Despite a violent crackdown on the protests, the rabble rousers just won't quit, and they're using their smartphones to keep in touch and get around your stringent controls on freedom of the press. What ever do you do?

Why the iPhone? It's not the only mobile device being used by Syrian protestors, but it's a significant one. Activists have been using at least one iPhone-specific app to disseminate information about the uprising and spread sometimes gory photos illustrating the government's violent response.

Technology Poses a Threat to Dictators, But This is Silly

Syria's government knows all too well how dangerous mobile technology and the Web can be to its existence. While these revolutions are spurred by real-life, on-the-ground circumstances and grievances, increasingly technology is providing some grease for the wheels.

With this move, we can't help but be reminded of the time the Egyptian government shut off Internet access in the country amidst the uprising there earlier this year. Of course, not two weeks later, Hosni Mubarak resigned.

In this case, the crackdown seems even more short-sighted, even putting aside the absurdity of logistically trying to enforce such a law. If you ban iPhones, people can still use a wide range of other devices to stay in touch and connect to the Web. If Internet access goes away, people can still use SMS as an organizing tool. Of course, in a country like Syria, shutting down mobile service all together is not a difficult task.

The story is interesting because the candidates still purchase TV ad time and appear at various campaign events, but it made me think those many years ago when I first read it how ridiculous our whole political process is. And no matter what party affiliation you might have at the moment, you probably agree that things could be improved. Though I am not sure that a Multivac automating the voting process as Asimov foretold would be much of an improvement.

It does seem as if the computers, or at least the predictive process, has taken a front seat to the actual plebiscite itself. We limit the predictions by the networks until after the polls close in each time zone, with the curious result that at the top of each hour on election night there is a rash of races that have been called by each network's computers. Some of these predictions proved spectacularly wrong, as was the case of Florida during the 2000 election. All that matters is what is produced for our viewing pleasure.

In Asimov's story, Norman, our "typical" voter, has a conflict. He has to tell the truth (Multivac of course monitors his bio-signs to ensure that he isn't lying). He is physically ill the night before the election, realizing his burden is large. His family is terrified, because police surrounds his house. This is to ensure that he isn't harmed on the way to the polling place, where he can discharge his civic duty.

Now, embarrassingly among modern democracies, we Yanks are at the very bottom of voter turnout. Wikipedia lists us below 50% here. There are some countries, such as Australia and Brazil, where voting is compulsory. Austria and Italy, where it isn't, have better than 90% turnout rates. And given the number of governments in Italy, they vote fairly often too.

So think about the Egyptians who are voting for the first time in their lives this week and if you aren't yet registered to vote, take some time to do so. Consider yourself fortunate that Norman and the Multivac haven't replaced you quite yet.

And you can find Franchise in a variety of short story collections if you want to give it a read.

Google has also launched an extensive Egyptian elections page full of info on candidates, major issues and polling stations. The information is provided by Egypt's Higher Elections Committee, but Google's page enhances the content with Google News, Maps and its other election tools. Google is building tools and programs to improve elections around the world, and this landmark election in Egypt is a storybook example of Web technology as a force for open and accountable government.

The Mubarak regime tried, even as it fell, to restrict access to Web services in Egypt in order to contain the uprising. It first blocked Twitter, then Facebook and Google services, and then it went for a full-on Internet blackout. The Internet struck back, though. Anonymous targeted Mubarak's regime websites, and hackers and bloggers in Egypt and around the world lent their support, even facing arrest.

Google lent its support, too, featuring YouTube videos of the uprisings. The extensive resources Google offers Egyptian voters on its elections page today follow through on that support with an effort to make democracy better through Web technology.

You can read more about Google's celebration of this historic election on the Google blog.

Representatives of the Nuevo Laredo En Vivo forum denied the person was one of their moderators. One of the previous victims was a moderator there.

Popular Egyptian blogger's appeal denied, two 15-day detentions. After denying Alaa Abdel Fattah his freedom, and his demand to be tried in civilian court, the Egyptian military decreed two back-to-back detentions of 15 days each. He remains incarcerated on charges of inciting violence of the military. His mother has started a hunger strike to protest his detainment.

Brazil's "cybercrime" bill will inhibit free expression. This bill, currently in the country's House of Representatives, could make it possible for the courts to "apply criminal penalties to activities like file sharing, peer-to-peer communications, and the fair use of copyrighted works."

