No more internet access in Syria

There has been a blackout of internet activities in Syria since Tuesday evening (Syrian time) according to US tech firms monitoring Web traffic and the State Department.

State Department tweeted “Syria is currently experiencing an internet blackout as of this afternoon”.

A web monitoring firm Umbrella Security Labs also reported a “significant drop in traffic from Syria” starting around 6:45pm GMT.

“OpenDNS resolvers saw a significant drop in traffic from Syria.” Tuesday shutdown effectively “disconnects Syria from internet communication with the rest of the world,” the company said.

“On closer inspection, it seems Syria has largely disappeared from the internet,” said Umbrella’s Dan Hubbard.

There was also a similar picture indicating blackout from Google through its Transparency Report on Web traffic and Web monitoring firms Akamai and Renesys.

Syria is reportedly connected to the internet through four physical cables, three run under the sea while the fourth runs over land through Turkey.

Cutting off the cables could have shutdown access but experts have said that is not the case. They believe someone with access to the cables dropped a Border Gateway Protocol in a way that caused information trying to enter the country to halt.

A similar blackout occurred for three days last November where the government blamed the rebels. It was later discovered that the government of Syria was responsible for the said blackout.

Observers have predicted that the government may be responsible for the current blackout as well. It is believed that the government may have done this in order to launch a major offensive military operation.

Syrian government in the past cut communications in advance of major operations to severely curtail communication between opposition forces.

The rebels have a workaround for internet outages in the place of satellite communication. But satellite communication can be easily tracked which is a disadvantage to the rebels.

The government can determine the location of the rebels when they use satellite communications.

This is coming days after an Israeli air strike. Syria has been embroiled in a civil war that has lasted for over two years.

Posted in Machines, politics, technology