How Twitter engineers outwitted Mubarak in one weekend

The way Twitter managed to get past Egypt's internet shutdown was the perfect example of a crisis breeding innovation

Protest rocks: a protester throws a missile while another relays news on his mobile phone in Cairo last week. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP

When they first came to office, the Obama team had a mantra: "Never waste a good crisis". They then spent the next two years doing exactly the opposite. In the past few months we've seen a couple of decent crises – the first involving WikiLeaks, the second involving the political upheavals in Tunisia and Egypt. Both involve the internet in one way or another. So, in the spirit of Obama Mk I, let us ponder what might be learned from them.