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A ship dropped anchor off Mombasa, Kenya, and cut the Internet to six African countries earlier this week.

It will take three weeks to repair the damage. In the meantime, the Internet in Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Juba, the capital of South Sudan, is functioning at a reduced speed. It will impede the normal flow by about 20 percent, according to the BBC's Nairobi correspondent, Noel Mwakugu.

The Indian Ocean East Africa Marine Systems (TEAMS) cable, which connects East Africa to the United Arab Emirates, was severed when a ship dropped anchor in a restricted area restricted because of the presence of the sea cabling. (See here for an interactive cable map.) The Teams cable was carrying redirected traffic from the earlier cutting of three other cables in the Red Sea, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The outage comes at a time when Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, has assumed a much greater profile as a center of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, largely due to the recent availability of fast, reliable broadband connections. These undersea fiber-optic cables, laid in 2009 and which connect Africa to the world, have kicked off Kenya's high-tech industry and prompted an increase in Kenyan Internet users from 1.8 million to 3.1 million in the first year.

RELATED: Think you know Africa? Take our geography quiz.

Bitenge Ndemo, Kenya's permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communications, says that the cost of the internet outage could reach $500 million by the time repairs are finished.

"We do not have the cost yet but it runs into millions of dollars sinceTEAMS and EASSY carry almost 70 percent of the traffic from the East AfricanRegion," Mr. Ndemo told the Monitor. "Most providers had cut off satelite thinking we have sufficientredundany," Ndemo adds, and the Kenyan government has urged other new cable lines to land elsewhere to prevent future line cuts in the high-traffic sea-lanes outside Mombasa.

In the meantime, Kenya's losses have been significant. "There have been major disruptions and loss of revenue in the past fewdays," Ndemo says. "In my estimation we shall have lost up to $500 million by the timewe are reconnected."

Jessica Colao, the manager of iHub, a high-tech incubator in Nairobi, estimates that the cut in Internet service will affect an estimated 10,000 people in Nairobi who work in the tech industry. All of those people, along with larger companies who have started to locate in the city -- such as Google, Microsoft, and Samsung -- will suffer the frustration of a substantial slow-down until the cable is repaired.

In addition to work taking longer, and therefore costing more, a slowing in the rate of information carried online could also cause multiple websites and online services to "time out. A time out is a limit on the duration allowed for an online instruction to be followed and is configured on a server-by-server or client-by-client basis. A time out will require a user to begin the process of retrieval again (and again). In many cases, users will never access the information at all, bringing work to a standstill for the duration of the repair.

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Ship's anchor cuts Internet access to six East African countries

Will constant access to the Internet make today's young people brilliant multitaskers or shallow, screen-bound hermits? A new opinion poll finds that technology experts believe the answer is "all of the above."

According to a new survey of 1,021 technology experts and critics, hyperconnectivity is a mixed bag. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed agreed that the Internet has wired the under-35 crowd differently, and that this rewiring is a good thing, stimulating multitasking talent and an ability to find relevant information fast online. But 42 percent of experts believe that the hyperconnected brain is shallow, with an unhealthy dependence on the Internet and mobile devices.

"Short attention spans resulting from quick interactions will be detrimental to focusing on the harder problems, and we will probably see a stagnation in many areas: technology, even social venues such as literature," Alvaro Retana, a technologist at HP, responded in the survey. "The people who will strive and lead the charge will be the ones able to disconnect themselves to focus."

Dire predictions

According to the Elon University Imagining the Internet Center and the Pew Internet Project, which conducted the survey, the technology expert split is closer to 50-50 on whether the rise of the Internet is a boon or a bane. Many people who responded that Internet-savvy Generation Y is at a mental advantage tempered that opinion with warnings about the dark side of connectedness. [10 Facts About the Teen Brain]

"While they said access to people and information is intensely improved in the mobile Internet age, they added that they are already witnessing deficiencies in younger people's abilities to focus their attention, be patient and think deeply," Janna Anderson, director of Elon's Imagining the Internet Center and a co-author of the report detailing the findings, said in a statement. "Some expressed concerns that trends are leading to a future in which most people are shallow consumers of information, and several mentioned Orwell's '1984.'"

George Orwell's 1949 book described a dystopian society where information was strictly controlled. One respondent who mentioned the book was Paul Gardner-Stephen, a telecommunications fellow at Flinders University.

"[C]entralized powers that can control access to the Internet will be able to significantly control future generations," Gardner-Stephen wrote. "It will be much as in Orwell's '1984', where control was achieved by using language to shape and limit thought, so future regimes may use control of access to the Internet to shape and limit thought."

Online optimism

Many experts praised the talents needed to navigate the Internet, however, and suggested that people who have grown up connected will blossom.

