Egypt

Tweet tussle between U.S. embassy, Egypt over 'Daily Show' clip

Update: 5:09 PM PT The only thing missing from this contretemps is Stephen Colbert coming to the rescue. On second thought, scratch that. Bad idea.

But mark this one down as the latest episode in the annals of humorless politicians who wouldn't know a funny punchline if their lives depended on it. Turns out that the the office of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi did not at all care when the U.S. Egyptian Embassy retweeted a link to an episode of "The Daily Show" in which host Jon Stewart skewered the government for ordering the arrest … Read more

Egypt's military arrests divers cutting undersea Internet cables

Egypt's naval forces arrested three divers cutting through an undersea Internet cable today, the country's military representative said, raising the possibility that saboteurs are behind severed lines and days-long Internet disruptions.

A coast-guard patrol stopped a fishing boat near Alexandria and arrested three men "while they were cutting a submarine cable" line belonging to Telecom Egypt, the country's main communications company, Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said on his official Facebook page. The page offered no details on the divers' identities, according to published reports.

It was not immediately clear if the divers were responsible for … Read more

Egypt accused of crowdsourcing censorship

The Web has made it hard to censor things.

Principally because it is both so open and so Byzantine that there are simply so many things out there for a budding censor to sink his opprobrium into.

I can remember when I lived in Singapore and my NFL VHS's -- mailed to me from Switzerland -- were pored over by men and women with extremely sharp eyes and ears that became highly attuned to the sound of John Madden saying "Boom!"

So imagine how much hard work the world's online censors are having to do.

Egypt … Read more

Ancient d20 die now available in 3D-printed form

When we first looked into the ancient d20 die from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it spurred a lot of geeky excitement. The only thing that might have been more fun would have been uncovering an ancient Egyptian Atari cartridge.

Readers quickly chimed in about getting a replica made. There were pleas for ThinkGeek to get busy on it, or for someone with Autodesk and a 3D printer to tackle the project. Cornerstone Gaming on Shapeways has officially made it across the 3D-printed-ancient-die finish line.… Read more

YouTube to be blocked in Egypt over anti-Islam film

An Egyptian administrative court ordered Google's YouTube suspended for a month as a penalty for broadcasting the controversial film "Innocence of Muslims," which mocks the prophet Muhammad, according to a Reuters report.

The 13-minute film, originally uploaded to YouTube in July 2012, was a trailer for a movie produced in the U.S. It denigrates the prophet Muhammad as a buffoonish molester, and it sparked violence and outrage throughout Muslim countries in September of 2012.

At the time of the unrest last fall, Google determined that "Innocence of Muslims" did not violate YouTube's community … Read more

Egypt works to pull the plug on online porn

Egypt is the latest country to attempt censorship of online pornography. According to Reuters, a public prosecutor pronounced yesterday that all porn Web sites must be blocked.

The government must "take the necessary measures to block any corrupt or corrupting pornographic pictures or scenes inconsistent with the values and traditions of the Egyptian people and the higher interests of the state," prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmoud said, according to Reuters.

Apparently, Mahmoud's order was following up on a 2009 court ruling that also deemed porn sites be banned. According to Reuters, Egypt's telecommunications minister, Hany Mahmoud, said … Read more

No easy outs for YouTube in Islam video controversy

World politics intrude on Silicon Valley (again). After days of violence sparked by outrage over a video trailer mocking Islam's prophet, Google and its YouTube subsidiary are caught up in a controversy in which the options boil down to bad and worse.

A brief recap: Demonstrations erupted in the Middle East this week against "Innocence of Muslims," a YouTube clip denigrating Muhammad as a buffoonish, skirt-chasing molester. The video, originally uploaded to YouTube in July, was a trailer for a movie produced by a Southern California filmmaker named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. In the violent blowback that followed, … Read more

Google finds itself embroiled in Libya, Egypt blasphemy charges

Google has found itself embroiled in a high-profile dispute pitting the traditional western value of free speech against Islam's strict proscription against blasphemy.

The company confirmed today that it "temporarily" blocked YouTube users in Libya and Egypt from accessing a YouTube video trailer from an amateur movie sharply critical of the Prophet Muhammad. And Afghanistan retaliated by unilaterally blocking all of YouTube for its citizens.

Those restrictions came less than a day after the U.S. ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans were killed in an attack by Muslim protesters. Protesters also entered … Read more

Infrared satellite survey reveals 17 lost pyramids

Here's news Indiana Jones would dig: 17 lost pyramids and thousands of ancient tombs and other structures have been revealed in an infrared satellite survey of Egypt.

University of Alabama at Birmingham Egyptologist Sarah Parcak and colleagues used NASA and commercial satellites orbiting 430 miles above Egypt to show mud-brick structures under the surface. The stunning findings include more than 1,000 tombs and 3,100 settlements.

"This hints at the possibilities of discoveries to come," Parcak was quoted as saying by her university. "I am excited for my generation and the generations to come. There is enough to be excavated for 50 generations to come."

Preliminary excavations by a French team have confirmed the presence of at least two possible pyramids. The findings at Saqqara (Sakkara) could be one of the most important sites in Egypt. … Read more