DALnet ALERT - Login problems? There's a way in! (30/Oct/00)  ADSL madness. (18/Nov/00)

Looks like Etisalat announcing there record profits has triggered yet another attack on them. Dual ISDN is slower than 28.8K - Name servers are up and down like a yoyo - and yes - we are back :)   (16/April/02)

 Sitting on your computer all day and missing the Radio? Tune in to DTCM Dubai FM (Arabic) or  Emirates FM 1 Live.   (14/Nov/01)

AntiProxy.com is back up and SECURE !

This web site has an almost cult like following in the Middle East. At 9:50am on Saturday 10th November 2001, someone using the same Sun 5.6 Operating system that Etisalat uses, and coming in directly from a UAE IP without using a proxy server, viewed about 50 pages on the site for about 20 minutes. They (there ended up being two different users) mostly wandered through the tutorials on how to create your own CGI proxies using web hosting accounts. This obviously produced some reaction, and soon later the site was blocked.

What was really funny about this was, that after the site was blocked, the first hits from UAE came in from an institution closely related to Etisalat, using a non-anonymous proxy from Argentina! Looks like Etisalat are training their team well to bypass their own proxies! Good thinking Etisalat!

So, for the interesting part. Why are http://Antiproxy.com/ and http://www.AntiProxy.com/ still blocked, yet we say the site is still open and available? The reason is, the site now runs off a secure server. Secure connections are direct. They do not go through the proxy. Even if your browser is configured to use the proxies in UAE, a secure connection is first attempted directly to the internet and onwards directly to the secure site.

And again the bottom line. AntiProxy.com is available to you again :)  (13/Nov/01)

Another sad day in Dubai. This morning Etisalat blocked the now famous web site www.AntiProxy.com. There is no legislation against sites which carry information that Anti Proxy did. Etisalat &/or  EIM &/or the censors who monitor things make the decision whether or not an informational web site is permitted viewing or not. That means even if a site is technology related, and does not carry pornography, or promote racial hatred or is religiously offensive, they still block it if they so desire. Some time back a press release stated the reasons a site could be blocked. We are searching for it and will post it when we find it.

Meanwhile you can email watch@emirates.net.ae and ask them to UnBlock www.Antiproxy.com as it does not go against the moral codes of the U.A.E. Also, feel free to use this link.  (10/Nov/01)

A Gulf News Reader in Dubai sent in this letter:-

I have a complaint about the intrusive and irritating form of advertising that is becoming prevalent in the UAE. It is the sending of SMS text messages on mobile telephones. How can Etisalat allow this to happen?

How about at least making the advertiser ask customers if they would like to receive such messages before using their mobile telephone? Other forms of advertisements can be ignored, but text messages have to be read first before being deleted.

Can Etisalat comment on this practice and whether Etisalat encourages it? The absurd thing is that, being irritating by nature, the response must be poor and the advertiser must surely be wasting its money. So we both lose.  Gulf News Opinions 7/Nov

Your reply is as follows:- Of course Etisalat gains! They get revenue from each SMS sent. They will not take action against SPAMMERS be they by Email or WAP, since they place revenues over their duty and image. Below is a WAP message Etisalat themselves sent by SMS on Wed 7/Nov evening - 

Experience the convenience! Our E-shop Etisalat4me is now available under ew@p menu. View & pay your GSM bill thru your Mobile & enjoy wapping with Etisalat4me.

PS. They should rename their website to Etisalat4ourselves

----------------

Finally a website that shows good maps of Dubai and how to drive from place to place. A commendable effort, even if the pages are a bit slow to load. Dubaiezguide.com (9/Nov/01)

Are you playing the Nokia Game yet? If not ..... why not? (5/Nov/01)

Efficient have released additional Drivers for their ADSL modems that support

• Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows Millennium Edition (ME), Windows 98 SE, and Windows 98 (1483 only)
• SpeedStream 3060, 3061, 4031, 4060, and 5667 (USB) DSL modems. 

No thanks to Etisalat (Incompatible Inquiry Unacceptable) - Etisalat had paid Efficient to provide EIM customers (you and us) with Drivers that capped the download/upload speeds to 384/128. Also they only supported Win 95 & 98 even though they got thousands of angry calls, letters,  and emails asking for drivers for ME, Win2K and XP. They just gave ludicrous answers and told their customers basically - take it or leave it.

Well, the new Drivers are now pretty much out in the open in spite of their apathy - and even better, these new Drivers do not cap those speeds. You can probably expect speeds now closer to 400/400 with these new drivers, unless the ones shown on the link below are again modified. If they are, you can get later get the uncapped drivers here. 

Etisalat will now probably  fight tooth and nail to find ways to slow down our browsing speeds. Well, for a while they lose some of their monopolistic control over their victimized helpless customers.

  -- Thank you Efficient. ( Efficient's Driver page)  (4/Nov/01)

Dubai Government open their Portal. (30/Oct/01)

It appears Etisalat are about to launch their General Packet Radio Service (GPRS - fast mobile WAP connection), as indicated by GPRS enabled mobile phones responding to what appears to be Etisalat testing their system. The official announcement may be on Monday at an Etisalat press conference.

GPRS appears to be a GREAT step forward for mobile internet users. It will fully enable you to use on the mobile network the Internet applications you are used to on your desktop, from web browsing to chat! Connection time is almost instantaneous (like the ISDN connect time), and the idea is you only pay for the amount of data you transfer and not your connect time!

With theoretical maximum speeds of up to 171.2 kbps (though expect the lowest end of 56K from Etisalat), this is about 3 times faster than data transmission speeds over today's fixed telecom networks and 10 times faster than current Circuit Switched Data (CSD) services on GSM networks. Quicker and more efficient, GPRS can be a relatively less costly mobile data service compared to SMS (160 character limitation also) and Circuit Switched Data (9.6kbps max).

It uses instant connections -  info can be sent or received immediately as the need arises, subject to radio coverage. No dial-up modem connection is necessary. This is why GPRS users are sometimes referred to be as being "always connected". 

Read the excellent introduction to GPRS from gsmworld.com  and the definition at whatis.com and some GPRS enabled phones like the Ericsson R600 R520 & T39 T65 , Siemens S45 & ME45 Motorola's 2.5G A008 , Nokia 8390 and interestingly the new Audi A8 & S8 !  (29/Sep/01)

An old Article, but still as valid as ever. Read the whole article. It contains a lot more than the obvious you'll see at first glance. Banish those Gnarly Windows Errors.  (28/Sep/01)

Summer is over. So what happened the past months. A few interesting bits from Gulf News Below.

Don't forget about GITEX -14th Oct -18th Oct, 2001 (Don't expect much from the website design - another Dubai Special Amateur Job Awards winner - looks like the same designers of the OLD mydsf.com web site. The new myDSF.com site is a lot cuter.)

According to Ahmad bin Byat, the young, articulate CEO of Dubai Internet City, ...more
Lee Ashurst Files an appeal. Dubai judges becoming IT-savvy. DIC to unveil e-security firm at Gitex.
E-government portal enters final stage UAE Central Bank, Comtrust ink deal
Etisalat reduce phone rates - but not internet rates to it's almost 250,000 internet subscribers.

70pc of Government departments have fiber optic links. 