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Expert Poll: Internet Makes Us Smarter & Stupider

We've now seen two Internet marriage proposals in just a few weeks, one onMashableanother onBuzzFeed. Is this an acceptable way to ask for someone's hand in marriage? We discuss.

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Yes! Stop judging. Accept it. Move on.

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It's sweet and thoughtful.Future husband(s): This is not my ideal proposal. But for some women out there, it is! It took Drake Martinet, who Internet-proposed to his now fiancee Stacey Green, more time and brain neurons to createthis infographicthan it takes to buy an engagement ring, go to a fancy restaurant, and ask "the question." Points for effort. Plus, I bet a lot of these online declarations represent some sort of cute personalized moment between these couples. Maybe Martinet and Green have some infographic inside (sex) joke? That makes it a little bit sweeter, right? And, even if zero inside jokes are involved, the Internet proposer goes into it knowing that this type of thing is not yet socially acceptable and most definitely embarrassing, yet, still goes through it anyway! Now that's true love.

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Internet proposals are not any more absurd than real life ones.There are lots of over-the-top ways to propose to someone in real life, too. Like,ordering a 7 ounce steak branded with "Will You Marry Me?"making a proposal trailer and playing it in a movie theater, orvia flash mob, just to give some examples.Internet or not, cringe worthy proposals happen.

RELATED: 8.4 Percent of All Marriages Are Interracial Now

Just accept it, we live on the Internet these days.We date online. We socialize online. We watch TV online. We read online. We work online. And, some even have sex, or facilitate something like it, online. The Internet isn't just some B-list society for computer nerds and freaks. It's a world we, the normals, inhabit. If it's totally acceptable to live the rest of our lives on this here web, marriage proposals can happen online, too. In fact, with the rest of our lives here, the cyber world is the most natural place to get proposed to now-a-days -- the Internet is our modern village. A proposal is supposed to be the public declaration of that union. Back in the olden-days that meant a community celebration, these days, the Internet is our public arena, thus the most logical place to tell the world how much you love that special someone. And, the entire world will indeed hear, because, well, this is the Internet.

RELATED: The Secrets of Matt Drudge's Long Success

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Cocktail Crossfire: Are Internet Marriage Proposals Acceptable?

A gathering of United Nations diplomats overseas has some in the U.S. worried about a potential takeover of the Internet by foreign powers – with others claiming such fears are wildly overhyped.

The obscure branch of the U.N. at issue is the International Telecommunication Union, whose 193 member states include the U.S. and which was convening this week in Geneva. The ostensible purpose of the conference is to seek consensus for an updating of the last set of international telecom regulations, known as ITRs, which were issued in 1988.

“There is general agreement that the ITRs need to be updated to reflect the significant changes that have taken place in the information and communication technology sector in the past 24 years," International Telecommunication Union spokesman Gary Fowlie said in an email to Fox News.

But Robert McDowell, a commissioner on the Federal Communications Commission, has been warning that the conference is a moment of great peril for industrialized and Third World countries alike. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and a subsequent interview with Fox Business, McDowell accused the so-called “BRIC” countries – Brazil, Russia, India, and China – and their allies among developing nations of trying to seize the moment to strengthen international regulation of the Internet. Such a development, McDowell claimed, would imperil the Web’s historic role as an outlet for free expression and economic growth.

“It's everything from economic regulation of the Internet to the administration of domain names, like .com and .org,” McDowell told Fox Business last week, as well as “engineering standards, cyber-security, and privacy, among many other ideas. ... There are a variety of motivations, I think, driving this, including wanting local phone companies, sometimes owned by local governments, to be able to charge on a per-click basis for certain websites.”

An appointee of President George W. Bush, McDowell suggested the forces aligned behind such goals are more organized and pro-active than opponents of such measures, like the U.S. “That is very troublesome,” he said.

Fowlie disputed such claims. “(International Telecommunication Union) members do not want heavy-handed regulation,” he told Fox News, adding, “There are no proposals on the table that would impact access to or freedom of the Internet."

The Geneva conference is part of a series of meetings to be held in advance of a conference in Dubai in December, known as the World Conference on International Telecommunications. Fowlie cited an unsigned memorandum, said to be have been prepared by Obama administration officials, that cast doubt on the conference producing the ominous scenarios McDowell envisioned.

The memo, dated Jan. 23, states that in January 2011, U.S. officials harbored “great and widespread concern" that the conference "would be a battle over investing the (International Telecommunication Union) with explicit Internet governance authority.”

However, American diplomats, the memo maintains, succeeded in “narrowing the focus" of the conference by emphasizing the administration’s "deregulatory position at every opportunity.” The memo concludes that the likelihood of the conference posing any “foundational” threats to the freedom of the Internet “seems low at this time.”

