Syria Drops Off the Internet Grid

hypnosec writes "Amidst the ongoing civil war, Syria has gone off the Internet as of a few hours ago, with all the 84 IP block within the country unreachable from the outside. Renesys, a research firm keeping tabs on the health of the Internet, reported at about 5:25 ET that Syria's Internet connectivity has been shut down. The internet traffic from outside to Syrian IP addresses is going undelivered, and anything coming from within the country is not reaching the Internet. Akamai has tweeted that its traffic data supports what Renesys has observed." Reader trickstyhobbit adds a report from Slate that the connection "appear[s] to have been knocked off line by heavy fighting earlier this morning. They are also reporting that the shutdown may have been intentional to aid in a government operation."

Comments

route around it?

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of you who think the internet is some magically self-healing construct immune to accidental or intentional disconnection of nodes and subnetworks, this should serve to show that if you aren't in charge over the physical infrastructure, you are at the mercy of those who are.

Re:route around it?

[sjames]

It was supposed to be that, but through a combination of governments that can't seem to keep their fingers off and corporations determined to bill for every penny's worth even if it costs a dollar to do it, the net has been turned into a series of single points of failure.

Re:Mark my words:

[bill_mcgonigle]

Some of whom may be heavily bearded men who think that democracy is filth.

Democracy is filth - people cannot be trusted to run a non-corrupt one (c.f. The Law). Of course, Theocracy is not better.

Re:Mark my words:

[circletimessquare]

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

-Winston Churchill