War-torn country Syria has abruptly lost its internet connection again severing online ties with it and the rest of the world. Just a week ago the Middle Eastern country suffered a communications blackout for reasons unknown for an entire day. Renesys, an internet intelligence company, first reported the disconnection this morning and is live blogging the event.
Renesys write,
“As we write, the Syrian people are still disconnected from the global Internet at the most fundamental level, nearly all of their paths withdrawn from the global routing table. Since 18:45 UTC on May 7th, Renesys hasn’t seen a flicker of activity. We haven’t been able to successfully send a ping or a traceroute to any host inside Syria. Government websites, universities, domain name servers, core infrastructure routers, banks, businesses, DSL customers, smartphones: all silent.”
During the blackout last week, people with satellite internet were still able to connect via mobile but this time, according to Renesys, it doesn’t appear anyone can.
It’s also important to note that Syria has lost its internet systematically for years now, as if someone simply flips a switch to shut it down. In June 2011, July 2012, August 2012, and November 2012, the same occurrence took place though only lasting for about 30 seconds.
Tensions have been rising and discontent mounting with fellow Middle Eastern country Israel and Syria as of late; Syria has been the subject of Israeli airstrikes recently and Israel happens to be the United States’ most trusted ally in the Middle East.
In the meantime, I’ll be trying to reach out to Syrian activists via Twitter as I did last week to see if they might have some kind of information that isn’t apparent at this time. Surprisingly, I was able to get in touch with a couple of them who were more than happy to voice their opinions on the matter. Check back with BostInno for more updates.
Update, 8:20am ET: Syrian news agency reports that they’re working to fix. Potentially related to forthcoming UN decision today?– From Renesys.
