By Joseph Menn
SAN FRANCISCO, May 7 (Reuters) – 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.
