux Expo [SCALE9x]. I am promoting Anonymous, among other things to the Linux and Free Software communities. While I was here yesterday, someone attending the conference told me what Google did to support the popular uprisings in Iran a few years ago.

He said that at before that time there was basically nothing in the way of computer based Farsi translation but Google had a project in the lab which they rushed into production to support the struggle then rapidly developing in Iran.

"We feel that launching Persian is particularly important now, given ongoing events in Iran" said Google principal scientist Franz Och in a statement on Goolge's Official Blog.

After Wael Ghonim was released from the custody of Mubarak's thugs, he said he would like to return to work at Google if he was not fired. Outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt tweeted back "We're incredibly proud of you, @Ghonim, & of course will welcome you back when you're ready."

Just why founder Larry Page is now stepping in to replace Eric Schmidt as Google CEO is not clear but rumor has it that differences over Google's China policy played a big role. Schmidt opposed the decision by founders Page and Brin to pull out of China over government censorship.

When the revolution developed in Egypt, Google engineers worked over the first weekend after January 25th with Twitter to setup a Speech to Tweet service with 3 international phone numbers that helped Egyptians get the word out in spite of the Internet blockage set up by the Egyptian regime. They are doing the same thing now in Libya. They started that Speech-to-Tweet service shortly after the uprising began against Gaddfi in Libya. As before the service and the phone numbers have been constantly posted on Al Jazeera.

They have also supported a proxy service to help people in Libya get around Gaddfi's Internet shutdown at this critical time.

Apparently Google's Wael Ghonim had initialed a project which greatly improved Google's Arabic translation ability a few months before the current wave of protests in North Africa and the Middle East started in Tunisia. Google's Arabic translation service has played an important role in these uprisings and probably has saved more than a few lives.

On another front, Anonymous has just released Anonymous : Survival Guide for Citizens in a Revolution
Version 1.0

From the introduction:

This Guide is for civilians who feel they are about to be caught up in a violent uprising or revolution to overthrow the oppressive government of their country. Although a revolution in favor of the people is a joyful thing when seen from the outside, it can be a bloody mess for those inside it.

Most of all we suggest:

* Don't panic, stay cool headed.

* Take a break and rest if your body needs to relax, lack of sleep is a major weakening factor.

* Avoid consuming mind altering substances like alcohol and drugs. They will cloud your judgment and ability to think and act rationally. You are also arming the regime with propaganda that the crowd is made up of a bunch of intoxicated rioters. Don't allow your movement to be portrayed in an unfavorable light.

This guide will give you some basic ideas and tips for how you and your friends/neighbors/family can stay safe in the violent turmoil around you. It is not a ready-made recipe, but it contains general
survival tactics and strategies.

Here are the links to my articles at WL Central:
2011-02-24 Arming Gaddfi
2011-02-14 Senior Egyptian army officers ordered massacre
2011-02-13 Tales of Tyrants: Ben Ali, Mubarak & Suleiman
2011-02-12 Algeria Protesters Defy Ban, Demand Change
The Mubarak Screw Up & the Suleiman Danger
2011-02-10 Mubarak is Defiant
2011-02-10 Mubarak Expected to Step Down!
2011-02-09 The Google Search for Wael Ghonim
2011-02-08 The New Egyptian Normal: Thousands Demonstrate in Cairo, Alexandria
2011-02-06 Tunisia's Revolution Continues
2011-02-04 Tunisian Anonymous activists take on Egyptian cause
2011-02-04 Protesters roar back with "Day of Departure" for Mubarak
2011-02-03 Algerians plan Feb 12 protest against 19- year-long state of emergency
2011-02-01 Jordan's King Sacks Government as Protests Grow
2011-02-01 Tunisian Islamic Leader Returns as EU Freezes Ousted President's Assets
2011-02-01 Army Vows Not to Shoot as Protesters make Million Man Marches in Cairo, Alexandria Today [UPDATE: 2]
2011-01-30 Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
2011-01-29 No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
2011-01-28 In Jordan Thousands Demand New Government
2011-01-28 Mubarak Refuses to Step Down!
2011-01-28 Egypt is on Fire!
2011-01-27 Libya is in Revolt as Gaddafi Worries
2011-01-27 Algerians Plan Big Protest Rally for February 9th
2011-01-27 Tunisia Protests Continues as a Warrant is Issued for Ben Ali
2011-01-27 Tens of Thousands Rally in Yemen, Demand Change
2011-01-27 Mubarak Blinks as Egyptian Protests Continue for 3rd Day