Anonymous uses DDoS against El Salvador. The Salvadoran government took its Justice Department website offline in response to an attack by the hacker collective Anonymous

DARPA requests hacker help. The government research agency has issued a call for American hackers to help shore up its cyber-security defenses.

FBI shuts down botnet. With "Operation Ghost Click," the FBI has shut down Esthost, the largest botnet in existence, operating out of Estonia.

Facebook to settle with FTC. The social network is nearing an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission over its misleading shift in privacy settings.

Israeli Knesset bills threaten free speech. The bills defund and otherwise limit the operations of non-governmental organizations in the country, including those that are critical of the government.

Use of Twitter by elite frees foreign reporter in Kyrgizstan. American photographer Nic Tanner was released from detention in Kyrgizstan through a combination of friends, friends of friends and Twitter.

"This is not a story of Twitter's ability to galvanize grassroots protests and marshal ordinary citizens to defend just causes. Kyrgyzstan is a place where high-tech social networks meet old-fashioned patronage networks. All those who got in touch were people we knew personally, and people with some clout. "

U.S. government seizes Twitter info without warrant. Adding to its previous warrantless seizure of Google information on Anonymous volunteer Jacob Appelbaum and others, its latest action did the same to Twitter information.

Salman Rushdie vs. Facebook. Facebook buckled in the face of a high-profile campaign by the Anglo-Indian writer to be allowed to use the name by which he is commonly known on his own Facebook account.

Delhi policy seek preemptive online taps. India, a standout in the crowd of democracies not terribly fond of hearing their own people speak, have come slightly closer to making certain they don't have to. They have proposed setting up a spy agency to eavesdrop on people's Internet and mobile traffic. You know. In case they commit a crime. That should shut 'em up.

U.S. House Judiciary Committee reviews SOPA. The legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act, is often called the Stop Online Privacy Act by its detractors. A Hollywood-pushed bill, it will make it possible to block whole websites for accidentally hosting copyrighted material. In short, it gives an excess of power to government and law enforcement, which would result in rampant over-reaction and wind up limiting how Americans use the Internet - quite apart from copyright issues. It would also defy precedent and make everyone from ISPs to forum moderators responsible for copyright infringement.

Occupy Wall Street news shared via Storify. Early on in Monday night's raids to shut down the Occupy camp in New York, mainstream media outlets began reporting that the police were barring their reporters from entering the park. Social media, Storify in particular, picked up where the professional media left off.

The use of social media by Syrian protesters. Syria's is among the most violent of the Arab Spring uprisings, the government intractable and the political culture controlled. Syrians are using social media to skirt the suppression of the free flow of information, including mobile.

Overpass photo by Elliot Brown, Colombo photo by Bri

What's indisputably clear is that regardless of what's sparking and fueling these revolutions, technology is certainly helping to spread information and facilitate communication among the protesters.

The app, which works on both the iPhone and iPad, includes recent news about opposition groups and their activities, as well as videos, maps and photos, according to a story in the Daily Beast. It even rounds up jokes about al-Assad, adding a light-hearted twist to an often gruesome conflict.

Mobile technology and the Web are providing opposition groups a unique and unprecedented opportunity to disseminate news and propaganda about their cause, something that previously would have been quashed by government censors. Bloggers and journalists have routinely been arrested in Syria, with one prominent blogger recently being disappeared.

Technology-Fueled Protests Around the World

Even before the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February, pundits and journalists were already debating the role that tools like Twitter and Facebook played in the revolution. However central the Internet was to Egypt's revolution, it was evidently important enough that Mubarak shut it down. That said, as some have pointed out, the uprising managed to succeed in ousting Mubarak even without Internet connectivity.

In the United States, Occupy Wall Street and related protests across the country have largely been organized online and extensively documented using social media tools like Twitter, Storify and YouTube. Attempts to brand the Occupy movement as the American equivalent to the Arab Spring may or may not prove to be accurate in the long run.

Either way, it's evident that where ever major uprisings and popular protests are occurring in the world today, the Web and mobile technology are there to help facilitate them. This isn't exactly a new phenomenon either, as Wired's David Kravets wrote in January. The 1979 revolution in Iran saw use of the audio cassette to spread propaganda, and word of the Tiananmen Square protests a decade later was spread by fax machine.

