The ravages of BB addiction.

I was initially surprised to see this story:

The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will hold talks with the UAE over the ongoing BlackBerry dispute.

The United Arab Emirates has said it intends to prevent the phones sending e-mails, accessing the internet, and delivering instant messages.

Authorities are unhappy that they are unable to monitor such encrypted communications via the handsets.

Mrs Clinton said authorities had to balance "legitimate security concerns" with "right of free use and access".

"We are taking time to consult and analyse the full the range of interests and issues at stake, because we know that there is a legitimate security concern," Mrs Clinton said.

"But there is also a legitimate right of free use and access.

"So I think we will be pursuing both technical and expert discussions as we go forward," she added.

Why on earth would the Secretary of State of the United States of America, who surely has a busy agenda, spend her time talking to the UAE about their Blackberry ban? RIM, the makers of Blackberry, are Canadian, so it's not like she's representing American business interests (indeed, she should be pushing American iPhones on Emiratis instead.) It's not really a freedom of speech issue, since Emiratis can have access to other brands of phones that provide similar technology.

Then it hit me: Clinton is representing her real tribe, that secret cabal that runs the government, Washington Crackberry addicts. And the State Dept., which issues Blackberries (why aren't they buying American?!) to its employees partly because they come with all sorts of security options, also must have its thumb-typing protected. Anyone who's been to DC can relate that people there have the unnerving ability to pretend to be having a conversation with you while never taking their eyes off their tiny BB screens. It is one of the many charms of that wondrous city.

Umm Kulthoum makes an appearance in the logo, at least on www.google.com.eg. Why today? Some say it's her birthday (4 May 1900 to be exact, although no one knows for sure.) If that's the case, she shares it with another important Egyptian: Hosni Mubarak. Happy 82nd, ya rayiss.

A few days ago Hillary Clinton made a major speech about internet freedom. She said:

On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it. Now, this challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic. The words of the First Amendment to our Constitution are carved in 50 tons of Tennessee marble on the front of this building. And every generation of Americans has worked to protect the values etched in that stone. 

One step towards that would be to fix the various impediments the US puts on accessing data, including from Middle Eastern countries. Take SourceForge, one of the most important repositories of open-source software in the world, where developers collaborate on building all sorts of tools, including the kind that might facilitate evading internet censorship. It turns out that since early this month it's been blocked in various countries including Iran, Syria, Sudan as well as other places upon which Washington has imposed sanctions. 

Arab Crunch has a post by Abdelrahman Iblidi, a Syrian programmer, criticizing the legislation that forces SourceForge to ban users from these countries and others (Cuba, North Korea.) Syrian developers have had similar problems before with Google Code and other US-hosted sites. This example of internet censorship is particularly grating because open-source technology has often provided solutions to go around internet censorship and protect user privacy, such as Tor. 

[I was alerted to this issue thanks to a tweet by one of the Egyptian blogosphere's leading open-source advocate, Alaa].

Unlike Hossam, I am slightly skeptical about Web 2.0 social software technology. It's true activists in Egypt and elsewhere have made good use of Twitter and Jaiku to update each other about demonstrations and such, but I can't quite shake off the feeling that over time using these things too much reduces your brain to mush. I've already given up on Facebook, never found Doppler very useful, haven't used LinkedIn in months, and only keep up to date with Jaiku because Hossam forced it upon me, although I don't really post myself (in any case it would be along the lines of "having sardine and toasted cheese sandwich LOL!" I'd rather spare people.) But yesterday someone registered a State Security account on Twitter, and this morning I received this:

Hi, arabist (arabist). Habib El-Adly (ElAdly) is now following your updates on Twitter. Check out Habib El-Adly's profile here: http://twitter.com/ElAdly

Habib al-Adly, of course, is Egypt's interior minister.

Technorati Tags: technology, twitter

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Take a look at this demo of software used by counter-terrorism analysts to track down individuals and their relationships - the example they use is with a religious charity and individuals in Maadi. And they pronounce Maadi in a funny way. Hat tip: Intelfusion.