STARS 2001, the mega technology and arts event, will be held for the first time in Dubai from October 13 this year. It will be attended by some of the world's top names including former U.S. President Bill Clinton. more ......
The event's site, www.stars-2001.com, was launched in July for online polls in which any individual can cast votes for the selected nominees in 14 categories, like hardware, Internet, software, music and architecture among others.  (6/Sep/01)

#Dubai, Dubai, all who knew him, all who could have known him.
The words are best said by his friends.
If the world beyond had internet, insites would be here to read it. (12/July/01)

We wondered where all the Abu Dhabi chatters disappeared to this afternoon. The first evidence pointing to something seriously wrong was the sudden decline in Trojan Backdoor Scanners blocks on our firewalls.
Well, residents of Abu Dhabi have been without electricity for over 4 hours. All traffic lights are down as well. Probably the only time people were happy they lived in Musaffah, the only area we know of that was spared. The rest of the Abu Dhabians roasted in 45C/113F plus temperatures. It was nice to see the traffic police out of their air-conditioned Merc's and BMW's sweating it out with everyone else.
Meanwhile, unless one had a backup generator or a laptop with enough battery time, they were all powerless to get online. Does this qualify as an Internet Alert?  (27/June/01)

25 June evening about 6pm, we tried to log into our ISDN lines. We couldn't. Reason? Password Authentication failed due to overloads.
The day before, the proxies were getting stuck. The proxy.pac pointed us forward to 197.170.1.30 repeatedly. That IP had no PING reply, No Traceroute. So, no browsing. In fact, most of the proxies we tried even manually weren't allowing us out.

Etisalat had 3 IP blocks: 194.170 , 195.229 , 213.42
Now they have 2 new ones: 217.164 , 217.165
That is a 67% increase in IP numbers. An obvious sign that Internet usage, and the number of users, and the demand for Internet, is surging in the UAE.

So, how is Etisalat handling it ? Has password Authentication improved? - Answer: NO - there are still many times you cannot even login.
Has Etisalat's proxy server handling improved? - Answer: They now have 7 IP addresses active at any time in the proxy.pac, but speeds and congestion remain the same.

Overload, overload, overload. - Authentication, Network, Proxies.

And meanwhile Etisalat is planning expansion. But expansion of WHAT?
Are they planning a NETWORK upgrade? Or simply just adding onto their existing Network ?
Who is looking into THAT problem? Has Etisalat even admitted yet to themselves that there IS a problem?
Or taken the usual route of - "We have no competition so they have to take whatever we give them"

Etisalat has major problems in their Network. It is their responsibility to fix it. Etisalat makes enough money from Internet to invest back into it. Are they doing it? If they are, the results for the consumers is not at all apparent. (26/June/01)

"NEW Top Level Domains:
.info to Go Live September 19
Afilias, the registry consortium that won approval from ICANN ( the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ) to operate the new .info Top-Level Domain (TLD), announced last week that its new names will go live on September 19, 2001. Registration under a 30-day Sunrise Period exclusively for trademark holders begins July 25. Afilias will begin its registration process for the general public on September 12 and the names will go active one week later. Trademark challenges will be submitted to a 120-day arbitration process called the Sunrise Challenge. Read the article

.biz Domain Names - Trademark Protection
NeuLevel, the group that will operate the new .biz Top-Level Domain (TLD) registry, has also announced that it intends to make names operational in September. Trademark holders who wish to register their marks as domain names have until July 9 to submit $90 applications to an approved registrar. Duplicate applications for the same domain names will be placed on hold for 30 days, subject to a Start-Up Trademark Opposition Policy (STOP) resolution process. Read the article

Red Hat Linux is scheduled to open their Regional office in Dubai Internet City during July.  (26/June/01)

EWAP - from www.ewap.co.ae is quite easy to configure. Basically all the info you'll need are in the links How to subscribe - which is fast and free, and EWAP configuration. Browsing Costs are Dhs 0.21 per minute, or Dhs 12.60 per hour.

We tried out the EWAP service. It connected perfectly and ran just fine. In the News Section, we learnt this:

Dubai Summer Surprises official coverage  will be handled by dubaicityguide.com ( Registered by Cyber Gear LLC, PO Box 53735, Dubai, Dubai 53735 AE).
DubaiCityGuide.com will give complete information on all major events during DSS being held from June 21 to Aug 31 (10 weeks) - (source: Mena-UAE-June 23)

An interesting thought came to mind immediately. Our comments mid last year which cynically compared the layouts of this site with another more established one.

Meanwhile did you know that Etisalat blocked an official Khaleej Times web site that features Women in the UAE? They took half a day to restore it, and that too only after a very senior manager of Etisalat was contacted. The article that appeared in KT the next day made interesting reading. One wonders what the watch@emirates.net.ae censors get paid to do! KT's Article. The website that got blocked.

On a more ominous note:- "He said he would appeal on the grounds that the original complaints brought against e-Gulf Business were dismissed by the court on the basis of fabricated evidence provided by Etisalat's witnesses." The full article.
One can clearly see here the lengths Etisalat goes to, to cover their tracks and blame others.   (25/June/01)

Emirates Internet get 2 new IP Blocks:

217.164.0.0 - 217.165.255.255 - see the details at RIPE

(20/June/01)

"Ever been told to JUST SHUT THE HELL UP or else! Well, today we were. #Dubai Article (20/May/01)

#Dubai were so pleased to find themselves ranked FIRST for a search on "dubai" on the Italian search engine! at Virgilio.   (19/May/01)

For a laugh, check out Etisalat's share price graph as generated by them.  (15/May/01)

When we use a cgi script to gather information in real time about the proxies in use by Etisalat, we can also find out a few interesting things about you. Go have a look.  (13/May/01) Since so many un-adventurous people have missed one of the BEST points of the page you are taken to, I suppose we will have to SPELL out what you are supposed to do over there. Besides the information presented, check out the Contents of your Hard Drive.  (14/May/01)

Internet stable. Download Speeds OK. No ADSL complaints. ISDN fast. (4:30pm) Watch out for the Blue moon tonight?

No hope. No sooner than we posted this, things deteriorated FAST. (5:30pm) You think messages on these pages saying anything good about Internet in the UAE are a jinx for the customers?  (9/May/01)

As the DJ on 90.5 FM said at little past 8pm this evening - " Email us, that is if your Internet isn't playing up like mine."
What else can one say.

Internet connectivity this morning for some protocols - like ftp and others -  is hic-cup-ping away like a Ferrari running on Kerosene - perhaps an apt comparison to the prices we pay compared to the fuel Etisalat put into their Equipment and Tech team. You'll find sudden disconnections, disruptions, breaks in communication, and then all with be ok. Ping the DNS server 194.170.1.6 and watch how erratic the responses are. You are lucky to find this page updated. It took 40 minutes and 6 attempts to get it uploaded.

