Syria Disconnects From The Internet

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Syria Disconnects From The Internet

	By Dan York Author and Speaker on Internet technologies - and Senior Advisor at Internet Society
	November 29, 2012 Views: 10,854 Comments: 2

This morning brought word that all Internet connections into Syria had been severed. Internet monitoring firm Renesys was among the first to report the news in a blog post that they have continued to update.

That news was subsequently confirmed by other sites and services, including:

• Google’s Transparency Report
• Akamai’s traffic map
• Arbor Networks monitoring

Many news stories are appearing throughout the tech media and mainstream media. Twitter is very active with the hashtags #Syria and #SyriaBlackout getting heavy usage.

Multiple reports indicate that all Internet, cell phone and landline connections to all or most of the country have been severed. There are numerous reports of military action but obviously without communication from within the country it is hard to know exactly what is happening there.

Hopefully Internet access will be restored soon and we can learn what has happened. My thoughts are certainly with all the people there on the ground as these events continue to unfold.

By Dan York, Author and Speaker on Internet technologies - and Senior Advisor at Internet Society — Dan is a Senior Advisor at the Internet Society but opinions posted on CircleID are his own. View more of Dan’s writing and audio here.
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CloudFlare Digs Into Some More Details Dan York – Nov 29, 2012 9:20 PM

The folks over at content distribution network CloudFlare have dug into what happened a bit more and have posted this article about the removal of all BGP routes into Syria:

http://blog.cloudflare.com/how-syria-turned-off-the-internet

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Internet Society statement on Syria Dan York – Nov 29, 2012 10:27 PM

Related to this, the Internet Society has issued this statement related to the situation in Syria:

http://www.internetsociety.org/news/internet-society-syria’s-internet-shutdown

[In full disclosure, the Internet Society is my employer, but posts and comments here on CircleID are my own.]

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