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A recruiter from Google has written to send the following job ad-- they're hiring software engineers and more who have fluent Arabic. The whole job listing is after the jump for those interested -- good luck to those who'd apply, and if you get in please tell Google to allow filtering of Israeli ads in Adsense (I've had a long correspondence with them over this issue.) Oh, and that whole China thing. Dear friends at the Arabist, I hope you are all doing well. I am assuming that many people within your network, keep eyes and ears open to exceptional opportunities. I am sure that they would appreciate knowing about opportunities with Google located in the Middle East. Currently looking to fill the following Google Software Engineering Arabic Fluent Middle East positions : Engineering Site Director (Arabic Fluent) – Middle East Software Product Managers (Arabic Fluent) - Middle East Experienced Software Engineers (Arabic Fluent) - Middle East Software Engineering Technical Leads/ Managers (Arabic Fluent) - Middle East Do not hesitate to post or share these job announcements below with your HFAA professional network and community of recipients and alumni worldwide and also with anyone or any group that could be interested. Also, any referrals of specific individuals would also be most appreciated. Anyone interested, please email a chronological resume to: nabilk@google.com Thank you in advance, Nabil Nabil Khatib Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA nabilk@google.com ========================= Google Engineering Site Director (Arabic Fluent) – Middle East Google is looking for a highly technical, hands-on Engineering Site Director to drive Product and Technology initiatives for the Middle East/Arab World. As the most senior engineer for Google in the region, the Engineering Site Director will be the face for Google's engineering effort in the Arab World. The Engineering Site Director will be responsible for the overall planning, execution and success of projects with both regional and global impact. In addition to leading the engineering team or teams in the Arab markets, the Engineering Site Director will work closely with Google's senior management team, as well as local officials, universities and professional organizations. Please note that engineering management at Google is technical, i.e., candidates are expected to have a strong track record of technical accomplishments in addition to management accomplishments. Consequently a candidate must posses a strong and broad background in most aspects of Computer Science. Candidates will be asked technical questions during your interviews. Requirements: At least 10+ years of exceptional technical competence and accomplishment with a strong product development track record and continuing and enduring technical leadership throughout career Software background and large scale success developing web-based applications, ideally launched in the Arab market Entrepreneurial drive plus demonstrated ability to achieve goals in an innovative environment Relevant experience as hands-on manager of a large fast-paced dynamic engineering team Solid leadership skills and success in building a strong engineering team Strong project-management skills and proven history in product delivery Ability to operate and thrive in the face of ambiguity Can fit in well within an informal startup environment and quickly establish credibility with very capable engineers MS in Computer Science/Computer Engineering or PhD (preferred) Please email a chronological resume to Nabil Khatib nabilk@google.com Do not hesitate to share with anyone or any group that could be interested. ============================== Software Product Managers (Arabic Fluent) - Middle East One of the many reasons Google consistently brings innovative, world-changing products to market is because of the collaborative work we do in Product Management. With eyes focused squarely on the future, our team works closely with creative and prolific engineers to help design and develop technologies that improve access to the world's information. We're responsible for guiding products throughout the execution cycle, focusing specifically on analysing, positioning, packaging, promoting and tailoring our solutions to all the markets where Google does business. As a Product Manager at Google, you bridge the needs of our customers (users, advertisers and partners) and the creativity of our engineering teams. You combine outstanding product vision with the hands-on skills to work with engineers and deliver new products and features quickly to markets across Africa. Google Product Managers come from a wide range of backgrounds: many have successfully run their own software/web companies whilst others have delivered successful products for large software companies. They all combine a great instinct for developing compelling products with a strong academic background and technical aptitude to work with a world class engineering team and the business sense to drive local product goals and strategies. Responsibilities: Launch products Identify market opportunities and define product vision and strategy Understand customer needs and gather product requirements Develop new products and enhance existing products Engage closely with the engineering team to help determine the best technical implementation methods as well as a reasonable execution schedule Requirements: Computer Science degree. Masters or PhD preferred MBA degree highly regarded End to end Product Management experience of software / web technologies Hands-on developing Internet products and technologies Entrepreneurial drive with appreciation of user-experience, business, and commercial issues Understanding of the Internet, Search Engine, and On-Line Advertising spaces Please email a chronological resume to Nabil Khatib nabilk@google.com Do not hesitate to share with anyone or any group that could be interested. ============================== Experienced Software Engineers (Arabic Fluent) - Middle East Software Engineering Technical Leads/ Managers (Arabic Fluent) - Middle East Software Engineering positions require a significant work history, experience developing web-based applications, expertise in data structures, algorithms, and complexity analysis, fluency in one or more of C, C++, Java, fluency in one of more of Shell, PHP, Perl or Python, solid working knowledge of Unix, preferably Linux, SQL and MySQL are a plus. Applicants must have BA/BS in Computer Science, MS or PhD (a plus). These positions require exceptional programming skills, excellent algorithmic and analytical skills, and a strong aptitude for building high-performance, scalable computer systems. Our recent work encompasses a broad spectrum of computer science research areas, including: Large scale distributed systems design, Information retrieval, Natural language processing, machine learning and data mining, algorithms and data structures research and user interface research. To get a clearer idea about experience, please briefly reply to these questions and email back with your chronological resume: What are your strongest areas of expertise and interest? What are your preferred programming languages? Please rate yourself in them as (beginner, intermediate or advanced). If working, how much programming do you typically do during a week in your last 2 jobs? Please indicate in percentage (%) form. Please briefly describe your experience and knowledge of the technology market in the Arab World. Please email a chronological resume to Nabil Khatib nabilk@google.com Do not hesitate to share with anyone or any group that could be interested. Nabil Khatib Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, USA nabilk@google.com