So, what's happening in Syria today is hardly new. It's also not clear how widespread iPhone adoption is in that country, so it's difficult to gauge how much of an impact the Souria Wa Bas app can have. Still, it may well be the first app of its kind, as the Daily Beast points out. For the protestors who have access to it, the app provides a flow of information that simply wasn't possible before in a country like Syria.

Protest photo by Syriana2011.

The charge he was arrested on was inciting violence against the military.

The son of a well-known civil rights attorney, Alaa was one of the voices that decried what he saw as military involvement in the violent suppression of the October Christian protests.

The love of tyrants for inversion - up is down, backward is forward, good is evil - is visible in today's Egypt, in a stark black outline against the hopeful, peaceful end of the decades-long rule of a corrupt dick. Given the dozens of activists dragged into the military's dungeons in recent months, Mubarak must be delighted. He may have been turned out, but his policies are in full force.

Burma unblocks websites. The Burmese government unblocked international media sites as well as websites run by Burmese exiles.

Hong Kong bans online sharing of election information. Facebook, Twitter and other social media is now considered "political advertising" in Hong Kong, and therefore limited.

Syria blocks WordPress. In the midst of the protests in Syria, the government has blocked the blog host.

Cuban blogger arrested after Twittering. Luis Felipe Rojas was arrested in the town of Duaba after announcing his intent to take part in a protest for dead hunger strike activists.

Pakistan plans to block Google and YouTube. Pakistan has threatened Google and YouTube with blocking if they do not "help" the government with its alleged terrorism concerns.

Morocco arrests online activists. Blogger Mohamed Douas and others have been arrested in the midst of that country's pro-democracy protests.

International Code of Conduct for Information Security presented to the U.N. by cohort of anti-freedom governments. In a move of operatic Andy Kaufmanesque absurdity, China, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan created and submitted a hilarious "code" for information security. (It's an anti-free speech, pro-tyranny document.)

Another lèse-majesté arrest in Thailand. Surapak Phuchaisaeng was arrested for posting pictures that were allegedly insulting to the monarchy. In reality, they were probably insulting to the ruling party.

South Korea censors Internet secretly. In Korea, even the censors are being censored.

Google re-licenses in China. So much for Google's brave stand against Chinese interference.

China fights cyberwar against exiled Tibetans. China's cyberwarfare soldiers are directing a constant stream of attacks against exiled Tibetans to keep them from speaking to each others, the public and coreligionists in Tibet.

Facebook to work with German government on code of conduct. Facebook has agreed to work with Germany on a "voluntary code of conduct" to protect the privacy of social network users.

Hourglass photo by William Andrus, Malaysia photo by Eric Teoh,

His supporters have started a Facebook page to publicize his situation. A blog, Free Anas, has also been started, as well as a hashtag, #freeanas. Get on it, nerdlingers.

Libyan Internet starts to fail. Renesys reported that, after a long, stable summer of nothing much to report, Libya's Internet has now started to fail, probably as a result of infrastructure degradation due to war and neglect. The effects of this failure will be largely negative for the government, as they are the only ones who currently have access.

Egyptian blogger arrested for "defaming the military." In what looks like a frantic race back to the bottom, the Egyptian military, the erstwhile saviors of the people during the revolution, have added another notch to their billyclub with the arrest and probable prosecution in a military court of 26-year-old Asmaa Mahfouz. Admittedly, a statement on one of her social media accounts muddies the waters.

"If the judiciary doesn't give us our rights, nobody should be surprised if militant groups appear and conduct a series of assassinations because there is no law and there is no judiciary."

Egypt seems to have moved on from the confident non-violence of the Arab Spring.

Iranian blogger freed. After a hunger strike that lasted 25 days, the Iranian government released Dr. Mehdi Khazali. He was released on bail. Khazali, son of a conservative cleric, has been arrested three times.

Al Jazeera journalist arrested in Israel. Last week, Samer Allawi, a Palestinian and the Kabul bureau chief for the Qatari news agency, was arrested while journeying from the West Bank to Jordan. He was brought before an Israeli military court Tuesday and charged with belonging to the outlawed terrorist group Hamas. Allawi denies he is a member of the group.

