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Tag: Kazakhstan

  • Sabina Altyunbekova Too Pretty To Play? Kazakh Volleyball Player Dazzles The Internet

    A 17-year-old girl from Kazakhstan has created for herself and for her sport an unusual stardom through her looks and social media. Her name is Sabina Altynbekova. Her sport? Volleyball. And her fans number in the thousands.

    “They came in droves, undaunted by rain and heavy winds as Typhoon Matmo passed through Taiwan,” the Straits Times said of her fans at the 17th Asian Women’s U19 Volleyball Championship in Taipei, “the team they cheered for lost on Wednesday, but it did not dampen their spirits.” The report went on to say that even though many of her fans were from Taiwan, they were carrying Kazakh flags.

    At the time of this writing, the number of followers of her Instagram account equaled 257,494. Her massive popularity has created many “fan” accounts, some of which claim to be official. This problem caused Altyunbekova to address the issue personally over Instagram:

    Why the sudden interest in a teenage volleyball player from Central Asia? Many blame her beauty.

    “Fans just stare at her and they are not following the championship any more,” The Daily Mail translated a response from Vesti, a Kazakh newspaper.

    Not only is the press complaining, but her coach is as well. “It is impossible to work like this,” her coach Nurlan Sadikov told Tengrin news, according to Sportskeeda. ”The crowd behaves like there is only one player at the championship.”

    Altyunbekova, herself, has not been quite sure how to handle this sudden level of popularity.

    “Honestly, I myself was very surprised. I am a simple, ordinary girl from Kazakhstan, who just wants to bring his country in international competitions benefit to our country ranks high. And I was struck by the popularity,” The International Business Times translated from her interview with Vesti, “I was flattered at first but it’s all getting a little bit much. I want to concentrate on playing volleyball and to be famous for that, not anything else.”

    Image via altynbekova_20, Instagram

  • Kazakhstan Kills Internet, Cell Phone Services

    When you become president of certain countries in the Middle East, apparently you get a welcome package with all of the implements of your office. Included in this assortment is a note that says, “In times of trouble and potential political strife, turn off the Internet.” Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak pulled this stunt earlier this year at the beginning of the Arab Spring. It’s arguable that this move galvanized protesters and those sympathetic to their cause. Ignoring that important lesson, now Kazakhstan has pulled an Egypt on the city of Zhanaozen by disabling all Internet access and cell phone towers.

    The blackout came over the weekend after the president of Kazakhstan declared a state of emergency after the death of at least 10 people in a clash Friday involving police and protesters. TechieInsider describes the mayhem:

    The Kazakhstan government has shut down cell towers and Internet access in the oil city of Zhanaozen as the president decreed a state of emergency after riots erupted in the southwest part of the country. The state of emergency allows authorities to issue a curfew, blackout radio, tv and other communications, which are said to have been down since Friday. A group of hackers is working hard to keep Internet connections open to citizens in areas that have been affected by the blackout.

    Tensions in the western part of the country began back in May when hundreds of striking oil workers from State-run KazMunaiGas Exploration Production were fired. The firings and unresolved worker grievances sparked more strikes and protest.

    Reuters has been following the unrest reporting on Friday that fired oil workers and protesters clashed with police during a Kazakh independence day celebration, which resulted in at least 12 deaths after police opened fire. Protests have now spread to other parts of the country including the nation’s capital.

    Human Rights Watch has demanded that the Kazakh authorities “immediately restore communications with Zhanaozen and ensure an investigation into clashes there between police and civilians is independent.”

    Meanwhile, according to activepolitic.com, hacktivist group telecomix has provided instructions for setting up a dial-up network so that people inside of Zhanaozen will at least have some Internet access, however limited it may be.

    (image)@telecomix
    Telecomix    Instructions for setting up a Dial-up Networking Server. http://t.co/w7zbCECb cc @mcansky 🙂(image) 2 days ago via Telecomix Microblogging · powered by @socialditto

    (image)@petewearspants
    Peter Fein    /cc @evgenymorozov MT @dekaminski @ThePunkbob Help coordinate #freekz effort to prevent Net blackout @telecomix chat https://t.co/oeXGEoQA(image) 2 days ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    Given that this tactic of shutting off all communication has had a success rate of 0% so far, Kazakhstan’s authorities should probably use this thing called “the Internet” and do a little research before going on communications blackout like this. These sorts of things tend to piss people way off. Just ask Mubarak how well that ended for him.

  • Google Sacrifices Search Quality to Preserve Open Web

    Google Sacrifices Search Quality to Preserve Open Web

    Google has pulled its search engine at google.kz out of Kazakhstan, where the country’s government is requiring all .kz domain names to be operated from servers located in the country. Now when you go to google.kz, you’re redirected to google.com/webhp?hl=kk.

    Google says its users in kazakhstan may see a decrease in search quality, but that the company does not want to contribute to a fractured Internet. Here is the entire explanation from Google SVP, Research & Systems Infrastructure, Bill Coughan, as posted on the official Google Blog:

    The genius of the Internet has always been its open infrastructure, which allows anyone with a connection to communicate with anyone else on the network. It’s not limited by national boundaries, and it facilitates free expression, commerce and innovation in ways that we could never have imagined even 20 or 30 years ago.

    Some governments, however, are attempting to create borders on the web without full consideration of the consequences their actions may have on their own citizens and the economy. Last month, the Kazakhstan Network Information Centre notified us of an order issued by the Ministry of Communications and Information in Kazakhstan that requires all .kz domain names, such as google.kz, to operate on physical servers within the borders of that country. This requirement means that Google would have to route all searches on google.kzto servers located inside Kazakhstan. (Currently, when users search on any of our domains, our systems automatically handle those requests the fastest way possible, regardless of national boundaries.)

    We find ourselves in a difficult situation: creating borders on the web raises important questions for us not only about network efficiency but also about user privacy and free expression. If we were to operate google.kz only via servers located inside Kazakhstan, we would be helping to create a fractured Internet. So we have decided to redirect users that visit google.kz to google.com in Kazakh. Unfortunately, this means that Kazakhstani users will experience a reduction in search quality as results will no longer be customized for Kazakhstan.

    Measures that force Internet companies to choose between taking actions that harm the open web, or reducing the quality of their services, hurt users. We encourage governments and other stakeholders to work together to preserve an open Internet, which empowers local users, boosts local economies and encourages innovation around the globe.

    It’s not that surprising that Google would make such a move, as the company has promoted an “open” web consistently for years, and after the ordeal with China, they made it clear that they’re not above pulling out of a country, and frankly, China is a much bigger economy than Kazakhstan.

    Still, it is interesting that this comes at the sacrifice of search quality, and that Google is openly pointing this out, at a time when Google’s search quality has been heavily criticized and iterated upon relentlessly by the company, with recent algorithm updates.