South African tech company Unlimited IT was so frustrated with the slow Internet speeds provided by Telkom, one of South Africa's biggest internet providers, that it hired a pigeon named Winston. As the Times of South Africa reports, Winston carried a 4gb memory card from one branch of Unlimited IT to another, far faster than Telkom's transfer speed:  

The 11-month-old pigeon flew 80km from a call centre in Howick, outside Pietermaritzburg, to a head office in Hillcrest, Durban, to prove a bird is faster at transferring data than Telkom’s ADSL lines.

Winston made his delivery in 2 hours 6 minutes and 57 seconds, beating Telkom’s estimated download time of up to two days. By the time the memory card, carrying company data, had been collected from Winston and downloaded by midday, the ADSL download had managed 100MB of data.

The Christian Science Monitor's Scott Balduf, based in Johannesburg, explains why the story is more significant than just good publicity for Ultimate and Winston:

Africans pay some of the highest prices for some of the least reliable Internet service in the world. And if a country like South Africa – relatively prosperous and developed – can't solve this problem, then it's going to need a lot more pigeons.

Telkom has since responded to the South Africa Press Association and denied responsibility for Ultimate's Internet connection woes.

flickr/dubliniete

Political expression has grown up in Madagascar. After a coup deposed the government in March, previously dormant bloggers who once had little to talk about fired up their computers to comment on the instability. The BBC has the story:

Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter have become popular forums for debate, and video and picture sharing.

"The crisis has triggered something like social-media activism here in Madagascar," says Tahina.

Lova Rakotomalala, who analyses Malagasy bloggers for Global Voices, a project promoting citizen media across the world, believes the political crisis has helped inspire political expression among young Malagasies.

He says he wants to see the Malagasy blogosphere evolve into an internet forum similar to Kenya's Mzalendo.

Mzalendo, meaning "patriot" in Swahili, is a volunteer-run website whose self-declared mission is to "keep and eye on the Kenyan parliament".

The emerging trend seems to be that social media can help legitimize public unrest in politically unstable countries. Recent protests in Iran and Moldova appear to prove the point. Does Madagascar's experience with Web 2.0 confirm anything?

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Remember that massive cyberattack on U.S. and South Korean Web sites last week? The intensity of the incident, which may have involved as many as 166,000 "zombie" computers, initially led Seoul to believe its neighbor to the north was responsible. But now, a world-hopping investigation shows the attackers could have been virtually anywhere:

According to BKIS, infected computers had tried to contact one of eight so-called command and control servers every three minutes. These machines then gave instructions to the hacked PC - generally ordering them to direct traffic straight at victim websites, in [an] attempt to overload them and force them to crash.

But these eight servers were themselves being controlled by a single source, which evidence indicated was located somewhere in Britain.

The Brighton-based company controlling the servers in question then blamed a VPN connection (a secure internet link that allows users to access server files from remote locations) maintained by an Argentinian firm's outpost in Miami, Florida.

Oh, and the cybersecurity company responsible for all this gumshoeing? It's Vietnamese.

Barack Obama's new media team at the White House is serious about reaching out to Africans in advance of Obama's July 11 speech in Accra, Ghana.

Obama will respond to questions submitted this week by text message (SMS) in a recording made sometime before his speech at the Ghanaian parliament. The tape will be released to African radio stations and other media after his speech, and the speech will also be broadcast simultaneously on African radio stations and on the internet.

The White House page with all the details is here, including the numbers Africans can use to submit their questions. Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa have dedicated local shortcodes with longcodes available for other Africans. According to Kenya's Daily Nation, local SMS rates will be charged, and mobile users can choose to receive excerpts from the speech via SMS in French or English. 

Erik Hersman, a new media guru who blogs at White African, worked with the White House on the platform and has a great post on logistics and some of the reasoning behind the various outreach platforms. Hersman says that U.S. citizens cannot participate in the SMS platform because of cold-war era legislation on public diplomacy, but other efforts including a live chat on Facebook and a dedicated Twitter tag (#obamaghana) will try and encourage global discussion. News site allAfrica is also collecting questions for Obama.

