A Syrian ducks while passing through a dangerous part of Baba Amr in Homs, Syria.
(Credit:
CBS News)
The country has been experiencing an Internet outage for several hours, and many people on Twitter are also reporting phone lines are down. In addition, some airlines are canceling flights to Damascus.
According to Renesys, which operates a real-time grid that continuously monitors Internet routing data, all 84 of Syria's IP address blocks have become unreachable, effectively removing the country from the Internet. The outage started at 10:26 UTC (12:26 p.m. in Damascus or 5:26 a.m. ET), and there doesn't appear to be any end in sight.
The site initially said only 92 percent of the country's routed networks were offline, but the remainder eventually disappeared, as well. Renesys said it's "investigating the dynamics of the outage and will post updates as they become available."
Shutting down Web and phone service is a tactic increasingly pursued by countries to limit the spread of information both within the country and to the outside world. Egypt and Libya switched off Internet access early in their own uprisings last year, but Syria hadn't taken the step despite being embroiled in a bloody war for the past couple years.
The move today could signal even tougher times ahead for Syria and could limit efforts by rebels to coordinate actions against President Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Airlines also are canceling flights to the Syrian capital of Damascus, Reuters reported. That includes EgyptAir and Emirates, with the latter airline noting that "the safety of our passengers and crew is of the highest priority and will not be compromised."
Here's are some of the recent comments on Twitter, via #SyriaBlackout:
(Via AllThingsD)
Blackout: Syria vanishes from Internet
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