Here is a recap of my other DKos diaries on the Internet, North Africa and Anonymous:
Secret U.S. Intelligence Source on Middle East Revealed !
Arming Gaddfi

Algeria's 19 year long State of Emergency to end soon, President says
Senior Egyptian Army Officers Ordered Massacre!
Tales of Tyrants: Ben Ali, Mubarak & Suleiman
UPDATE: Egypt's Mubarak Has Resigned! - The Mubarak Screw Up & the Suleiman Danger
BREAKING: Mubarak is Defiant
The Google Search for Wael Ghonim
Tunisia's Revolution Continues
Google Goes Rebel, Supports Egyptian Protest
Tunisian Anonymous activists take on Egyptian cause

Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More! w Petition
Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More!
They Should Have Helped That Street Vendor
Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
Huffington Post Disses the Jasmine Revolution Redux
No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
Egypt is on Fire!
North African Revolution Continues
Egypt Protests Continue, Tunisia Wants Ben Ali Back
BREAKING: Protesters Plan Massive "Day of Wrath" in Egypt Today
Tunisians Thank Anonymous as North Africa Explodes
Huffington Post Disses the Jasmine Revolution
Tunisia: A Single Tweet Can Start A Prairie Fire!
Anonymous plans Op Swift Assist in Tunisia
Arrested Pirate Party Member Becomes Tunisian Minister
Is Libya Next? Anonymous Debates New Operation
Tunis: This Photo was Taken 66 Minutes Ago
The WikiLeaks Revolution: Anonymous Strikes Tunisia
EMERGENCY: DKos Must Act Now to Protect Tunisian Bloggers!
Free Software & Internet Show Communism is Possible
BREAKING - Digital Sit-Ins: The Internet Strikes Back!
Cyber War Report: New Front Opens Against Internet Coup d'état
Operation PayBack: 1st Cyber War Begins over WikiLeaks
The Internet Takeover: Why Google is Next
BREAKING: Goodbye Internet Freedom as Wikileaks is Taken Down
BREAKING NEWS: Obama Admin Takes Control of Internet Domains!
Things Even Keith Olbermann Won't Cover - UPDATE: VICTORY!!!
Stop Internet Blacklist Bill Now!
Sweet Victory on Internet Censorship: Senate Backs Off!
Internet Engineers tell the Senate to Back Off!
Why is Net Neutrality advocate Free Press MIA?
Obama's Internet Coup d'état
Julian Assange on Threat to Internet Freedom

The Google Search for Wael Ghonim

When Google Marketing Executive for Middle East and North Africa [MENA] Wael Ghonim went missing amidst the chaos that was enveloping Cairo in the first week of the uprising in Egypt, Google started a search. So did friends and family.

He took six days off from Google, saying he had to take care of some "personal business." The day before the big January 25th protest he tweeted "Heading to Tahrir square now. Sleeping on the streets of Cairo, trying to feel the pain of millions of my fellow Egyptians. #Jan25"

His last tweet, before he went missing was on Thursday, 27 January. He was helping another Internet user get around Egypt's web censorship:

@Ghonim how can you tweet when its blocked??

He responded:

@SweetOwl proxy servers

At first Google refused to confirm that Wael was missing, In an email, a spokeswomen said "We care deeply about the safety of our employees, but to protect their privacy, we don't comment on them individually."

A few days later the company was asking for help in locating him. On Tuesday, 1 February, Google issued the following statement from it's Mountain View, CA headquarters:

"A Googler, Wael Ghonim, is missing in Egypt. He has not been seen since late Thursday evening in central Cairo. The safety of our employees is very important to Google, so if anyone has any information please call the following U.K. number: 44 20 7031 3008."

I have already blogged how other Googlers worked the weekend after Wael went missing to give Egyptians more options in accessing Twitter.