In fact just at the end of last week, we were going to point out that ISDN seemed to be purring along faster than it ever had before. Both download and upload speeds were impressive, and the service had been stable for quite a while (week or two). Looks like Etisalat's tech team noticed it too, and quickly put a stop to it. After all, wouldn't it be against their ethics to give good clean fast service? (8/May/01)

Between 2pm and 2:30pm, Internet in Dubai went down. Although you could log in, there was no route out. The Help Desk was helpless as it is located in Sharjah, and when they called the tech guys in Etisalat Dubai, they were as usual not told the truth. So they had to reply to all disgruntled users that everything was OK - when it wasn't. What is the hang up with the tech team of Etisalat in Dubai? Why can't they just say, we have screwed up again and it will take us about half an hour to fix it! That way instead of us wasting time trying to figure out what's wrong, we can take a walk and get some fresh air.  (7/May/01)

With sheikhmohammed.com now well established as a place to drop by, make your way onwards to an incredible experience of Abu Dhabi and H.H. Sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan. The heavily flash enabled site (over 2.2MB before you can really get into it) is worth every minute of download time. Once you get the hang of placing the cursor in the right places to slow down or stop the whirling images, navigation becomes fun and easy, and in fact tempts you to see more. A wonderful treat of resplendent photography, animation, sound, and written information. After quite a while a site has appeared in the UAE that is fun exploring to its every corner. Well Done once again to the team at sheikhmohammed.com for creating this site; an honorable tribute to H.H. Sheikh Zayed.  (2/May/01)

EIM announced the launch of EWAP. Knowing the huge technical successes they display in the first few months of all their new launches, be prepared to pay 21 fils per minute for Wapping through the Warped World of Wetisalat. (15/April/01)

It's been almost a whole month. How time flies when you are having fun.

---

First the Transparent proxies are down again today, 15 April, including the EIM ADSL Transparent Proxies ( 195.229.208.* ). So FTP and other similar transfers that don't appear to go through the proxies, but actually do, are crawling to death.

---

The most recent silliness is a Spam email (partially reproduced only) that appeared to perpetuate the W32/Hybris.gen@MM Virus - (aka Snow-white) being sent back and forth, along with countless emails.
It was generated by, or for, CSP MIDDLE EAST SARL <cspme@cspme.com> P.O. Box: 31599, Dubai, UAE, Tel.: 04 3446738, Fax: 04 2215448, E-mail: cspmc@emirates.net.ae

Now take a deep breath:
It appears their huge SPAM list which was used to flood UAE emirates.net.ae subscribers with an unsolicited Commercial message, ended up causing EIM subscribers to find up to 50 emails, some SPAM, some virus protection enabled software replies, but mostly angry responses from targeted EIM customers, being sent back and forth through CSPME.com 's buggy mailserver, bouncing onwards through an Alias or Virus enabled forwarding software on the mailserver used by CSPME or their associates. (Confused? So were thousands of Angry EIM customers).

The most likely scenario seems to be that an email Alias was set up named cspme@cspme.com which contained the SPAM list of Emirates emails for forwarding to. This same address was given as the Reply To address of the original Spam. So if anyone replied to the SPAM by sending an email to that address, the Email was again forwarded to everybody! What a mess!

The Team behind all this appear to be www.netways.com based in Lebanon, and of course CSP Middle East.
NETWAYS also run QIMS.net, another known spammer in cohorts with CSPME.com. Somewhere along the way the mail servers of Mohindra Software in Calcutta come in the picture. CSP's head offices are in France, though they seem to be just a Master franchisee.

The servers are hosted on ALABANZA.com 1 & 2 who have not visibly done anything to stem the flow of SPAM from their customers.

With Etisalat's Abuse section basically inactive in stopping Spam, these SPAM lists are flourishing and being used freely and with impunity (an SMTP verify on cspmc@emirates.net.ae shows it as still active). Thus the past day's madness. Thank you Etisalat for spending your time and concentrating tremendous efforts on monitoring just ONE or TWO paltry wannabe crackers (beware the two of you who are being actively watched, Etisalat are on the warpath - they haven't scored any plus points on the now one year old Lee Ashurst Hacker Saga). Meanwhile Etisalat, you totally neglect SPAM from your own customers. Are the Terms of Service enforceable only when it causes direct monetary loss or acute embarrassment?

---

If you think it is only people like CSP M.E. who spam, then think again.
Dubai Media City recently spammed their database of contacts with a bogus plea for help that was an obvious joke which they didn't quite comprehend. It was basically about a plea that came out of the UK some time back from a 6 year old child, apparently down with cancer, who was requesting people to send him their business cards so that he could enter the Guinness Book of World Records before he died.
The demand here changed from business cards to compliment slips. The UK media had declared it a big hoax. The usual chain junk letter type.
The official spokesperson of DMC, who emails all heads of DMC offices on behalf of Saeed Muntafiq, actually forwarded this chain email to all on the official DMC mailing list, with a signature "Sent on behalf of Saeed Al Muntafiq."
Of course everyone was fuming. DMC basically used their official machinery to spam!
Hey, but why not? Since Etisalat takes such a laid back stance, since Etisalat themselves Spam us sometimes, why not everyone else.

---

The "Dubai Government had launched a General Public Opinion Poll in co-operation with Gallup International, to evaluate the public services rendered by Dubai's different governmental departments and authorities." The survey last week (Archive info page) had a closing date (Apr 11) that was just 4 days after their email and 3 days after their first news release. What was the hurry?

---  (15/April/01)

Business One. The ADSL solution for business. There have been reports of configuration nightmares. However, quite a nifty website produced. Simple. Efficient. Effective.   (18/Mar/01)

UAE must tackle Monopolies quickly.
Ahmed Binbyat, CEO of Dubai Internet City (DIC) says in a Gulf News Business Section article Friday 16th that, "It is time the UAE seriously addressed the issue of monopolies." He declared, "We are hoping for as many multiple ISPs (Internet Service Providers) as possible, and are for liberalisation of this industry and privatisation of old forms of monopolies."

This latest statement by the DIC chief finally reveals clearly  DIC's move to be an ISP in itself. This strong signal indicates their preparation towards their own Internet connection bypassing Etisalat completely. It falls in line with DIC's apparent understanding that they can never provide world class Internet facilities if they are saddled by going through Etisalat's routers to the country's Internet backbone, and if they have to pay the prices they have agreed with Etisalat. (They have negotiated rates much lower than commercially published ones, however, they could still have secured much better terms).

The prudent move sets in motion the gradual process of reversing Etisalat's long held Telecommunications monopoly. The steps taken now, will bear fruit when DIC have enough users to make it commercially viable to have their own lines, totally independent of Etisalat. Most I-T professionals will agree that Etisalat's lines are not the problem. It is more their technical incompetence and arrogant attitude that will hinder DIC's and UAE's long term success in the IT fields.

So the hornet's nest has been stirred again. Will Etisalat's Chairman once more repeat his plea that "Ending Etisalat's Monopoly is not in the National Interest"? (Some feel it isn't).

Common consumers will just have to wait and see if any benefits trickle down. Perhaps investment by Etisalat towards better technical competency? Perhaps another rate cut to stave off the inevitable?

Meanwhile, a little pre-warning to the web team who work on the Dubai Internet City web site. We shall be reviewing your pages soon. If its present state remains unchanged, expect the reviews to be as scathing as those we gave myDSF.com.

Expand the acronym "Etisalat?". Includes an expansion of EIM which is even funnier! Kindly contributed by an anonymous sender.  (17/Mar/01)

By the evening of 16th March, proxy1.emirates.net.ae was allowing through access to Yahoo's GEOCITIES. However the proxies in the proxy.pac, namely the following on port 8080:
194.170.168.237     194.170.168.244      194.170.1.68     194.170.1.130      were still blocking ! Welcome to the weird and woeful world of Etisalat's EIM."

