To quell citizen demonstrations, Egypt has cut itself off from the Internet. Now the Internet is fighting back In an historic move, Egypt has unplugged itself from the Internet. In Cairo, the Web has gone as silent as a Sphinx. Protestors who’ve been using Twitter, Facebook, and email to organize street demonstrations against the 30-year regime of Hosni Mubarak are now up the Nile without a cable modem.Per the BBC:According to internet monitoring firm Renesys, shortly before 2300 GMT on 27 January virtually all routes to Egyptian networks were simultaneously withdrawn from the Internet’s global routing table. That meant that virtually all of Egypt’s Internet addresses were unreachable.[ Get the first word on what the important tech news really means with the InfoWorld Tech Watch blog. | For a humorous take on the tech industry’s shenanigans, subscribe to Robert X. Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter. ] Mobile providers like Vodafone were also ordered to stop data services to Egyptian customers, cutting off another possible route to the Net.There have been a few instances where countries disappeared briefly from the InterWebs due to a mistake. In October 2009, Sweden disappeared for about 90 minutes due to a missing dot in its DNS records. Services like Twitter, Facebook, and Yahoo Mail have been periodically blocked by repressive regimes in Pakistan, Turkey, Tunisia, Iran, and China. Myanmar briefly yanked the Internet plug during a period of unrest in 2007, but at the time only about 1 percent of its population had Net access. Now, some 20 million Egyptians have been cut off — making it the largest instance of a modern country withdrawing entirely from the Net.Naturally, the rest of the Web sees this as a call to arms, as well they should. According to Time’s Techland blog, ham radio operators are being recruited to provide an alternative communications network for Egyptian protesters. Shervin Pishevar, founder of mobile games company SGN, is trying a slightly geekier approach, seeking volunteers to build mobile ad hoc mesh networks to get the signal to and from Egypt. Naturally he’s doing it via Twitter.A Twitter user calling himself “Bruce Wayne” is tweeting from the account @EgyptFreedomNow that people can still access the Net via dial-up connections. Now that would be ironic — a revolution that takes place at 56Kbps. Holy AOL, Batman.Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, WikiLeaks has unveiled a series of new U.S. diplomatic cables documenting the repressive police state policies of the Mubarak regime — promoted, again, via Twitter. At least the Egyptians outside Egypt can read them. It’s a fascinating study of how crucial communications technology is to government — or, for that matter, freedom from government — and how people can find work-arounds to almost any technological barrier the forces of evil put in their way. Once again it demonstrates that Twitter is good for more than just inane nattering about one’s cat and/or lunch. It’s also one of those examples where the collective hive mind of the InterWebs works for the general good, as opposed to, say, watching Lady Gaga videos on YouTube.Could an Egyptian-style Internet blackout happen here? Most observers say no, given the dozens of fiber backbones and Tier 1 service providers available in the United States. I’m not so sure.Last June, a Senate committee approved the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA), a bill sponsored by Connecticut “independent” Joe Lieberman that would essentially give the president an off switch for the Net. That bill prompted howls of protests from both sides of the aisle. That doesn’t mean something like it won’t eventually get passed — especially if a cyber threat arises where a general Net shutdown would be the only way of stopping some malicious Worm on Steroids from infecting every system on the grid. And then the potential for abuse is ever present, no matter whether a donkey or an elephant occupies the White House.At which point, maybe the newly freed citizens of Egypt will step in and try to help us organize a protest. How would an Internet blackout affect you? Post your thoughts below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com. This article, “Cairo mania: Egypt cuts off the Net” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Track the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringeley’s Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely’s Notes from the Underground newsletter. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter. Technology Industry