At a symposium on Internet governance sponsored by the Brookings Institution in January, various Obama administration officials – while not addressing the conference directly – nonetheless declared their opposition to tougher international regulation of the Internet.

“An Internet constrained by international treaty will stifle the innovators and entrepreneurs who have been, and will continue to be, responsible for its growth,” warned Larry Strickling, an official with the Department of Commerce. “If there's a heavy-handed approach that's taken to regulate (the Internet), it reduces the value for everyone,” agreed Karen Kornbluh, U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Danny Weitzner, deputy chief technology officer at the White House, spoke about foreign efforts to regulate the Internet in the most sardonic terms.

“This multi-stakeholder process -- the process that the Internet community has pioneered in many ways -- I think works based on the fact that people have things they need to do together,” he told the Brookings audience. “It doesn't really work when one people tells someone else what to do. That's kind of the Marx command-and-control model.”

“If we've agreed on one thing," he went on to say, “it's that we don't actually have any other model. We might like to think we do. People who want, you know, to build larger buildings in Geneva, or fill existing ones, you know, might, might like to do something else, for those reasons.”

A request by Fox News to speak with Weitzner, or someone else in the White House technology office, was declined by the White House, which responded with an automated email containing a phone number which, when dialed, led the caller to an automated welcome message for the Department of State.

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UN seeks to quell fears of global Internet takeover

While they couldn't agree on how it should be done, all of the speakers at Monday's 2012 Canadian Internet Forum agreed that government needs to take a more active role in Internet governance.

The Ottawa event, held annually by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), brought together more than 250 people from government, law enforcement agencies and the technical sector to discuss a smorgasbord of issues affecting Canadians' access to the Internet.

The keynote speaker, Dragons' Den star Robert Herjavec, spoke about escalating data theft, an ever-evolving Internet and the need for government to begin setting some serious ground rules about people's conduct online.

"Ultimately, governments will be the saviour of the Internet," said Herjavec. "Some of the bills today are rocky and ambitious. But, I'm OK with that. You have to try and we'll get there."

Herjavec compared current developments with the emergence of the automobile at the start of the 20th century. Only a select handful of individuals owned cars and as a result, road work and signage was funded by private organizations such as the Canadian Automobile Association, founded in 1900. Aside from lobbying on behalf of automobile owners, the CAA was responsible for getting urban speed limits lifted to 10 m.p.h. from eight m.p.h. and pushing the federal government to begin construction on the Trans-Canada Highway in 1922. Governments didn't become active in regulating automobiles in Canada until a significant number of citizens owned cars.

"Some element of that has to happen with regards to the Internet," said Herjavec.

Bertrand de La Chapelle, a member of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), called on governments to sit together and set global ground rules for Internet governance.

Now, La Chapelle said, govern-Now, La Chapelle said, governments around the world are trying to set rules and regulations governing Internet practices within their own countries. Those go-it-alone policies are largely useless.

"If I am a French guy travelling in Brazil and post something defamatory about a British guy over Twitter, what is the process for handling that?" he asked. "The Internet is being governed by geographical boundaries. The more the Internet grows, the more it is successful, the more we need common rules."

Last year the United States government seized a number of Internet domain names it believed were being used to stream copyrighted video over the Internet. One of those sites was Spain's Rojadirecta.com. Despite it not breaking any Spanish laws, the U.S. was able to seize the website's address because all Inter-net addresses ending with .com, .net and .org are administered from U.S.based servers. Since they are based on American soil, the U.S. believes those websites should be accountable to U.S. laws.

"The legislation of one country can expand and become applicable in other territories," said La Chapelle. "Welcome to the great debate about what is the geography of cyber space?"

La Chapelle, Herjavec and others warned that while governments must initiate the talks, they can't dominate them without input from the public. Speakers pointed to backlash around legislation such as the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) in the U.S. and the recent uproar in Canada against Bill C-30, which would give police increased powers of surveillance, both created with minimal public discussion. They also pointed to the highly contentious Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that was spurred by the Office of the United States Trade Representative and negotiated behind closed doors. The treaty has sparked riots by opponents in numerous countries.

Byron Holland, president and chief executive of CIRA, said governments no longer can operate on an issueby-issue basis in which they legislate from behind closed doors. The Internet has become too all-encompassing to forgo public discussion.

"Legislatures are used to legislating on a single issue or a single industry," he said. "They can't do that anymore. If you pull a lever on copyright or child endangerment you have no idea what the effect will be (elsewhere)."

Holland said CIRA created the annual Canadian Internet Forum to bring together the country's top minds to discuss issues and potential roadblocks that may affect Internet adoption in Canada.

He admitted CIRA's reach is limited - the organization administers only administers the .ca Internet domain name - but said it can help by providing a forum where Canadians can openly speak about In-

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