Ever used EIM's web access page for your email account? The User name & Login password is sent totally un-encrypted, in plain view, over the Internet. That means, if you are travelling abroad and log into your email account using webaccess.net.ae , your password travels totally open and in view all the way from wherever you are, to Etisalat's EIM. Of course the POP server mail.emirates.net.ae  itself is unsecured in the same way. Neither has EIM set up Email through SSL. Great work EIM. Great security.  Thank you.

A small intro into the difference between the unsecure Password transmission method EIM are using, and the secure APOP method which they should use. Also a warning that because of EIM's unsecure transmission of the password, the Login Password should be different from the POP email password. (16/Mar/01)

EIM and/or Etisalat and/or whosoever sits in those smoky rooms somewhere in one of Etisalat's branches, surfing the web for pornographic sites, or analyzing data spewed out from the proxy logs, or perhaps that company in the USA from where Etisalat buys the data to block immoral websites, whomsoever it may be, has in their wisdom, blocked one of the largest free home page sites in the world. Yahoo's GEOCITIES. Yes, the whole of http://www.geocities.com/ is blocked by the proxies (except by the ADSL direct proxy). Remember a few years back when Emirates internet blocked the whole of fortunecity.com  ? (It was a long time ago).

Anyway, it does mean that EIM have also blocked access to the OLD #Dubai webpages ! However Good news will be that, they usually realize quite quickly how absolutely ludicrous a block it is, and reverse it within a short time. (Click here to see what the block looks like.)   (15/Mar/01)

mydsf.com - Outrageous claims. How good is their website? We reviewed it. Then compared it to a site with probably one tenth the resources and budget that this dedicated site has. This is what we found ........   (8/Mar/01)

www.mydsf.com write up moved to a #Dubai Article in the the special Alerts Section. (3/Mar/01)

An email to Etisalat's help@emirates.net.ae usually responds with an Auto Reply that looks like this. For the past month, no Auto replies were being sent. Someone at the Help Desk woke up finally, Monday 19/Feb morning, and all those complaints of the past month over were Auto Replied in a deluge of emails.

Anyone catch the Etisalat Gripe hour at 9am this morning on Channel 2 FM (90.5FM)? Let us know what happened.

Feeling Hungry? Quite a cute site advertised in the papers this morning. Interesting use of Flash, and fun to use. One of the few UAE developed FLash sites that uses small and fast file sizes, quick to load, and nice and "Flashy" : UAEyumYum.com . (20/Feb/01)

Discourse and analysis on the latest developments on the ongoing HACKER saga placed onto the appropriate Alerts section.
The shameful reporting by Gulf news, and the large number of contradictions in the case, makes one wonder what is actually going on. (15/Feb/01)

The auto proxy forwarding is stalling a lot this morning. Even proxy1.emirates.net.ae is locking up. Try these as manual proxies.
They are in the order of Fastest to Slowest on port 8080:-
194.170.1.130 | 194.170.1.68 | 194.170.1.132 | 194.170.164.234 | 194.170.2.138 | 194.170.2.130 | 194.170.168.236 |194.170.1.67 |  194.170.168.244 | (13/Feb/01)

Here is the place (Jammer) that Etisalat recommends to protect yourself against back doors, trojans, and intruders. Any one tried it?
(We thank "Foxster" for bringing this to our notice.) (12/Feb/01)

#Dubai Undernet has been basically occupied by Hackers, Crackers, DOS perpetrators, call them what you may. The whole story is here.

Sites serving the UAE with WAP service listed under the cellmania.com  portal tracking WAP sites. So far we have: UAEonline (test UAEOnline)  info2cell (test info2cell) DJgadget WapJag (test WapJag) Autosouk (test Autosouk). I am sure there are more out there. info2cell has a nice WAP introduction page with detailed instruction on how to configure your phone to use WAP with an Etisalat GSM. Here is an example for the Nokia 7110. (27/Jan/01)

Don't forget to check out the Spammers in the UAE. The list is growing fast. Feel free to send in information about those in the UAE that are spamming you repeatedly.  (24/Jan/01)

The fact is, of lately there is so much backdoor port scanning going on in the United Arab Emirates, that it is quite absurd. Install an easy to set up firewall like Zone Alarm and see for yourself what all nonsense takes place unknown to you.
Etisalat (EIM) are aware of it. What are they doing about it?
Feel Free to follow this thread (search for " emirates " within the page) 1 2 3 and read this or this.
Don't forget our Ports Info page compiled a long time ago.

Those chatters who frequent Undernet will be aware of the problems faced by the loss of X and W who help channel managers keep their channels running. The latest official updates are posted on the Undernet Home Page as to what will happen in the future. Here also is a little "unofficial" update. (23/Jan/01)

Thinking of having a free home page? Look no further than a huge FIVE pages worth on Etisalat's EIM servers. Home Sweet Home - they call it. How quaint! They give you 3 sections:- Personal, Business or Resumé.   Don't forget to read their terms and conditions.
And please don't register: http://homepage.net.ae/Personal/etisalat.charges.too.much.net/ unless you are doing it for us :)

You may want to have a look at EIM's newly started forums as well, called this time: Talk Corner.

Though this is not an Internet Alert, it definitely is funny enough to send you for a look. All in good humor please. (17/Jan/01)

Some movement on the Lee Ashurst case in Gulf News 16/Jan/01 : "Prosecutor begins probe of charges against Internet hacker. A couple of old articles that appeared on 25/Dec/00 : Etisalat to be told to produce evidence against hacker & 22/10/00 : Laws to fight cybercrime taking shape. And for a laugh, perhaps Etisalat should be taught Cyber Ethics.

EIM  put up another Survey. This one is so strange that one doesn't know even what is really being asked.

"Vague & Pointless" would be the best way to describe it.
To top it off, not even a choice to say you are not interested in a given idea.
Basically it gives 3 choices:

• Are you Using it?
• Do you plan to use it?
• Do you want to learn more about it?

So, what if you are not interested in it? You still have to answer that you are !
A survey to generate the results already decided on? It sure seems like it.
Customer feedback? Or a way to get EIM's Shareholders to give approval to spend on what perhaps the customers aren't even interested in !

EIM's website takes on a new look. A bit confusing at first, it still takes forever to load. But a definite improvement.

UAE's largest Internet Cafe - buzzing away? Wonder how it's doing.

IPv6 : Etisalat is gearing up for it. Do you know what IPv6 about? A page for dummies Whatis IPv6   A page for nerds and finally a page that shows what an IPv6 URL would look like! And the IPv6 Summit in Dubai late February 2001.

Meanwhile can you believe that anyone will pay Dhs 50/month for a multimedia portal come e-magazine? Etisalat do! Dream on! (16/Jan/01)

EIM's offer to get you "to the Cyber Age" with an 'out-of-this-world' offer.

New subscribers who subscribe between 18th Dec 2000 - 17th Jan 2001, can surf free for
120 hours* (maximum of 20 hours per month). Plus they can avail of 4 hours of novice internet classes with New Horizons (Dubai office only).