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The Guardian's Brian Whitaker has highlighted YouTube's decision to block the Egypt torture videos page, which we recently covered. In his post Brian says points how this removes a crucial tool at the hands of bloggers to distribute and publicize cases of human rights abuses and build a campaign against Egypt's systematic use of torture. Reading the comments on the post, there is legitimate discussion that footage of gratuitous violence violates YouTube's terms of use and that it may not be the most appropriate place for these videos for other reasons (since most of its content is essentially funny home videos). Fair enough. Some people suggested that rights groups should be hosting the videos, which seems like a good idea (although it might limit their reach, since way more people visit youtube.com than amnesty.org). That's a good idea too, except that rights groups, even the big ones, don't really have the kind of technology necessary to handle traffic spikes and maintain video databases (which I assume means buying license rights to various software, codecs, etc.) So here's an idea: why not encourage YouTube, Google Video and others to provide their expertise to maintain servers for activists, separately from their commercial products if necessary? This would be a great vote of confidence in web companies, especially after the fiasco of Yahoo and Google selling out to China in recent years. Don't want their names on it? Fine. But they have technology and resources that have radically transformed the away activists can break news and mobilize international interest. So rather than sticking to just "don't be evil," how about some "be good"?

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Yamli Search is very intriguing new search engine that transliterates Arabic written in the Latin alphabet into Arabic proper, and then runs that query through Google. It's really quite neat -- for instance if you type "ikhwan al muslimeen" it will search for "اخوان المسلمين". You have to try it out to see what I mean. The idea behind Yamli is that Arabic speakers often have to work without Arabic keyboards and are more used to English keyboards anyway. This is what they say in their press release:

