
Life in an Internet Shutdown - laurex
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/02/world/africa/internet-shutdown-economy.html
======
qubex
I was struck by one anecdote in the article, relating to Zimbabwe’s internet
shutdown in the midst of a banknote shortage, which left many Zimbabweans
unable to use the internet-based cash-analogue they habitually used in lieu of
cash, and how this caused one businessman to “throw away half of his
perishable goods”. WTF? Sell them on a “credit basis”! At worst you get
nothing (which is equivalent to throwing them away, monetarily, with the added
advantage that you actually are helping keep people fed) and in the best case
leads to people settling their debt once the crisis has passed.

~~~
BrentOzar
> Sell them on a “credit basis”!

In cultures where cash is king, broke people don't go to the store. They're
not used to the store offering them credit.

~~~
freddie_mercury
I live in a developing country where cash is king. In my experience in cash
cultures, stores offering credit is extremely common.

Your sweeping generalization is not just wrong but unnecessary. We're talking
specifically about Zimbabwe, so all that matters is what is common in Zimbabwe
and not what other countries do or do not do.

~~~
mcny
> Your sweeping generalization is not just wrong but unnecessary. We're
> talking specifically about Zimbabwe, so all that matters is what is common
> in Zimbabwe and not what other countries do or do not do.

I wouldn't be so hard on the grandparent. Cunningham's Law states "the best
way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to
post the wrong answer."

My understanding is that stores do not offer credit to whoever just shows up.
You need to build credibility or at least knows someone who knows the store
keep.

I imagine if I were a shopkeeper and I had a choice between selling on credit
to random people vs throwing something away, I'd probably throw it away or if
I sold it, I'd want to mark it as money I won't get. I don't know why some
random person would come back to me to repay me. Not that I know anything
about Zimbabwe (my only interaction is with people who fled the country so I
acknowledge my perspective is probably biased hence I won't try to make
further sweeping generalizations about the government there).

~~~
qubex
Surely most of the people suddenly not having money would be habitual store
clients (otherwise we’d need to understand why suddenly the store owner
ordered twice as much produce as he usually does). So it makes sense that he
would know them and presumably trust them. I summarise that embarrassed
clients probably just stopped showing up.

------
butterNaN
Infoamtion is a necessity, but disinformation is a weapon.

I have lived in an Internet Shutdown that lasted for about a week. I was
actually thankful for it. Don't get me wrong, It was inconvenient to say the
least, but it probably saved thirty-odd lives.

You have to actually live in a tense environment (and be a minority) to
understand how quickly misinformation and rumours can be spread that incite
extreme violence and then counter-violence. Facebook/WhatsApp isn't very good
at quickly taking down rumours, and people are easy to get charged when in an
emotional state. The percentage of people who keep calm and let the situation
die down is miniscule.

Reg. Kashmir, there have already been multiple instances fake videos/images
shared by influential people, let alone everyday folks, within the last month
(I'll put up links below later). You can only imagine the amount of
inflammatory disinformation being shared by normal people. This stuff has
already spread quicker than it is usually debunked, so the damage is already
there.

~~~
sbmthakur
True. Shekhar Gupta explained in a recent video about how dangerous rumors and
rumor-mongers can be.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=27&v=wqzCU1Y36ww](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=27&v=wqzCU1Y36ww)

------
telesilla
This is happening right now in Kashmir.

[https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/28/india-restore-
kashmirs-i...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/08/28/india-restore-kashmirs-
internet-phones)

It really makes me wonder whether a strong movement towards mesh networks
could resolve this. What are the ways authorities could block a community
network? At least information could be spread this way, and might have saved
the Zimbabwean journalist.

~~~
jesusthatsgreat
Cut electricity. That puts an end to modern communication.

~~~
icebraining
Nope: solar panels, gas generators, even handcranked chargers are enough to
keep a cellphone going.

~~~
TeMPOraL
But not a cellphone tower. Not covertly. And if cell towers are down,
cellphones are useless.

~~~
icebraining
> if cell towers are down, cellphones are useless.

The thread on the front page about HK shows that's not true.

------
Multicomp
I like how we supposedly have the serval mesh project but no APKs available
any more or ever in iOS. I just wish we'd all pick one like Briar or Bridgefy
to be the good enough default.

Heck, F Droid has Meshenger but it barely worked. Firechat and bridgefy are
closed source so therefore compromised, so this is not an easy solve.

~~~
smush
You are correct that the APK download at
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.servalproj...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.servalproject&hl=en)
is dead.

However, you can still download it from
[https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.servalproject/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.servalproject/)

RE: Briar, I've tested it before. It's a promising app idea, and generally has
good UI, but I ran into a few issues I'll post for consideration/refutation.

My results were hit or miss as to whether messages would get delivered if both
apps were open, one was open, one was closed, one or both were online,
offline, or a mix. It's unclear as to whether it is supposed to work 'online'
via Tor nodes or not, the documentation is confusing. Getting an answer to the
question "will this work over normal cellular data?" has no definitive answer.

------
ACosmicDust
A Kashmiri can tell what it feels like.

Source: I am Kashmiri

~~~
tantalor
Elaborate?

~~~
pferde
Just doing a websearch on "kashmir internet shutdown" yields a plethora of
"elaboration".

Gotta be a bit active when looking for information, instead of just waiting
for it to fall in your lap.

~~~
tantalor
What? The commenter volunteered they could provide first hand details... Isn't
that better than second hand news sources?