This Open Source Software site reported:

Arabic to English translation (Google Translation + my own corrections)

'Dustur al-Asli' (the site) has received confirmed information indicating that Wael Ghonim, president of marketing for Google Middle-East, and who disappeared since last Thursday, January 27, is the admin for the group "Khale Saeed" along with the groups "6th October" and "Popular Movement for the Support of Baradaie" which called for the organization of popular protests to depose of president Husni Mubarak, starting on January 25th.

Sources told 'Dustur al-Asli' that there is information indicating that the security services have kidnapped Ghanim on Thursday and he may have been killed on its hands, such as happened with Khalid Saeed, who also founded a group.

The U.S-based Internet company, Google, has launched Tuesday an appealed asking for help to find Wael Ghoneim missing since nearly a week.

Boston technology entrepreneur and friend Habib Haddad also started a search going. He asked for volunteers to comb Cairo looking for him.

"We are asking for people to take the old-school approach and walk around and ask about him," Haddad said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. "We are sure that with the number of people there on the ground, someone somehow must have seen him and must know where he is."

The LA Times reported:

A friend, Habib Haddad, told CNN that Ghonim was in touch with his wife and brother on Friday before disappearing over the weekend. Haddad said his concerns for his friend were growing bigger "by the day."

"He would do whatever he could to reach out, and he wouldn't put himself in a stupid situation," Haddad said.

In the meantime, Twitter users are teaming up to track down people reported as missing by family and friends.

A Twitter user in Beirut, Samer Karam, and another in Canada, Tamer Salama, created a Google Docs spreadsheet to list missing people and update the world as they are found. Hundreds of people have gone missing during the protests, but few as high profile as Ghonim.

Probably the most important step in protecting Wael Ghonim and insuring his safe return was taken by the people in Liberation Square on Thursday, 3 February when they elected him official spokesman for the April 6th Movement group. The Mubarak regime still hadn't confirmed that they were holding him but they had expressed an interest in opening talks with the opposition. The people in the square sent the government a resounding message. You want to talk to us? You talk to Wael!

Four days later he was released.

As you might expect, the post-release interviews with Wael Ghonim that so raised the level of the struggle are in Arabic. I have found these versions with English sub-titles on Alive in Egypt. The videos are hosted on YouTube, but since they use JavaScript for the sub-titles, I can't embed them and you'll have to watch them on their site:

Exclusive: Wael Ghonim’s First Interview With English Subtitles.
Dream TV Interview With Wael Ghonim: Part 1 – With English Subtitles
Dream TV interview with Wael Ghonim – Part 2 – With English subtitles
Dream TV interview with Wael Ghonim – Part 3 – With English subtitles
Dream TV interview with Wael Ghonim – Part 4 – With English subtitles
Dream TV interview with Wael Ghonim – Part (last) 5 – With English subtitles

My Google Search for Wael Ghonim

I did my own Google search for Wael Ghonim this morning. Like everyone else since he's come to the world's attention in the last few days, I wanted to know more about him. I know he is a Google marketing executive that is now being seen as a leader in the Egyptian revolution. I wanted to know about his past. Was he possibly someone I could have cross paths with in my own history in the Free Software Movement? Is he more than a marketing guy, is he a geek, a nerd, a computer hacker that is also a political activist, what the media has taken to calling a hactivist? [a term I dislike and reject] Is he an anonymous member of that club? In short, is he one of us? I had to know. So my search began.

Googling for info about the past of someone after they have come to the attention of the world is a daunting task. You have to filter out the zillions of fresh references to find the few needles at the bottom of the pile. But there are ways..

I found the answers to my question in a posting that Wael Ghonim made to a forum on open source software, alt.php.sql, on Oct. 3, 2001 at 1:51am (nerd time). In his post he is trying to help someone move from a proprietary Microsoft database to a free open source database by answering the question Which is easier to convert to MySQL? Access or SQL2000? Here is what he posted:

Wael Ghonim View profile

Well,

I've experienced the same problem 6 months ago, It was a headeche for me however I guess now I would know the solution. Acess allows you to dump the database, make a table structure in your Mysql the same as the one that you have for the Access Database. Dump all the data putting : "" between every field ( you can choose that ) ( Ex.: "1","John","Woow" )

After that you can easily create your Mysql Database and dump the files to it.