The Arab world has one of the highest internet usage growth rates. Yet, access to and development of Arabic content has been difficult, mainly because of the complexity of typing Arabic. Although Arabic keyboards are available, the vast majority of Arabic-speaking Internet users are accustomed to an English keyboard. Users often resort to spelling Arabic words out phonetically using English characters, a process known as transliteration. Yamli allows users to convert these English characters into Arabic words. Co-founder Habib Haddad explains: “I would often experience frustration trying to find Arabic news on the web. Like millions of users, I could easily express my Arabic words using English letters, but I had difficulty typing them in Arabic. The need for a technology that efficiently converted those phonetic spellings into meaningful Arabic words seemed natural to me. It would have to be so seamless that users would be able to write Arabic text and forget they were using English characters. This is how Yamli was born.” Yamli’s patent-pending solution converts the user’s input into Arabic as he or she types. To maximize usability, Yamli accepts a variety of phonetic spellings and generates a list of suggested matches. Over time, Yamli will recognize popular patterns of spelling and word selection, increasing its accuracy.

I suspect that another reason is that with so many young elite Arabs educated in private, Western curricula school, many kids on the net don't actually master written Arabic that well. On the other hand, they do master the SMS Arabic where "3" is ع and "7" is ح. Some people will think this further erodes the quality of written Arabic, but hats off for innovation. And there's also a standalone editor that will do the same "translation" for you. It's a short step from that to translating transliterated Arabic into other languages altogether. [Thanks Iason]

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FBI Mined Grocery Store Records to Find Iranian Terrorists:

Bay Area FBI agents wanting to find Iranian secret agents data-mined grocery store records in 2005 and 2006, hoping that tahini purchases would lead them to domestic terrorists, according to Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein. The head of the FBI's criminal investigations unit - Michael Mason - shut down the Total Falafel Awareness program, arguing it would be illegal to put someone on a terrorist watch list for simply sticking skewers into lamb, Stein reports.

Really this is getting ridiculous. Is that the best lead they can come up with? I also like the idea that would-be terrorist hiding in America are somehow exclusively eating their national foods. I bet Muhammad Atta and company ate tons of Twinkies, mexican food and loved the spicy chicken wings at Hooters.

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Science and the Islamic world, an essay by a Pakistani scientist on the decline of science in the Islamic world in my favorite magazine (not really), Physics Today:

In the Islamic world, opposition to science in the public arena takes additional forms. Antiscience materials have an immense presence on the internet, with thousands of elaborately designed Islamic websites, some with view counters running into the hundreds of thousands. A typical and frequently visited one has the following banner: "Recently discovered astounding scientific facts, accurately described in the Muslim Holy Book and by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) 14 centuries ago." Here one will find that everything from quantum mechanics to black holes and genes was anticipated 1400 years ago. Science, in the view of fundamentalists, is principally seen as valuable for establishing yet more proofs of God, proving the truth of Islam and the Qur'an, and showing that modern science would have been impossible but for Muslim discoveries. Antiquity alone seems to matter. One gets the impression that history's clock broke down somewhere during the 14th century and that plans for repair are, at best, vague. In that all-too-prevalent view, science is not about critical thought and awareness, creative uncertainties, or ceaseless explorations. Missing are websites or discussion groups dealing with the philosophical implications from the Islamic point of view of the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, superstrings, stem cells, and other contemporary science issues. Similarly, in the mass media of Muslim countries, discussions on "Islam and science" are common and welcomed only to the extent that belief in the status quo is reaffirmed rather than challenged. When the 2005 earthquake struck Pakistan, killing more than 90 000 people, no major scientist in the country publicly challenged the belief, freely propagated through the mass media, that the quake was God's punishment for sinful behavior. Mullahs ridiculed the notion that science could provide an explanation; they incited their followers into smashing television sets, which had provoked Allah's anger and hence the earthquake. As several class discussions showed, an overwhelming majority of my university's science students accepted various divine-wrath explanations.

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'The IED problem is getting out of control. We've got to stop the bleeding.' - A fascinating WaPo piece on the history of the IED in Afghanistan and Iraq and the countermeasures developed against it. Update: Part two of this series on IEDs is here: 'The single most effective weapon against our deployed forces'.

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Iran: mostly nasty, but sometimes they may be on to something. (No, not really.) Meanwhile, the Lebanese are the last people to discover Facebook, apparently.

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