~~~
ocschwar
And could get locked up for doing so.

------
furioushatter
With the first link the chain is forged. The first speech censured,the first
thought forbidden,the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably -picard

~~~
goda90
Well actually he's quoting the judge father of the woman interrogating him.
But still a great line :)

~~~
shkkmo
Well actually that attribution is purely fictional. In reality the quote is
properly attributed to Picard because Picard is the first fictional character
to actually say the quote.

~~~
c22
I'm not convinced that a "direct" quote from a fictional character bears any
more weight _in reality_ than a fictional attribution to another fictional
character. Shouldn't the quote be attributed to the show writer(s)?

~~~
shkkmo
It is a silly distinction, but: In reality, millions of real people have
observed Picard uttering that quote while zero real people have observed the
judge's father uttering that quote.

~~~
c22
If we're making silly distinctions, in reality those people saw Patrick
Stewart utter the quote.

~~~
shkkmo
I would argue that it is not remotely silly to make a distinction between
phrases uttered by an individual and phrases uttered by an individual playing
a character (especially with pre-written lines). I would be far more
comfortable attributing the quote to the writers of that episode than to
Patrick Stewart.

However, in practice, it is difficult to attribute specific lines to specific
writers given how scripts are produced. As such, lines are generally
attributed to the characters that speak them.

------
arsalanb
Indian Occupied Kashmir faces internet shutdowns very often [1], for months on
end. People are regularly arrested for voicing their opinion on social media
and booked under draconian laws.

I was traveling to Kashmir (my home) recently and my whatsapp and phone image
gallery was checked at the airport by Indian occupational forces.

There is also mass media propaganda that claims "everything is alright" in
kashmir, when in reality India has been worse than a barbaric dictatorship [2]
(fueled by jingoism and racism) in Kashmir.

[1] - [https://internetshutdowns.in](https://internetshutdowns.in)

[2] -
[https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IN/DevelopmentsInK...](https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/IN/DevelopmentsInKashmirJune2016ToApril2018.pdf)

------
baxtr
At first, I read "Life is an Internet Shutdown", and dismissed it quickly as
new wave/internet absence article telling me, that real life is only possible
when my internet is broken...

------
mcdingle
Anyone catch the guy with the Namecheap shirt on?

------
sneystein
For some reason nytimes doesen't want you to read them in incognito mode.
Luckily they simply hide the article afterwards with JavaScript, and can be
read without it

~~~
m-p-3
The formatting is slightly messed up, but it's on IPFS now

\-
[https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmTDqDoJv2UkHjYYYiTWNTEW8J9dBDvaM8dP7So...](https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmTDqDoJv2UkHjYYYiTWNTEW8J9dBDvaM8dP7So5LbKtqC/)

\- [https://cloudflare-
ipfs.com/ipfs/QmTDqDoJv2UkHjYYYiTWNTEW8J9...](https://cloudflare-
ipfs.com/ipfs/QmTDqDoJv2UkHjYYYiTWNTEW8J9dBDvaM8dP7So5LbKtqC/)

~~~
mpfundstein
slick! do you know how can i search ipfs?

~~~
momack2
[https://www.ipse.io/](https://www.ipse.io/) is one of the various IPFS search
engines - but it doesn't look like it's indexed this article yet...

------
ican1
The racism is actually shown by Kashmiri Muslims who ethnically cleansed
Kashmiri Hindus. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus were forced to leave the
Kashmir Valley.[1] Hundreds of Hindu temples were destroyed.[2][3] Even now
they're forcing people from other Indian states to leave.[4]

If the behavior of Indian forces is really as bad as it is claimed then why no
large scale migration of Kashmiri Muslims happened like it happened for
Kashmiri Hindus or Rohingyas[5]?

[1][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Kashmiri_Hindus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Kashmiri_Hindus)

[2][https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/208-temples-destroyed-in-
kash...](https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/208-temples-destroyed-in-kashmir-
in-20-years-says-j-k-
government.488457/&ved=2ahUKEwiKueLI9LTkAhUmhOAKHdb7AZgQFjACegQIDxAJ&usg=AOvVaw3WE1KoiPqrpal5K5fFkVwn)

[3][https://www.google.com/amp/s/arisebharat.com/2019/02/13/a-li...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/arisebharat.com/2019/02/13/a-list-
of-temples-destroyed-in-the-kashmir-valley-between-1986-1996/amp/)

[4][https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2019...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2019/08/workers-
kashmir-told-leave-demography-fears-190825140146087.html)

[5][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_conflict](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_conflict)

~~~
dang
Please don't use HN for nationalistic flamewar. At least the parent comment
had something to do with the topic.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20866359](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20866359)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
ican1
How can the parent topic be something to do with the topic but this comment is
not? How can one talk about the Kashmir conflict without discussing it's
history? There's regularly discussions about various political/controversial
topics in HN without them getting shut down. You are really showing your bias
here, dang.

~~~
dang
The parent comment had at least a tenuous connection to the topic of internet
shutdowns, while yours became unhinged from that completely and was only about
the politics of Kashmir. Both were bad, but yours was worse for HN for that
reason. This has nothing to do with which sides you and the other person are
on. I don't care, nor even look at the comments for that information.

It always feels like the mods are biased. The other side feels the mods are
biased the other way. In reality we know nothing about Kashmir; we simply know
is that HN is not a place for people to have flamewars about it.