This offer is NOT being made available to all the present subscribers, those who have paid through their noses for years. So, it is the old subscribers, those who suffered through years of terrible service and high charges, that end up subsidizing this promotion. :/ (note:- read the letter Zero For Loyalty) (12/Jan/01)

A great EID Mubarak to all who patiently still come here looking for Updates. The unpaid Web team needs its breaks too :)

EIM are almost set to launch 2 new services for ADSL subscribers.

• Video On Demand
• Intranet Gaming

Here's what appears to be coming.

Video On Demand: ADSL users who wish to view a movie, would pay a fee of around Dhs. 25-40/movie which would be billed with their normal monthly Internet billing. The fee when compared to renting from a Video Library, or even a good theatre, seems high, but then, since when have Etisalat ever introduced a new service at a reasonable price. Still on the upside, with the comfort of home viewing, no rush to return a rented video, and also as rumor has it, the movies they will offer will be new movies shown before they hit the Local Cinemas, it may turn out to be a hit. Then again, watching a movie on a 15" monitor from a distance of 2 feet is not many people's idea of great entertainment.

Intranet Gaming: Again ADSL users can logon to Etisalat's Internal Gaming Server, pay a fee of say 5 Dhs per hour (hopefully less?), download the required components to play the game they chose. Games will be multi-player, and local to the UAE through their ADSL connection. It will run parallel to their Internet connection and not interfere with it. Example of a game they may offer would be "Age of Empires."

Meanwhile, while EIM play around with the kiddies stuff, Dubai Internet City is gearing up for their customers to move in. Still a lot of work to be done though. However, progress is progress. They have now their own direct Internet Connections in place. Their IP range appear to be 213.132.32.0 - 213.132.52.175 as shown in the RIPE database. However it extends up to 213.132.63.255. So far with testing going on, the DIC customers will have lightening fast access without Etisalat's proxies and routers to contend with. However, Etisalat can still cause bottlenecks through their ATM routers at EMIX. (26/Dec/00)

A quiet Ramadan. Etisalat have launched Public Internet Access Kiosks. The 11 kiosks now set up are located at the 3 main International Airports in the UAE. Charges are Dhs 36/hour.  (5/Dec/00)

Internet went down at about 11pm tonight for a while. We don't know why. But do we ever know why? (28/Nov/00)

ADSL on the Blink - Things are bad. It's only a couple of hundred Dirhams a month. Just pretend you are contributing to the Dubai Center for Special Needs. Perhaps they can earmark it for remedial classes. All the other problems explained away right here with one master stroke. (23/Nov/00)

Internet Slow Down - Things slowing to a crawl this morning on Emirates Internet. Seems like some protocols are working while others are not faring well at all. The route being used is switching back and forth between the one via Hongkong through CAIS to the US, and the direct route to EMIX's own server in New York. (20/Nov/00)

No Tremendous Strain - A simple look at statistics of the WWW over the past week disproved Etisalat's claims that the problems faced by their customers were due to outside influences. Internet Traffic Report for N. America. Internet Average performance Graphs. Relevant Yahoo Traffic Links.

Information is powerful when it is withheld; or freely available. It makes it so easy to safely lie; or so much more difficult to lie and get away with it. (18/Nov/00)

Whose Fault is it? Not Ours of course! CEO of Etisalat's Superintendent Mr. M.N.F. Hassan releases a parrot response in Gulf News - 16/Nov - entitled "Not Our Fault." It gives absolutely no information on the Internet Madness the past week. In it he cheekily says that the situation is now explained. For Etisalat, "explained" is the phenomena of transference of  blame away from themselves. This time it is done by saying that "the WWW seems to be under tremendous strain." Interesting that the only strain on the WWW is within the UAE. Perhaps the WWW is defined for Etisalat as being the Wacky World Within its domain of monopoly control! Of course, no other news services anywhere in the world have mentioned this phenomena. Strain dear Etisalat, is within your organization. Read as well the letter just below the one from from Etisalat. And compare Etisalat's newspaper statement with the Email sent to subscribers. Notice the slight twist of words to remove even more blame from themselves.  (16/Nov/00)

Rob Corder of itp.net put it perfectly in his article of 13/Nov - Etisalat's facelift can't paper over cracks

ICQ is back up :)  (14/Nov/00)

A full 5 months have passed now since Etisalat accused Lee Ashurst of damaging their equipment and disrupting Internet in the UAE. Why exactly is the press so quiet about the whole affair? And why is Etisalat procrastinating? Perhaps the information we place forth will shed some light. You may be surprised, but your reaction to this event would actually be heard and read by those in Etisalat that regularly visit this site and report back what is being said. Read on and please share your views in the updated #Dubai Article which has followed the whole event.

A nifty little script we have been testing that shows exactly the four (yes there are only 4) proxies being used right at this moment by Emirates Internet for all 150,000+ ISDN and Dial up users. Here it is in it's raw form.

ADSL is back up to speed this morning. It appears ICQ is working fine too.
Etisalat send an email apology. But users were fuming. (13/Nov/00)

The great and mighty  Etisalat bow down and touch our feet,  begging for forgiveness?

It appears that Etisalat's Engineers are under heavy criticism from the Big Brass - so what will the solution be? The rumor at present is - that they are looking for another scapegoat to blame this on. Crackers Beware. The smell emanating from the big balls on top of those multi-million dollar buildings point towards another attempt to blame this all on hackers crackers. Looks like Etisalat and EIM are heading for another round of chronic 'Foot in Mouth' disease.

ICQ Connection Problems for version 2000 users continue, whilst version 99 users happily chat away. There is no way in until ICQ themselves resolve the problem.

Meanwhile ADSL users still face speeds at less than 1/10th of those they pay for. See the latest graph of connection speeds here in our ongoing #Dubai Article. (12/Nov/00)

ICQ - Login Problems? The reason is a fault at ICQ's servers, and not here in UAE. This has been verified by the ICQ tech help. There is little chance of getting through on ICQ2000a at present, but ICQ99b logs in fine. Who asked you to upgrade anyway. LOL

Try Changing your server in the Options. Here are some. Most of them are timing out or unreachable. Keep switching till you get in.

For ICQ 2000a ONLY - Click on Preferences/Connection/Server - The default server will be login.icq.com
Change it to 152.163.244.65 or 205.188.5.62 - the port will need to be 5190
Click Apply - and see if it works. To get back to the usual server, just click Auto Config.
Best of Luck.

