Syria hit by partial internet blackout

Syria again appears to be largely cut off from the internet, with the exception of the city of Aleppo. This is evident from statistics from various companies. It is not clear what caused the internet connections to be lost.

According to BGPmon.net, which monitors traffic via the border gateway protocol, has hardly seen any traffic with Syria since this afternoon. The bgp is used to unite different networks into the internet. There is only traffic with one network in Aleppo; the rest of the internet traffic has disappeared, says the statistics company.

Akamai, a large content delivery network, has observed the same thing: around half past one, internet traffic suddenly dropped sharply. Security company Think Umbrella noticed that too. It is unclear what caused the blackout: it could be sabotage by the government or the rebels with whom it is fighting a bloody conflict, or an accident.

Syria also had an internet blackout in May last year; in the end it lasted nineteen hours. All traffic, including that to and from Aleppo, had disappeared. At the end of 2012, internet traffic in the country was down for several days.