Wael

Islam = Terrorism ?!
http://english.islamway.com

We can see his political side showing even then in his signature.

I was using PHP and Mysql and posting on forums like that back in those days. In fact I did a Google search to see if I ever discussed those subjects on that forum and instead turned up this gem from my past. In 2007 Linux.com did a story on me and wrote:

His current main project is a Vietnam War retrospective video based on thousands of TV and film clips taken while the Vietnam War was still going strong, all filed and catalogued in a PHP/MySQL system Clay wrote for himself that runs on his personal MythTV box. The amount of time he's putting into this video project has severely curtailed his business activities; he's still building and supporting Linux computers, but he says that he is currently "dipping into savings" since he cut back his work hours to make more time for anti-war activities.

I finished the documentary Vietnam: American Holocaust, and got Martin Sheen to narrate it. I recently upgraded my PHP/MySql based system for work on the sequel, Vietnam: People's Victory, work that has been so rudely interrupted by current revolutions. Thanks Wael.

Anyway back in 2001 Google was only 3 years old and barely out of the dorm room but they were running the free software LAMP system [the Linux OS, the Apache webserever, MySql database, and the PHP web scripting language, and so was I and apparently so was Wael. So I feel a strong connection. A decade ago he was one of us.

Wael Ghonim went to Cairo University from Sept. 1998 to June 2004 and graduated with a BS in Computer Science. Then he spent two years at the American University in Cairo to get an MBA. He worked while going to school in marketing at Gawab.com from Aug 2002 til Aug 2005. He started his present job with Google in November 2008.

In September 2009 he spoke at a conference in Dubai on how Companies Turn to Social Media to Survive Global Crisis hosted by IQPC Middle East. The announcement says,

Wael Ghonim, Regional Product Marketing Manager MENA, Google will discuss how social media is being utilised during the downturn and how to target users in social networks.

I wonder if he told them much about how he personally was using social media to combat the "downturn."

Another item my Google search turned up was much more recent, December 21, 2010, just about a month before the revolution in Egypt kicked off. It gives us a clue as to just what a MENA marketing executive for Google does when he is not administering subversive webpages. It also gives us a window into how Google and other Open Source companies do business. In an email on that day Khaled Mokhtar, the Project Manager for the Google/Wikipedia Health Speaks Initative in Egypt writes:

Hello Health Speaks Arabic,

Please visit our blog post to read about the final results of Health Speaks. We had 177 Arabic articles translated, published and reviewed by the deadline, including 3 articles on important reproductive health issues (safe sex, gonorrhea and birth control) that have already been viewed over 20,000 times.

As you know, Google.org pledged to donate 3 US cents per English word translated to Children Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357. Now, as a special thank you to all of you for your incredible hard work and patience with us as we tested things for the first time, we've also pledged an additional $10,000. That's a total of $26,611 that will be donated to the hospital as a direct result of this group.

It has been a privilege to work with all of you and I hope you feel very proud of yourselves! I must also give special congratulations to our top contributors (below), to Mido and Hexacoder from Wikipedia, to Noura for our daily updates, and of course to Khaled for his wonderful reviewing skills and amazing enthusiasm!

Competition for Arabic translators has been especially fierce in the past decade. I wonder if the CIA or Pentagon ever thought of this approach? Khaled Moktar added to the top of her email:

Also we can't forget the wonderful Wael Ghonim for his strategic guidance, and for giving me the opportunity to do this great initiative.

Today there are thousands in Cairo's Liberation Square that might echo that thanks to Wael in quite a different context.