With no glitches, this demonstration of interest in the views of Africans will probably boost Obama's global approval ratings, which already are almost double those of the United States. At Accra's tourist market, Obama t-shirts and paintings are flying off the shelves and Ghanaians are hoping for a boost in tourism after the visit.

More on Obama's decision to visit Ghana can be found in a recent post by FP editor Elizabeth Dickinson. 

SIMON MAINA/AFP/Getty Images

Fiber optic fever has hit East Africa. On Friday, June 12, the 4,500 kilometer (2,790 mile) East Africa Marine System (TEAMS) underwater cable connected the Kenyan port town of Mombasa with Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates and is expected to begin operating within three months.

"Until now, the eastern Africa coast was the longest coastline in the world without a fiber-optic cable connection to the rest of the world," Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki said at the launch ceremony after the cables were pulled ashore.

This great map by Steve Song shows where things will be in a few years with line thickness representing bandwith size. The TEAMS cable (green on map above) is one of three international fiber optic cables expected to reach East Africa this year.

The next (red on map) is constructed by SEACOM, a private company in partnership with a number of African companies. It has already landed, to less fanfare because the Kenyan government has a stake in TEAMS, and is supposed to be ready by the end of June, connecting East Africa to Europe and Asia. The third, the East African Marine Cable System (EASSy) is sponsored by the International Finance Corporation, the private sector wing of the World Bank and is scheduled to be finished in 2010 (blue on map).

When the cables go online, they will replace satellite connections as the main source of internet access in Africa, increasing speed, reliability and reducing cost. This should improve productivity and allow increased access with the lower price. In Kenya, the internet company Access Kenya has already pledged that the new cables will double internet speed for its users, and companies are scrambling buy access to the broadband and to finalize internal fiber optic cables. Neighboring landlocked states like Uganda and Rwanda are seeking to do the same. 

As interconnectivity between African countries increases, economic benefits are expected, especially in Kenya, which has a fast developing IT sector. Other potential impacts include education and access to media.

For a good visual of all the submarine internet cables operating or being built worldwide, check out this Alcatel-Lucent map (pdf).The more connections, the faster information can move. Most major websites are still hosted in the United States and Europe, but as Africa's wired status improves, this could change, and locally hosted data is much faster to access. 

Steve Song/Manypossibilities.net

Since Twitter started getting coverage for its role in the goings-on in Iran, commentators have expressed concern over which Twitter feeds are fake, and whether Twitter could be used to spread disinformation. The unofficial Twitter watchdog Twitspam has a list of "fake Iran election tweeters," and their feeds make for fascinating examples of reverse propaganda in action.

Their techniques have different approaches and levels of subtelty. Some simply make up silly stories, like one user's claim "BREAKINGNEWS: Ahmedinejads plane take off from Russia 2 hours ago & lost over BlackSea! Does he know how to swim? confrmation?" or another's insistence that "Mussavi concedes, pleads halt to protest." Others take a more egotistical approach, such as this user generously volunteering to become the leader: "Saturday - small groups organized by "ERAN SPAHBOD RUSTAM" will attack government buildings and basij.women,children stay home." Finally, some Tweeters, in their rush to spread violence, seem rather unclear as to correct grammatical usage of Arabic words: "Get a mask and gloves - lets intifada tonight on the streets of Teheran - My group will barricade one street. Make your group 2. kick ass"

The most pernicious fake Twitter user, though, has been Persian_Guy, who's not only provided fake news ( "Mussavi overheard: 'We don't need a black man's help, that's humiliating, at least not arab.'") and calls for violence (""non-Iranian Arabs waving Hamas/Hezbollah flags around the protests. Kill Arabs now, they are scums!"), but has even brought Twitter into the fake narrative. According to this user, "Twitter's staff are ecstatic by what's happening in Iran, "We're so glad there's chaos in Iran, finally Twitter is 'useful.'"" Somehow, I doubt that will endear him to his fellow Tweeters.

