Slashdot Mirror
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."
Maybe Syria doesn't need to come back, or if it does, maybe not with a full block. IPv4 addresses are valuable!
A communication disruption can only mean one thing.
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.
of my favorite (most hated) phrase: "The [I]nternet is down(1!1!)".
I usually think to myself "yes, the entire Internet. Gone. The bastards finally did it".
Syrian government has been threatening cutoff for a while. My money says this is no accident.
Deja Moo: The distinct feeling that you've heard this bull before.
I CAN'T GET TO LOLGOATS!
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.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Gosh folks, this is really Syria's.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You just want www.pus.sy
Syria isn't Afghanistan. They may not be Europe or the US, but they do have urban centers with modern amenities. Those amenities simply don't penetrate very far outside those areas.
“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
-Winston Churchill
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Cellular is just a last mile solution to reach the mobile devices. The actual infrastructure that carries data between cells is primarily a physical network, generally fiber, with some copper to older towers. It's not going to do much to get data in and out of the country if Syrian Telecommunications has shut off the network.
Unless you were just trying to make a joke. In that case, keep trying. Eventually you might.
John
Looks intentional: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/29/syria-blocks-internet
Packet radio is plenty common and widely used (well for Amateur Radio definitions of widely). Usually you do SLIP not ethernet, as that would be lots of extra overhead pushing ether frames back and forth for no good reason.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html