For my latest writing on the situation in Egypt see my extensive piece on WL Central The New Egyptian Normal: Thousands Demonstrate in Cairo, Alexandria

Here are the links to my articles at WL Central:
2011-02-06 Tunisia's Revolution Continues
2011-02-04 Tunisian Anonymous activists take on Egyptian cause
2011-02-04 Protesters roar back with "Day of Departure" for Mubarak
2011-02-03 Algerians plan Feb 12 protest against 19- year-long state of emergency
2011-02-01 Jordan's King Sacks Government as Protests Grow
2011-02-01 Tunisian Islamic Leader Returns as EU Freezes Ousted President's Assets
2011-02-01 Army Vows Not to Shoot as Protesters make Million Man Marches in Cairo, Alexandria Today [UPDATE: 2]
2011-01-30 Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
2011-01-29 No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
2011-01-28 In Jordan Thousands Demand New Government
2011-01-28 Mubarak Refuses to Step Down!
2011-01-28 Egypt is on Fire!
2011-01-27 Libya is in Revolt as Gaddafi Worries
2011-01-27 Algerians Plan Big Protest Rally for February 9th
2011-01-27 Tunisia Protests Continues as a Warrant is Issued for Ben Ali
2011-01-27 Tens of Thousands Rally in Yemen, Demand Change
2011-01-27 Mubarak Blinks as Egyptian Protests Continue for 3rd Day



Here is a recap of my other DKos diaries on the Internet, North Africa and Anonymous:
Google Goes Rebel, Supports Egyptian Protest
Tunisian Anonymous activists take on Egyptian cause

Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More! w Petition
Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More!
They Should Have Helped That Street Vendor
Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
Huffington Post Disses the Jasmine Revolution Redux
No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
Egypt is on Fire!
North African Revolution Continues
Egypt Protests Continue, Tunisia Wants Ben Ali Back
BREAKING: Protesters Plan Massive "Day of Wrath" in Egypt Today
Tunisians Thank Anonymous as North Africa Explodes
Huffington Post Disses the Jasmine Revolution
Tunisia: A Single Tweet Can Start A Prairie Fire!
Anonymous plans Op Swift Assist in Tunisia
Arrested Pirate Party Member Becomes Tunisian Minister
Is Libya Next? Anonymous Debates New Operation
Tunis: This Photo was Taken 66 Minutes Ago
The WikiLeaks Revolution: Anonymous Strikes Tunisia
EMERGENCY: DKos Must Act Now to Protect Tunisian Bloggers!
Free Software & Internet Show Communism is Possible
BREAKING - Digital Sit-Ins: The Internet Strikes Back!
Cyber War Report: New Front Opens Against Internet Coup d'état
Operation PayBack: 1st Cyber War Begins over WikiLeaks
The Internet Takeover: Why Google is Next
BREAKING: Goodbye Internet Freedom as Wikileaks is Taken Down
BREAKING NEWS: Obama Admin Takes Control of Internet Domains!
Things Even Keith Olbermann Won't Cover - UPDATE: VICTORY!!!
Stop Internet Blacklist Bill Now!
Sweet Victory on Internet Censorship: Senate Backs Off!
Internet Engineers tell the Senate to Back Off!
Why is Net Neutrality advocate Free Press MIA?
Obama's Internet Coup d'état
Julian Assange on Threat to Internet Freedom

UPDATE: Google Goes Rebel, Supports Egyptian Protest

Twitter has been something of a lifeline for the Egyptian people in this time of struggle. It has been a major conduit for getting up to the minute information out of Egypt and it has allowed the Egyptian protesters to communicate and organize.

So when Hosni Mubarak pulled the plug in on the Internet last week in an effort to quell the dissent, the people at Google decided it was time to take their latest speech-to-text technology out of Google Labs and into the real world. They got together with Twitter and set up three phone lines that Egyptians could call and leave a voicemail that would be turned into a Tweet. The numbers, which went into service on Monday, are +16504194196, +390662207294 and +97316199855 and they have been advertised in Al Jazeera's ticker since. The tinker doesn't mention Google BTW.

Google quietly reported this in their official blog:

Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It’s already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

We hope that this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time. Our thoughts are with everyone there.

In a presumably unrelated development, Google's head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa has gone missing after joining protests against the Egyptian government on Friday. A Google employee at a protest sounds pretty par for the course to me. I remember that an anti-Bush demonstration at Santa Monica Airport in August 2004 just around the corner from Google's Santa Monica location pretty much cleared out the office. I ran into a friend that worked at Google at the protest and after it was over he took me back to the office and treated me to one of their free Pepsi's. On this missing Google employee The Wall Street Journal reports:

A Google spokesman said: “We care deeply about the safety of our employees.”