David Paul Morris/Getty Images

With all these Twitter Revolutions breaking out all over the place, it certainly seems like that whole online social networking thing is here to stay. Good thing FP has already got Web 2.0 on lock!

If you haven't already, be sure to friend us on our newly spruced-up Facebook page, where you can find regular updates from the magazine and interact with other readers.

Or if Twitter's your thing, you can follow @FP_magazine for a regular feed of the best new FP content.

As many other outlets have remarked, Twitter has been a critical lifeline for news coming out of Iran, with bloggers combining Tweets and grainy cell phone footage for indispensable running coverage (the best example of this has been Andrew Sullivan, who George Packer rightly calls "the number one source for Iran news these days"). The role has been so critical that when Twitter announced a temporary shutdown last night for an important network upgrade, even the State Department asked it to delay the upgrade:

The US government asked Twitter to delay maintenance plans in order to allow Iranians to communicate while their government banned other media following elections, a US official said Tuesday.

The official said the State Department had asked the social networking firm to delay shutting down its service to "highlight to them that this was an important means of communications... in Iran."

The State Department official told reporters on the condition of anonymity that the Twitter service was all the more important because the Iranian government had shut down other websites, cell phones, and newspapers.

"One of the areas where people are able to get out the word is through Twitter," the official said. "They announced they were going to shut down their system for maintenance and we asked them not to."

Twitter eventually postponed the upgrade until later today. Some might say this is an example of American interference, but, as (ironically) CNN points out, Twitter is just as crucial an information source for the State Department as anyone else:

Because the US has no relations with Iran and does not have an embassy there, it is relying on media reports and the State Department’s Iran Watch Offices in embassies around the world. The largest such offices are in Dubai, Berlin and London, all home to large Iranian expat communities.

But officials say the internet, and specifically social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, are providing the United States with critical information in the face of a crackdown on journalists by Iranian authorities[...]

While officials would not say whether they were communicating with Iranians directly, one senior official noted that the US is learning about certain people being picked up for questioning by authorities through posts on Twitter.

“It is a very good example of where technology is helping,” the official said.

NIMA DAYMARI/AFP/Getty Images

With the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on Thursday, China's ever-vigilant censors have stepped up the reach of the "Great Firewall," blocking Western sites like Twitter, Flickr, and (just one day after its launch) Microsoft's Bing.

 The measures came as the authorities tried to close all avenues of dissent ahead of Thursday's anniversary, placing prominent critics under house arrest and banning newspaper from making any mention of the pro-democracy protests.

The co-ordinated internet "takedown" occurred at 5pm local time (10am GMT) on Tuesday as a broad range of websites suddenly became unavailable to Chinese internet users[...]

Foreign newspaper and television channels were also subject to censorship as the highly sensitive anniversary approached.

Viewers of the BBC's world channels in Beijing found their screens turning black whenever reports on the anniversary were being aired and four foreign television crews attempting to film in Tiananmen Square reported being stopped by police.

Print publications were also affected, with many subscribers to The Economist magazine receiving their weekly copies with the Tiananmen-related pages ripped out. Readers of the Financial Times and South China Morning post also reported missing pages.

As for those who saw the expanded censorship coming, the "Surprisingly Accurate Internet Claim" award goes to Chinese blogger Michael Anti, who just last Wednesday told Danwei.org:

"Twitter is a new thing in China. The censors need time to figure out what it is. So enjoy the last happy days of twittering before the fate of Youtube descends on it one day."

If there's one group who respond quickly to news, though, it's Twitter users, who have already made the topic one of the most talked about on the site. After all, as one user put it: "No Twitter in China now? How do they make it through the day?"

FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

The Private Sector Development blog at the World Bank has a cool post on the effect of labor laws on computer use. Social scientists have theorized that the stricter the regulations on hiring and firing workers, the more companies turn to computers and technology.

Turns out that conventional wisdom is correct, a World Bank study shows:

Amin (2009) tests this hypothesis on 1,948 retail stores in India using data from Enterprise Surveys, a regular World Bank survey on firm performance, firm characteristics and the business climate....The study finds that the percentage of retail stores that use computers rises by 6.2 percentage points as we move from the state with the least to the median level of rigid labor laws. This is a large effect given than only 19% of the stores in the sample use computers.