Tunisia upholds filtering decision. According to Reporters Without Borders, "A Tunis appeal court yesterday upheld a 27 May court decision requiring the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) to block access to pornographic websites. ATI said it would refer the case to the country's highest appeal court because it did not have the 'financial and technical resources' to create the filtering and censorship system needed to implement the ruling."

Filtering regimes start, with few exceptions, with the "protection" of innocent eyes against the scourge of pornography. It never, ever stops there. (There is, after all, so much to protect you from.)

Iranian blogger beaten in prison. Hossein Maleki Ronaghi was beaten by a guard "after writing a letter to Iran's judicary authorities." He required hospitalization afterward. He is serving a 15-year sentence.

International investigation panel closes up shop in Bahrain. The international Bahrain Commission of Inquiry, an international group investigating the violence during Bahrain's protests, has shuttered its offices and hit the road "after angry crowds scuffled with staff members following reports that government officials would be cleared of committing abuses against protesters seeking greater rights."

Argentina blocks websites. The country's judiciary blocked leakymails.com and leakymails.blogspot.com, sites which "linked to allegedly leaked emails from members of the Argentine government." The effect was to inspire the creation of myriad mirror sites to distribute the material.

Anonymous, Telecomix take on Syrian Cyber Army. Declaring an #OpSyria, the groups are targeting the official pro-government computer hackers as well as the suppliers of censorship equipment to the country's violent ruling clique.

In June, Figuiera became the first blogger to be assassinated. Figueira, who was also a newspaper editor and the president of the local branch of the Workers Party, used his blog to discuss drug-related corruption in his home state of Rio Grande do Norte.

Iranian actress and blogger missing. Iranian actress and blogger Pegah Ahangarani, who was scheduled to travel to the Women's World Cup in Germany on July 4, is missing. Many are concerned that she was arrested in Iran prior to her departure. She had a contract to blog about the championship for the German news organization, Deutsche Welle. According to a friend, she was summoned to the Iranian intelligence ministry the day before she was scheduled to leave and told that she would be arrested if she showed up at the airport.

Iranian blogger and publisher arrested. Iran cannot arrest too many bloggers. Mehdi Khazali was a publisher and the son of a prominent leading cleric, Ayatollah Khazali.

Egyptian military cements rule. The military in Egypt was considered a friend of the people during the protests. After Mubarak stepped down, however, the Egyptian military took over a harsher role, imprisoning a blogger, among others, and inspiring a movement against its continued role. The movement, which uses the hashtag #noscaf. Now, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is setting up rules that will influence any new constitution to allow an outsized role for the military.

Nothing good will come of this.

CrowdVoice launches with new design, more content. CrowdVoice, a user-generated platform for reporting on, and dialoguing about, freedom and civil society, has relaunched. Users now have the ability not just to add content (photos, posts, videos) to an existing page, but to add new pages, or "voices," themselves.

New pages include Malaysia and Malawi, where there have been protests, the Gaza flotilla and a page for gay American issues. The service is still blocked by the government of Bahrain, where it is located.

Like most of Mideast Youth's undertakings, CrowdVoice is well-built, attractive and easy to use. It's easy already to see the effect the freer approach will have on the platform's reach; it will be interesting to see how that freedom will affect the overall quality.

Alleged members of Anonymous arrested. In December of last year, three Dutch teenagers were arrested; in January of this year, British police arrested five alleged members of the hacking collective; another British teen was arrested in June; and now, in the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested 16 people across the country and served 35 search warrants in the course of a series of raids.

Those arrested have been charged with conspiracy, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, and with intentional damage to a protected computer, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

Egypt army photo by Al Jazeera

LulzSec is not claiming the suspect as one of its own. In a tweet, LulzSec wrote, "Seems the glorious leader of LulzSec got arrested, it's all over now... wait... we're all still here! Which poor bastard did they take down?"

Nasser Abul, a Kuwaiti who was active in supporting the Arab Spring in his country online, was arrested on June 7th. He hasn't been allowed to employ a lawyer and has only been allowed to call his family one time.

Blackhat hackers attack Chinese blogger. William Long, who "writes on everything from circumvention tools to where military secrecy in China meets Google Earth" found his account hacked. In addition to online hacks, social hacks were also leveled against him, including "constant harassing phone calls from people who answer his callbacks but won't speak."

Egyptian military court to try two more. After trying and sentencing blogger Maikel Nabil to three years in prison, the military has hauled two more people, this time a journalist and a newspaper editor.

France to allow bureaucrats to censor Internet. "A draft executive order would give various French government agencies the power to take down or block Internet content they deem harmful. Critics see a vast censorship scheme that would allow for 'arbitrary' take-downs."

Abu Dhabi photo by Woody

On May 14, a group of 75 Silicon Valley technologists, computer science students and others met at Stanford for a Cloud to Street hackathon designed to create tools Egyptian activists have requested.

This hackathon resulted in three workable prototypes.

"In addition to the constitutional crowdsourcing platform, the Hackathon produced a web platform to allow interested citizens to train themselves to monitor the September 2011 Parliamentary elections. The third was an interactive tool to inform Egyptian citizens about candidates for that election, and once they are elected, to inform Parliamentarians of their concerns and rate them on their efforts to delivers."

One of the attending activists, Ahmed Salah, reminded participants that the two qualities any successful tool created for democracy activists in Egypt need to be have are, they must be "free (since most activists are unemployed) and they need to be secure (to prevent people like him from being thrown in prison)."

According to We are all Khaled Said, Cloud to Street hopes to organize a second hackathon in the coming month, this one to be held in Cairo.

The tech-happy group from the University of Alabama purchased imagery online from orbiting satellites and used image-filtering software to identify the locations, which they spot-checked and test-excavated in person.

Given their use of denser mud brick for much of their construction needs, the ancient Egyptians left clear evidence of structures no longer visible to the naked eye.

These include the streets of the legendary city of Tanis, used as a major plot point in the adventure film, "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

In their coverage, the BBC quoted Dr. Sarah Parcak, team leader and satellite archaeology pioneer, as saying, "This is just the beginning of this kind of work...Indiana Jones is old school, we've moved on."

Bent pyramid photo by A Rancid Amoeba , Nile photo by Ahmed Al Badawy | other sources: A Blog About History

Wael Ghonim, the former Google executive who launched We are all Khalid Said, the Facebook page that acted as a clearinghouse for the uprising, has fallen under opprobrium for recent comments and a lot of the criticism is being expressed via the Twitter hashtag #unfollowedghonimbecause.

According to Foreign Policy's Passport blog, Ghonim has recently encouraged his fellow citizens to ease off on political change in order to stabilize the country economically.

"Economy should be the priority for the revolutionaries," Ghonim said in a translation, "because it is the safety valve which will guarantee the continuation of the revolution and the cleansing of Egypt from corruption."

This incensed a number of Egyptians, including whoever is behind @ghonimwithballs, who tweeted, "How about this: Unfollow @Ghonim, then fire a tweet with #UnfollowedGhonimBecause. Let your voice be heard."

Many have, including @amirakhalil46, who tweeted, "i #UnfollowedGhonimBecause he's a sell-out. Falling for the 'economic stability' manipulative tactic!! Forgetting what #Jan25 is all about."

Criticism seemed to center on prioritizing economics over political progress but he was also indicted for not speaking out strongly against the Army's post-revolution abuses.

Revolutions, when they are clear of their immediate goals of dismantling the existing power structure, have a great deal of settling out to do. You can see it in Tunisia as well, where censorship has returned. You already saw it in Egypt with the sentencing by the military of a blogger.

The backlash against Ghonim may be another brick in the wall or it may merely be one of the post-revolutionary obstacles all revitalized states have to negotiate. As Passport noted, "Few of the big Egyptian Twitterati, however, joined in, and the hastag devolved into crude personal attacks and bad jokes."

Well, it's that time again, folks. This time, it's the sound of the two trumpets, one bronze and the other silver, that were buried with the boy Pharaoh, Tutankhamum. They laid sealed away for over 3,200 years in the Pharaoh's tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, until that tomb was opened up by Howard Carter in 1922. It was played for the first time in for a BBC recording in 1939.

The trumpets are decorated with Egyptian gods with military associations. According to trumpeter and historian Don L. Smithers, on the Taps Bugler site, the longer trumpet is in the key of Bb and the other is in C.

Listen to the trumpets being played in 1939 by British soldier, James Tappern.

Other sources: A Blog About History