Syria cut off from global Internet as civil war rages

SAN FRANCISCO: Internet connections between Syria and the outside world were cut off on Tuesday, according to data from Google Inc and other global Internet companies.
Google's
Transparency Report pages showed traffic to Google services pages from
the country, embroiled in a civil war that has lasted more than two
years, suddenly stopping shortly before 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT).
The
vast majority of websites within Syria were rendered unreachable as
well, other experts said, as the county appeared to shut itself off.
"Effectively,
the shutdown disconnects Syria from Internet communication with the
rest of the world. It's unclear whether Internet communication within
Syria is still available," wrote Dan Hubbard, chief technology officer
at infrastructure services firm OpenDNS.
"Although we can't yet
comment on what caused this outage, past incidents were linked to both
government-ordered shutdowns and damage to the infrastructure, which
included fiber cuts and power outages."
Hubbard wrote on an
OpenDNS blog that a similar Internet blackout in Syria occurred in
November and lasted three days. About 80 Internet pathways normally are
listed by Syrian providers, but only three were being advertised to
machines searching for connections late on Tuesday.
The Syrian ambassador could not immediately be reached for comment. - Reuters