Syria is offline again

Syria is one of those few countries that's presence on the internet isn't massively felt and this isn't helped by the fact that every few months it seems, someone gets the bright idea to turn off its connectivity to the outside world. Unfortunately for the average Syrian, that seems to have happened once again.

This conclusion was drawn by web performance and security company, CloudFare, which said (via Wired) that  “it appears that someone systematically withdrew the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) routes from the country's border routers. This is the same technique that was used to withdraw Syrian Internet access last November.”

This crash in activity in the country came late yesterday, with a clear drop off around 7PM.

It's not just internet access that's been hit however, but mobile and telephone communications too. Landlines and mobile handsets are basically useless in Syria right now. In the past these were caused by the government deliberately cutting off the rebels from communicating with one another and from receiving help from foreign nations. There have also been instances where infrastructure was damaged, fibre cables cut etc.

It's not clear at this time what's caused the latest blackout.

KitGuru Says: Whatever is behind this latest breakdown in communication tools, it's not going to help anyone in the long run. More communication is better than less.

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