Wael Ghonim’s web postings suggest a deepening engagement with politics. His Facebook page lists opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei as a person he admires, along with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs. In mid-January he tweeted that he was traveling to Qatar to participate at an Internet freedom forum hosted by network Al Jazeera.

Later, he sent a tweet that said he was going to join the Egyptian protests despite “all the warnings I got from my relative and friends.”

On Jan. 26 after Egypt clamped down on Twitter, Wael sent a tweet that was recirculated by colleagues, friends and strangers: “A government that is scared from Facebook and Twitter should govern a city in Farmville but not a country like Egypt,” he said, referring to the Farmville Internet game by Zynga Game Network Inc.

On Friday, he tweeted: “Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people. We are all ready to die.”

As I write this automatic weapons fire is being heard in Tahrir Square and Al Jazeera is reporting a mounting death toll among the protesters. I fear for Wael Ghonim and all those in the square. I hope he can get to a phone and tweet us real soon.

This is a reprint from Feb. 02, 2011. It was going to be the title and whole diary that day but then the violence around Tahrir Sq started and this diary got buried under Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More!. Since it didn't get the attention I think it deserves and I have nothing else for a dairy today..

UPDATE: Wael Ghonim has been released on Monday after being held for 12 days by Egyptian police. Here is an interview he did with Al Jazeera



Here are the links to my articles at WL Central:
2011-02-04 Protesters roar back with "Day of Departure" for Mubarak
2011-02-03 Algerians plan Feb 12 protest against 19- year-long state of emergency
2011-02-01 Jordan's King Sacks Government as Protests Grow
2011-02-01 Tunisian Islamic Leader Returns as EU Freezes Ousted President's Assets
2011-02-01 Army Vows Not to Shoot as Protesters make Million Man Marches in Cairo, Alexandria Today [UPDATE: 2]
2011-01-30 Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
2011-01-29 No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
2011-01-28 In Jordan Thousands Demand New Government
2011-01-28 Mubarak Refuses to Step Down!
2011-01-28 Egypt is on Fire!
2011-01-27 Libya is in Revolt as Gaddafi Worries
2011-01-27 Algerians Plan Big Protest Rally for February 9th
2011-01-27 Tunisia Protests Continues as a Warrant is Issued for Ben Ali
2011-01-27 Tens of Thousands Rally in Yemen, Demand Change
2011-01-27 Mubarak Blinks as Egyptian Protests Continue for 3rd Day

Here is a recap of my other DKos diaries on the Internet, North Africa and Anonymous:

Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More! w Petition
Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More!
They Should Have Helped That Street Vendor
Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
Huffington Post Disses the Jasmine Revolution Redux
No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
Egypt is on Fire!
North African Revolution Continues
Egypt Protests Continue, Tunisia Wants Ben Ali Back
BREAKING: Protesters Plan Massive "Day of Wrath" in Egypt Today
Tunisians Thank Anonymous as North Africa Explodes
Huffington Post Disses the Jasmine Revolution
Tunisia: A Single Tweet Can Start A Prairie Fire!
Anonymous plans Op Swift Assist in Tunisia
Arrested Pirate Party Member Becomes Tunisian Minister
Is Libya Next? Anonymous Debates New Operation
Tunis: This Photo was Taken 66 Minutes Ago
The WikiLeaks Revolution: Anonymous Strikes Tunisia
EMERGENCY: DKos Must Act Now to Protect Tunisian Bloggers!
Free Software & Internet Show Communism is Possible
BREAKING - Digital Sit-Ins: The Internet Strikes Back!
Cyber War Report: New Front Opens Against Internet Coup d'état
Operation PayBack: 1st Cyber War Begins over WikiLeaks
The Internet Takeover: Why Google is Next
BREAKING: Goodbye Internet Freedom as Wikileaks is Taken Down
BREAKING NEWS: Obama Admin Takes Control of Internet Domains!
Things Even Keith Olbermann Won't Cover - UPDATE: VICTORY!!!
Stop Internet Blacklist Bill Now!
Sweet Victory on Internet Censorship: Senate Backs Off!
Internet Engineers tell the Senate to Back Off!
Why is Net Neutrality advocate Free Press MIA?
Obama's Internet Coup d'état
Julian Assange on Threat to Internet Freedom