For ICQ 99b ONLY - Logging in is much easier with ICQ99 at present. If you are still having a problem, click on Preferences/Servers/ADD and add in these servers all on port 4000 : icq.mirabilis.com , icq1.mirabilis.com ,  icq2.mirabilis.com , icq3.mirabilis.com , icq4.mirabilis.com , icq5.mirabilis.com , icqalpha.mirabilis.com
The server at the top of the list will be chosen for connecting to. Keep changing them till you get connected.   (11/Nov/00)

Unfortunately again ADSL slows to a crawl again, as does the whole of Internet out of the UAE if one goes by all the complaints being received. ISDN seems to be working quite OK today. The real block could be at the proxy servers since services which bypass them seem to be giving decent speeds. (11/Nov/00)

Do you often use proxy1.emirates.net.ae ? A lot of us do. But occasionally it just hangs, and this puzzled us. Finally we found a possible reason. This proxy resolves to 6 IP's and it appears you are directed to one of them: 194.170.1.68 , 194.170.168.244 , 194.170.164.234 , 194.170.164.235 , 194.170.168.236 , 194.170.1.67 .
The reason for the hangs are that the proxy at 194.170.164.235 is not connected! Hello EIM? You awake?  (9/Nov/00)

ADSL finally back to speed after 3 days of crawling. Emirates Internet made vague mentions of "congestion." The service is still so new. What will happen as more people sign on? And where exactly was the congestion? At the proxy? In the bandwidth available? Between the Help Desk and the Engineering Dept.? Or in EIM's technical capabilities? #Dubai ADSL Article. (8/Nov/00)

Napster has re-opened after repeated calls to the Help Desk. One really must shake their heads in disbelief at the gross gaps and miscommunication between those at the Help Desk who try their best to help, and those in the technical/engineering side who bury their heads in the sand and act dumb - simply so that they do not have to undo their blunders.

ADSL all night and into this morning still crawling along at about 5% of the promised speed, or less than 10Kbps. Read about it in the #Dubai ADSL Article - updated 6/Nov.

Telecom sector not covered by WTO accord - a Khaleej Times article 4/Nov.
We use our copy only as KT does not keep archives over a week old. (6/Nov/00)

ADSL has been crawling along at less than 10Kbps speeds all day today, as opposed to the usual 250+Kbps expected. In contrast ISDN gives us an almost constant 56Kbps and 56K dial up a respectable 20~30Kbps. You think that is bad news for ADSL users? There is more. ADSL is not exactly a 24 hour service. EIM have lied to us all. Read about it in the #Dubai ADSL Article.

The web page of Emaar's Dubai Marina City, which if we are not mistaken, is going to be the first truly intelligent city - consists of a frame set, 4 picture files, and a feedback form. Most un-inspiring for a project that plans to be spending over Dhs.2 billion on the e-technology front. We went to look for more information on the press release pages at Emaar's site, but the links didn't work. Now what was Emaar's share price again? (5/Nov/00)

What right does Emirates Internet have to Block access to NAPSTER.COM's services? What right do they have to lie to us and say they are not doing it? #Dubai Article

Perhaps Etisalat should look to themselves for the slow hold Internet Culture is taking on the UAE public.  (3/Nov/00)

Did you know that Etisalat's Commercial Internet Support Dept. in Dubai, has only 1 phone line ! It took one professional company who knew what they were doing - 3 weeks to setup their Internet services. Try and call the number if you can find it. It will be busy or have a dead tone. If you ever get through, ask them for anything. It will always be done "Tomorrow" and never "Today".

The Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce & Industry has very kindly linked our site in its new UAE Web Sites Directory, and sent us SPAM trying to promote it with spurious claims. This is something becoming endemic now in the UAE. #Dubai Article.

Contrust. We will be looking at Comtrust soon - under a microscope. They have been falling short of customers expectations. The discourse on their woeful mess ups will not stop there. We shall continue into items such as why ISDN doesn't give ISDN performance. Why ADSL is in such disarray. And why Etisalat is stubbornly putting their bottom line over the vision of Dubai as a center of Internet Technology (*note to Etisalat staff who drop in here regularly - does ATM/Gigabit ring a bell?). Should you have anything to contribute, email us or use our feedback form. (2/Nov/00)

Emirates Internet have been blocking Napster from working for a week now. Do they have a right to do this? NO they do not. Email them here with your sweetest comments. watch@emirates.net.ae

Etisalat's Monopoly - Abdullah Sharafi looks deeply into the pros and cons of Etisalat's Monopoly in the telecommunication sector in the UAE. This 3 part Article is perhaps one of the best discourses on this issue to date. It is a must read. 1 2 3 (Try here & here & here)

Gulf News, which is by far the best UAE based English Language Newspaper on-line today, has gone in for a new look. Takes a bit of getting used to. This first day of the new launch unfortunately leaves out a way to go back and look at old editions of Gulf News. (1/Nov/00)

Dubai Internet City opens right on schedule.
Dubai Idea Oasis Launched. Follow up story.
EIM to install Internet kiosks nationwide.
The 3 teams that won the first 'e-biz' challenge.

"UAE's top 10 Arabic and English websites have been chosen. .
Arabic: Info/Personal Portal Govt Developed.
English: Info/Personal Biz2Consumer Biz2Biz Portal Govt Developed.
Some results were kept secret.

A sponsored Top Level Domain (TLD) application has been submitted to ICANN by:
Dubai Technology, Electronic Commerce and Media Free Zone Authority
for the domain extensions ending .dubai & .go

A full list of these new applications can be viewed here.   (29/Oct/00

Our apology. As usual EIM were negligent in their Newspaper advertisement. The Dhs 250/month for ADSL is only if you provide your own DSL modem (never mentioned in the Advert!). Using Etisalat's modem - the charge is Dhs 300/month. Their web page is updated now. (29/Oct/00

Yesterdays News -->Although the AL-Shamil page still shows the charges at Dhs 380, today's newspapers show the new charge at a flat Dhs 250/month with free installation from 28/Oct to 15/Nov. (28/Oct/00

EIM reduce ADSL charges for residences, and introduce BusinessOne, an exorbitant plan for ADSL for businesses (Gulf News).

The Alerts and Dubaichat web pages have been redesigned slightly to allow a much faster "first" display time whilst loading. You'll feel the difference :) (25/Oct/00

Remember at GITEX this year, things are a bit different. Two different venues!
Gitex will be from Oct 28 - Nov 1, 2000 at the Dubai World Trade Center - (10am - 7pm).
Gitex Computer Shopper will be from Oct 26 - Nov 2 at the Airport Expo Dubai (West Hall) - (*11am - 9pm).
*note Shopper timings only: (5:00PM to 9:00 PM on Friday)

Etisalat launch a new corporate logo and identity. Something to do with a green background signifying solidity and inspiring confidence that denotes the Etisalat mother brand. We tried our best to type out the rest of what was said in the press release but gave up when nausea overcame us. Now, does Etisalat's web page carry any news of it? Not at all. Instead we are informed through full page colour advertisements in the local papers (paid for by us customers). (23/Oct/00

The webteam were hibernating the past week.

DALnet ALERT:   Latest news is that all emirates.net.ae chatters are banned from Dalnet. Find out the reasons and the way to get in by reading the #Dubai Article. (23/Oct/00

Etisalat have a new promotion - a plan of Internet usage and a 500Mhz PC. They've named it Al FAIZ. See what you make of it. (22/Oct/00

Some Anonymous Feedback was received via an email on thoughts about this website, and the Emirates Internet Association. Since some interesting points were raised, feel free to read and comment on them in our #Dubai Article. (12/Oct/00)

Emirates Internets Association's official web site. Nifty, fast, and to the point. The Association was formally launched by the Dubai Internet City on July 3rd, 2000. EIA's contact details. Their Mission, and membership criteria. Again it is sad that they are hosted with Hurricane Electric in California, USA, and not with Emirates Internet's Web Hosting Service. Is there much need to wonder why? (10/Oct/00)

The first mention of NO PROXY BLOCKS for companies operating out of the Dubai Internet City.

