Mahmood's Den

Just arrived in Shanghai this afternoon and checked in to a lovely hotel on the The Bund and overlooking the Huangpu river. You see the view from my room above. Quite nice. First impressions of Shanghai is nothing short of “wow” mixed in with “oh shit!” and an occasional “daaaaamn!”. Let me explain: From the [...]

Thanks Robert!

BAHRAINI authorities yesterday claimed to have blocked a number of websites and blogs by mistake. The Information Affairs Authority (IAA) claimed a technical error resulted in blocking of several sites, but said in a statement it was fixing the problem. [...] She said her site www.sillybahrainigirl.blogspot.com was blocked on Tuesday after being incorrectly categorised as [...]

With the strange blocking of Silly Bahraini Girl, I can no longer speculate as to what the government’s policy, standards or strategy employed other than a heavy handed approach in stifling speech and them hoping – or actually believing – that such methods actually work in this day and age. Amira Al-Hussaini’s blog’s content is [...]

Yes, it’s that time of the year again. A new information Tzar at the helm of the “Information Authority” (or if you prefer, the Misery of Information redux); hence, the very first thing which happens is…. yes, you guessed it: ban some web sites, blogs and even political society websites. All that just ahead of [...]

Hate to say that I told you so, but indications are now heating up to target any secure platform with demands of open access by the so called security services: As Research In Motion faces an increasingly public dispute with several countries over the ability to monitor communication on its BlackBerry devices, virtually all other [...]

Bahrain started it. UAE happily followed, and of course Saudi rushes headlong into the gap and slaps an apparent full ban on the Blackberry services. Now, one country after another is announcing or at least mulling how they too can find an excuse to apply their band on a service that has revolutionised how people [...]