and joining us now is one of the co-authors of today's "times" story: james glanz. also with me here in oustudio is michael nelson, visiting professor at georgetown university. he's served in the past as director of internet technology and strategy at i.b.m., and worked on technology policy in the clinton white house and at the f.c.c. in your story the james government xwhanded powerful instruments of control, it owns the pipelines that carry information across the country and out into the world. so in layman's terms. with what are those pipelines and what exactly did the government do to shut them down? >> well, usually we think of the internet as being everywhere and nowhere, something you can connect to no matter where you are and something that routes around damage. but when you control the pipelines you can actually shut the internet down, particularly if there are very few of those pipelines and in egypt it was sort of the revenge of the plumbers, if you will. there were very few port portholes to the outside world. the government through its state-owned compa