The PSD blog cautions against reading too much into the results, though: 

That is, to properly understand the computers/productivity relationship one needs to distinguish between the motive of saving labor because of labor regulations and the motive of enhancing efficiency through computer usage. To what extent these effects hold remains to be empirically ascertained - an important task given that the use of computers and other modern devices is fast spreading across the globe.

But there's a nice synergy there. And I wonder whether the same scientists have studied the corollary between India as an outsourcing hub and an IT giant. 

Facebook recently launched an Arabic version of its popular social networking site in a bid to expand its presence among the 250 million Arabic-speaking people of the world. Facebook enlisted the help of 850 Arabic speakers in the site’s design, asking them to discuss and vote on the best translations.

Facebook is already wildly successful across the Middle East, even without a design in most Arabs' native language. According to Alexa, it is the most popular site in Lebanon, with 300,000 users, and the third most popular site in Egypt, with 900,000 users. It has long been possible to write in Arabic script on Facebook, but users have needed to be proficient in another language to navigate the site’s links and sidebars.

In the Middle East, where political expression is largely dominated by the state, the expansion of Facebook to Arabic-only speakers is a potentially big deal. Last year, Facebook’s largely censorship-free environment helped Egyptian activists organize anti-regime protests. This has caused some Arab regimes to crack down on the social networking site. Egyptian authorities arrested and roughed up the creator of a Facebook group that promoted last year’s protest, while Syria has previously blocked all access to the site.

Early reviews of Facebook’s Arabic version have been mixed, with some users complaining that the translations are unwieldy or inaccurate. Without previously existing Arabic words for Facebook terms such as a “wall” or ‘E-mail Friend Finder,” this was perhaps inevitable. But the criticism from bilingual users familiar with the English-language Facebook misses the point. This experiment will sink or swim based on the site’s ability to tap into the market of Arabic-only speakers, and to act as a  conduit for expression and organization beyond the reach of the state.

As we've noted before, the British Foreign Offices's diplo-blogging experiment has, for the most part, been a resounding success. But all that might be undone by this post by Ambassador to North Korea Peter Hughes on the country's recent "election," which reads more like one of the Korean Central News Agency's floried dispatches. Here's a sample:

Spring seems to have arrived in Pyongyang, much the same as I suppose it has in Seoul. The weather during the weekend was relatively warm and sunny for the elections of  the 12th Supreme People's Assembly that took place on Sunday 8 March. There was a very festive atmosphere throughout the city. Many people were walking to or from the polling stations, or thronging the parks to have picnics or just stroll. Most of the ladies were dressed in the colourful traditional hanguk pokshik and the men in their best suits. Outside the central polling stations there were bands playing and people dancing and singing to entertain the queues of voters waiting patiently to select their representatives in the country's unicameral legislature. The booths selling drinks and snacks were very popular with the crowds and everyone seemed to be having a good time. The list of successful candidates was published on Monday. There was a reported turn-out of over 99% of the voters and all the candidates, including Kim Jong Il, were elected with 100% approval. In a few weeks time the Supreme People's Assembly will open for business which will include voting for the Chairman of the National Defence Committee (presently Kim Jong Il), and drawing up the budget for the coming financial year.

I don't mean to lecture the ambassador on the finer points of democratic politics, but 99 percent turnout is generally not considered a good thing. Looks like someone is hankering a slice of Kim's famous pizza.

Development ideologues beware. NYU economist, aid skeptic, top intellectual, and FP contributor William Easterly has entered the blogosphere. His new blog, Aid Watch, aims to "be brutally honest when aid is not helping the poor, but also praising it when it is." His first post takes on World Bank President Robert Zoellick's call for $6 billion in addtional U.S. foreign aid.

Stay tuned.

Photo: NYU 

Just as FDR mastered radio, and JFK became the first television president, it looks like BHO is going to be the first true president of the Internet age. His spiffy new Web site is already up: