In an effort to silence protesters, Egypt’s government ordered all of its ISPs to shut down all Internet traffic into and out of the country.
The move has probably left the vast majority of its citizens, especially those trying to coordinate the protests, desperate for connectivity. But it has also left many with business dealings in Egypt scrambling for a compute resources.
SpotCloud is a cloud capacity “clearinghouse,” which allows buyers and sellers to exchange unused cloud capacity throughout the globe. It was created by Reuven Cohen, the founder of Toronto-based Enomaly Inc. While SpotCloud would typically have several providers offering cloud computing resources in Egypt, his service has completely gone dark in wake of the shutdown.
In most cases, the minimum requirement for a seller to offer capacity on the SpotCloud marketplace is a compatible IaaS platform and at least five to 10 servers. But as of today, Cohen said any connection will do.
“We’re looking for anybody who has a connection to Egypt, even if it’s a laptop with a satellite uplink,” he said. “It could even be the world’s slowest 33 modem.”
Cohen wouldn’t say what organizations or people might be interested on the buyer side, but added that sellers would probably be looking at $1,000 an hour for their excess bandwidth, with that number skyrocketing as the crisis continues.