Can you imagine the sheer rage our Gov would face if they shut down the internet. Keep in mind that internet and cable tv are on the same networks.

This is like a goverment induced general strike in our current web based economy. Mubarak must have been under incredible economic pressure with the various strikes, protests and a self induced blackout. No wonder the military made him step down.

No, he really didn't. They simply have a small handful of providers and a despotic leader that had no legal restrictions on his ordering them shutdown. What happened in Egypt is not possible in many nations, and not possible in ours unless the government went in guns first to order places down--and a LOT of places. They could do more damage taking down things like the root servers" but that still won't take down the Internet. They would have to take down quite a number of things. This has been beaten to death lately in tech circles because of Egypt. It's extremely unlikely at best here domestically if not impossible. We'd have to be up to The Stand or early Romero levels of society falling down first.

“In Egypt the actual physical and logical connections to the rest of the world are few, and they are licensed by the government and they are tightly controlled,” said Wael Amin, president of ITWorx, a large software development company based in Cairo.

Key quote. Even if they weren't licensed and controlled heavily, when you such a small chokepoint it's trivial to execute what they did. Try that in the US short of the end of the US itself being on the near horizon--good luck.

When I heard about this, I thought the same thing. Unfortunately, other companies in similar industries (Telco) don't have a good history when it comes to ceding to illegal requests. Do you think a majority won't roll over when President Whoever orders them to shut down...or else?

@6 or else what? Loss of profits? Profits are more important than any President's order to these people unless it's legally binding.

@7 Temporary profit loss is easier to take than some catastrophic action (e.g. I'm thinking of license of some sort to operate or criminal investigations). However, your point is well-taken that any shutdown would have FAR greater economic consequences here than those seen in Egypt.

@1, Man, if only someone would pull the plug on the whole thing. It would be the best thing to happen this century. Imagine the utopia we'd all live in without TV or internet - so much free time...

These bastards helped. I'd like to see them get a little more publicity.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/narus-palo-alto#…

I'm curious as to why you think this is an achievement? I mean, I thought that free speech and the free exchange of information were good things.

@5

What world do you live in? I see people sitting on their asses all day because of the internet and tv. Now imagine if it's taken away by the evil government as retribution.

DUMB!!!!!!ASS!!!!!!TROLL!!!!!