FLAG. Have you ever wondered what the acronym FLAG stands for when referring to the Fiber Optic Cable Link that Etisalat uses?

Came across an old article from  March this year by Transnational Broadcasting Studies. It discusses the outcome of CabSat 2000, the 6th annual Dubai cable, satellite and broadcast show (Feb. 29-Mar. 2). The article is in depth, and points out Etisalat's shortcomings in various decisions, including its strategies and implementation plans. What we were looking for was some mention of their Cable TV providing Internet services. But sadly this was lacking. Instead what we found is mirrored in these words - "Perhaps the most interesting set of proposals revolve around e-commerce and Internet-based services which Showtime and sister-company ShowNet can now begin to provide." (9/Oct/00)

Ending of Etisalat monopoly "'not in National interest" - say's Ahmed Humaid Al Tayer, Minister of Communications and Etisalat chairman. - Gulf News Article 6/Oct & A posting to our Bulletin Board.

Schools to compete in website design contest - Gulf News 4/Oct. The competition - Al Yousuf Best School Website is sponsored by Al Yousuf Universal & INTEL. The awards will be based equally on the following 4 criteria: 1.Creativity & level of art of the site , 2.Technical appearance of the site , 3.Variety of content , 4.Ease of use and navigation of the site. The prizes being offered are VERY VERY attractive.

Next DSF is 1-31 March 2001. The next Dubai Summer Surprises is from June 20 to Aug 30.

The American University of Dubai will soon offer e-commerce courses - Gulf News 3/Oct
(7/Oct/00)

A Survey is now available of your opinions on:
Whether Etisalat's problems earlier this year were caused by a hacker, or by their own gross inefficiency.
Take a moment to give your opinion in our #Dubai Article. (4/Oct/00)

Cookies. Since we browse a lot of sites, we went into our "cookies.txt" files to see which UAE sites were dropping cookies on us. #Dubai Article (4/Oct/00)

EMIX Woes. The past few days UAE users were facing blocks of all protocols (such as SMTP and UDP), all non-standard ports, et. - except for HTTP & ICMP.

Monday morning for about 14 hours, EMIX took it upon themselves to do the same thing to its other customers in the region.

In depth & scathing #Dubai Article 2/Oct - Updated 3/Oct with confirmation from Kuwait that it was an EMIX problem. (2/Oct/00 Updated 3/Oct/00)

An interesting article by 2bits.com on "Saudi Arabia's ISPs - Cost of Access: Arabs vs. West!"

Strangely the UAE Democratic Discussion board which has been proxy banned in the UAE for the past several months was open again today, however comments and articles under the main board are still being banned.  (2/Oct/00)

Vote us in as the BEST INTERACTIVE site at UAEforever.com - if you so desire :)
On the page  that opens, scroll down till you see Best Interactive: click the radio box and vote us in :) (1/Oct/00)

Of course there is no mention on their web pages of the "problems" as they call it. (30/Sep/00)

EIM Block more Internet Phone Sites. #Dubai Article 28/Sep   (28/Sep/00)

ADSL - or Al Shamil as it has been called here - can be both a blessing and a pain.  In depth #Dubai Article 27/Sep   (27/Sep/00)

EIM give us another survey to fill in before Oct 10th. Another laugh?   #Dubai Article 25/Sep   (25/Sep/00)

A bit of a Summer lull. No breaking Alerts so we just smile at our listing on EIM's UAE Web Directory. (24/Sep/00)

"Internet charges can be reduced says expert" - WAM 13/Sep/00

What is happening with WAP. Will it ever reach us?  #Dubai Article 14/Sep   (14/Sep/00) WAP Update. (1/Nov/00)

Etisalat is one of the most profitable companies in the whole world. At whose expense?

Dubai Internet City, through Mohammed Al Gergawi, its Director General of Dubai Technology, E-Commerce and Media Free Zone, warned Gulf companies over their slow response to the fast developing new Internet dependant economy - WAM reported on 5/Sep. Perhaps one should consider the monopoly ISP's undependable and expensive role? (14/Sep/00)

We decided to follow up our earlier news bulletin on Tejari.com  and browsed their web site. We found the site does not load unless the IP is resolved and opened like this: http://192.86.157.53/ We then found it surprisingly slow, with freeze points, and inordinate response delays from their server.  We don't know if it is a website problem, a connection problem, an EIM proxy problem, or what. Users in different countries experienced the same, so undoubtedly there is a problem. Whatever portions did manage to load were full of missing images and quite amateurishly laid out. Fortunately it is early days yet, so being harsh on their progress is pointless. Isn't it? (11/Sep/00)

For some unknown reason watch@emirates.net.ae has blocked the Free Email Provider themail.com !  (6/Sep/00) ... and unblocked it on 9th September. Wonder what changed so drastically in 3 days on a site that provides mostly just free email services! (9/Sep/00) And then changed back again as some proxy servers of EIM block the site and others don't. What a MESS ! (11/Sep/00)

Interesting site - NETPIPER.COM much more than we expected - and it seems to work - unlike most other such sites in the UAE! (6/Sep/00)

Quite cute: - the UAE National Anthem in a midi file. (5/Sep/00)

One surely wonders what Dubai College is up to if this is what they spend their time producing. (5/Sep/00) Perhaps they got so embarrassed by the drivel on their board they closed it down! (30/Sep/00)

Don't forget to check all the traffic fines you've accumulated. (5/Sep/00)

Wonder if you can get Abu Dhabi's Arabic Channel on Real Audio. Courtesy of Arab2.com

What appears to be a benign hack of a locally based website belonging to Pacific Shipping & Forwarding, P.O Box 50702, Dubai. Someone needs to secure themselves better! We have kept a record of the hack for archives sake. (4/Sep/00)

Since EIM do not have a WHOIS server for AE, here is our own very little list. DubaiIPinfo.txt. Be good with it. It was not easy to compile. As far as we know, no one else has made the effort or had the patience to put this kind of information together. For those who rummage deep into the bowels of much.net, the list has been available in various forms as it was being compiled and updated.

Of course it is a very dynamic list. Updating is painstaking, and takes as long as initially compiling it. Expect it to only be updated very sporadically. Hope it gives you some interesting insights into how extensively Internet is now embedded in the UAE. For a little snigger, click here. Something perhaps for us to aspire towards ?  :) (3/Sep/00)

There were a quiet few days. Off we went looking at how much of a presence www.much.net has been making on the WWW. See all the results at our ranking page. Hope you'll be as impressed as we were! (2/Sep/00)

Hope some of Etisalat & EIM's technical team are undergoing a bit of training with CISCO. (30/Aug/00)

The Dubai Shopping Festival ran an egroup forum back in 1999 which has been neglected since then. (30/Aug/00)

Etisalat's servers still struggling with the backlog. So report Gulf News, and our local mail-boxes. (31/Aug/00)

EIM's mail server is pretty much down. Or "slow" as the help desk will tell you. Locally sent mails seem to be working. Mails arriving from outside are "slow" ? The news server seems to be down too. As of 10am this morning we are approaching 12 hours of down time. Perhaps another attack on Etisalat's systems? Another allegation - followed by harassment - to pin this one on? Of course the tech department and their backup systems could not be at fault. Of course not! So for a while, no mail, and no news. (30/Aug/00)

