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.
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No more internet access in Syria