Over one million internet users in Libya

I came across an interesting article from the Arabic Network for Human Rights stating:

In 1998, the number of Internet users in Libya did not exceed 100 people. By early 2001, after Internet service was extended to the public, the number reached 300,000. By mid-2003, the number was estimated to be 850,000. It is rapidly reaching one million users, an immense number considering that the population in Libya is 6 million people.

That's a fair size of the population. I wonder how much the internet has played in the Middle East unrest recently or whether it is due to other global economic issues?

Danger! Danger! Internet about to get the Curse of Jonah!

Looks like McRuin will be joining Tim Berners-Lee on the board of the World Wide Web Foundation to take on the role of advising on ways to bring affordable internet connectivity to disadvantaged regions such as Africa.  Well, that's one project completely wrecked by the Curse of Jonah before it even gets started.

I think Alex Deane from Big Brother Watch has it about right:

"Wanting to help Africans get online is laudable. But given the enormous intrusions into privacy and freedom over which Gordon Brown presided whilst Prime Minister, he’s about the worst person to “help” new internet users. Less “education for all” – more “snooping for those who can’t escape it”

Quite.  How a brooding, bullying, miserable, bunker-dwelling, pension-wrecking, cowardly socialist with a total and utter contempt for liberty thinks he might be the right person to help bring the freedom of the internet to Africa, is quite clearly delusional to the extreme.

h/t TechEye.net