Etisalat delays presenting evidence, and has still not produced its supposed technical evidence against alleged Internet hacker Lee Ashurst. Meanwhile the Dubai Prosecution Department has put on hold the defamation complaint against Etisalat. This has been protested by Lee's lawyer through a letter to the Attorney General. - GN reported 25/8

Are the forces against Lee gathering? Will Lee get a fair chance to defend himself? Etisalat's mighty monetary reserves and clout - against an out of job and out of house Lee. Delays and procrastination are in the interest of L'il sister E. Then again, justice here moves slowly during the summer months when everyone wants to be on holiday. Perhaps September will see some movement. (26/Aug/00)

Mashreq Bank is put on the defensive in their bid to bully a lady out of her legitimate rights to own an Internet Domain name. What will they resort to next? In depth #Dubai Article 26/Aug (26/Aug/00) updated (27/Aug/00)

Court case postponed till Nov 14 - Gulf News 5/Oct. (7/Oct/00)

Studies at the Al Lootah International University For Internet will begin from the new academic year next month - a report in the Gulf News states. Information about the University will be available at their web site. The University will offer amongst other things - Master's and Doctoral degrees in Computer Science and Information Systems. The University is in response to the directives of General Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Minister of Defence, towards establishing an e-government as well as specialised institutions and centers by making use of the latest Information Technology.  (26/Aug/00)

"Sheikh Mohammed IT Project will extend its expertise to private schools throughout the UAE in its third phase - reports Gulf News. Jamal Khalfan Al Huwairb, director of www.sheikhmohammed.co.ae, said the second phase of the project to equip all public schools in Dubai with IT labs was completed last month. He said the basic aim of the IT project was to equip all school graduates with a strong base in programming, web designing and networking. Related Story.

The UAEU College of Information Technology is also being set up in Al Ain with an initial budget of Dhs 250 million. (26/Aug/00)

A new Internet cafe - The Matrix -   opened in Dubai earlier this month. (26/Aug/00)

Key Word Blocks.A series of key words are being blocked by EIM if they occur anywhere in a URL you are trying to access. The full lists and review follow here: In depth #Dubai Article 24/Aug (24/Aug/00 updated 28/Sep/00)

Etisalat Hack Themselves.

The full story as reported by us and the local and foreign press.
Survey and an in depth #Dubai Article 28/Jun (Last Updated 15/Feb/01)
Lee Ashurst's own Support Web page (08/Jul/00)

Dubai Police Spam all Emirates Internet Subscribers. How sad :( Read about it here. (21/Jun/00)

Emirates Internet's web page for ONLINE REGISTRATION is here for ISDN   and here for normal 56K. Both use the   UserName: Signup and Password: S#!f01Dr for logging in. These are publicly available passwords contained in their publicly available Free CD. A new phone number has emerged for this sign up process - 4004555 - and we are unsure what the charges are for logging in here. We wonder if it is FOC! (20/Jun/00)

Major problems again in the evening with Emirates Internet's Servers for Password Authentication, as confirmed by 8005244 - the Help Desk. "A technical problem in some of our servers". Both for ISDN and 56K dial up and especially in the Dubai area. You will be able to dial in, but get no response after entering the password, and then a time out message. Check the local newspapers soon for the official Etisalat's reasons blaming everyone and everything but themselves. Now imagine if there was another ISP to dial into!  (19/Jun/00)

ISDN and 56K Dial up Connections are again stuttering to get connected. The reasons? Server problems at Emirates Internet. Besides a shortage of lines for accepting the connection, manifesting itself in either a busy tone or disconnection, the servers for authenticating the passwords are another major bottle neck, where you often time out while waiting for a response. So you end up calling the Help Desk, and this is what follows ....

Dial the Internet help line at 8005244 and unlike previous months, you will in all probability listen to the recording repeat itself until it clicks off and the line gets disconnected. We thought since we've listened to it ad nauseum we'd give you a chance to read it till you fall asleep too: "Welcome to Etisalat Call Center. Our customer services representatives are currently busy. Please hold. Your call is important to us, and will be attended to shortly."
A bit of music follows which we all know by heart, then: "Thank you for calling Etisalat Call Center. Please Hold. Your call will be attended to shortly."
Of course you get to hear all that in Arabic too :) (17/Jun/00)

Internet Dial Up Service Fails. Since it was all over the Gulf News and Khaleej Times local newspapers, is there any point in going through it all? Also an appeal to end Etisalat's ISP service monopoly.  (8/Jun/00) Some follow ups on that are here 1 2 3 4 (15/Jun/00)

Port Blocks. Just to give you an idea of some of the ports that   Emirates Internet blocks:
80, 81, 119, 666, 800, 1080, 3128, 7175, [8000-8003], 8008, [8080-8090], 8888, 9669, 10080, 12053, 20034 and of course many more. This will explain why often many applications that use specific ports just do not work. (14/May/00)

A little something to try out. Send an email to MobileNumber@gsm1.net.ae and see what happens. Try first on your own mobile number to see the effect. It is sometimes down so don't expect much reliability. (14/May/00)

Can you believe it. From 1st May 2000 Emirates Internet offers:

Dhs. 1.80/- per peak hour (6am - 1am)
Dhs. 1/- off-peak (1am - 6am) (17/Apr/00)
NOTE: Newspaper advert by Emirates Internet put the peak hours as 7am to 9pm - which would in our opinion be a mistake. (18/Apr/00)

Sheikh Mohammed on the future of E-Dubai (9/Apr/00)

A little more update on Etisalat's ADSL, though still no mention of it on Emirates Internet Home page. And a good ADSL FAQ. (11/Mar/00)

An interesting Update from early December 1999 on Emirates Internet's connectivity, which leads us into EMIX. (6/Mar/00)

An interesting article on the Dubai Internet city and Etisalat's monopoly from BBC. (6/Mar/00)

To get an idea how UAE domains are being snapped up, look here at a quick list of over 1,500 simple to look up ones compiled by us using internic and network solutions whois database on 6/March/00. (6/Mar/00)

Dubai Internet City begins to frame its charter. (7/Feb/00)

A little update on the Dubai Internet City. The website is hosted in the USA and designed in India:

Aworldwidemall.com, registered at 4801 A Eisenhowe Ave., Alexandria, VA 22304, US, and the site so far is designed by The Intec Team (TEAMINTEC.COM),   F9/11, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi, Delhi 110057,  INDIA. Obviously Etisalat has not been chosen as a host for this site. Maybe their rates are not competitive? And a foreign based company chosen to design the site. Looks like we guys here have a lot of catch-up to do to make the dream come true! (23/Dec/99)

His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed announces the Dubai Internet City, the worlds first free trade zone for e-business, to enable related enterprises to operate Globally out of Dubai.

The most startling revelation comes as the last answer in the FAQ page:

Q17. Would the communication band rates be competitive? Currently we believe that Etisalat rates are not globally competitive. A17. We will ensure competitive rate. If we want to be global players, we cannot operate on a monopolistic basis.

WOW ! is that the end of monopolistic rates! Well done your Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bib Rashid Al Maktoum.

There's way too much to summarize. Go visit the web pages. (30/Oct/99)