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Syria Briefly Deletes Itself From The Internet, Because That Worked So Well In Egypt & Libya

from the not-so-smart dept

Tue, Jul 24th 2012 4:27pm — Mike Masnick

As various uprisings have occurred in the middle east, we've seen the regimes in Egypt and Libya try disconnecting the entire country from the internet, after realizing that opposition forces were making use of the internet to coordinate. In neither case did it prevent regime change soon afterwards. Soon after the situation with Egypt, we noted that Syria was actually trying to go in the opposite direction, trying to make use of the internet to communicate its own story... and to keep track of protestors. Of course, in the year plus since then, the situation in Syria has obviously gotten significantly worse and more contentious. And... late last week, it was noted that Syria appeared to remove itself from the internet for about 40 minutes. It was brief, but it at least suggests that someone in the government is toying with the idea of shutting off the internet. Of course, given the two examples of how well that's worked so far, it probably doesn't bode well for Syria's leadership.

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Filed Under: internet, protests, syria

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jul 2012 @ 5:37pm

Some Semites will never learn...
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jul 2012 @ 7:53pm

At one time regimes like Assad's could shut the borders down and be reasonably sure that they were controlling the flow of information by the judicious use of censorship and adopting the Goebbels way of propaganda and terror to keep the subject people in line. The Internet has changed all that. While states like Syria can shut the internet down there are alternatives such as Blackberry's own mail servers and PIN messaging that don't use the Internet meaning that rebel communication continues while holes are poked in the official firewall from both inside and out.

It doesn't work when a determined populace fights back with all the technical tools and smarts at their disposal. And have more skills and ability than the regime that oppresses them.
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HerrinSchadenfreude, 24 Jul 2012 @ 10:00pm

Here's Your Determined Populace Right Here
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/25/world/middleeast/al-qaeda-insinuating-its-way-into-syrias-conflict .html?pagewanted=all

Go ahead and tell us all about the poor suffering Al Qaeda gunmen who have been co-opting this "revolution" from the very start. Just like they did in Libya, and just like they're doing in Iraq.

While you're stumbling around blind as a bat, be sure to explain how the US has any credibility claiming they have no idea whether or not the proxy army THEY created which has flown flags over government buildings in EVERY country they've overthrown since 2003, is actually involved with the "Free Syrian Army".

Ahh, you've got both hands on your cup of Kool Aid. Mainstream Media flavor. I'll wait till you've finished.
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'waster', 24 Jul 2012 @ 11:41pm

Syria closes down its own internet services
An amazing coincidence. Syria shuts itself down, at the very time when external forces are trying to carry out the same thing! See: http://thetruthserumblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/the-media-war-on-syria-hitting-high-gear.html
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Q�r Tharkasd�ttir, 25 Jul 2012 @ 1:44am

Mike, as much as I like you and your endeavour... there's much, much more to what's going on in Syria than meets the eye��as has been the case in Lybia or about anywhere the would-be masters of the world are pushing their dirty agendas. For starters, a few days ago:

http://www.voltairenet.org/NATO-PsyOp-Against-Syria-Imminent

or:

http://www.voltairene t.org/NATO-preparing-vast-disinformation

In the light of this, who is anyone to tell that it's actually the Syrian government that's behind whatever happened?
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Tony MC (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 2:39am

Lybia?
Mike, i'm sorry, but obviously you didn't pay attention to what was happening in Lybia. It wasn't an uprising. I don't know what's up with Syria as i haven't been watching closely, but Lybia was a completely different scenario from Egypt.
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Anonymous Coward, 25 Jul 2012 @ 2:41am

I love the comment:

"Strange, last night my internet refused to reconnect for 40 minutes between 2300 and 2340. Of course, there cant be any link at all given the ISP I signed up with 15 years ago has been bought out several times and its technical call centre has been moved from Glasgow to India."

Sums it up. 40 minutes could be anything.
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lfroen (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 2:50am

It's real war Mike
It doesn't matter whether Syria turns internet on or off. What matter, is whether one side can kill enough people on the other.
It's not facebook-type "protest" - but real, full-blown civil war.
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Wally (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 7:22am

Civil War
Let's see here, Syria says it is targeting militants, yet they blatently fire upon the civilian population. The Iraqi refugees from Saddam Hiesein's reign of terror noted that similar tactics were used by Saddam Husein himself to hide the practices of his regime. There were daily showings if beheadings and dismemberment of "dissidents" over the state controlled media.

Now these tactics aren't as similar as what happened to Iraq, but then again, Saddam Husein was known to use nerv gas on an entire population of his own people.
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John Fenderson (profile), 25 Jul 2012 @ 4:33pm

Re: Here's Your Determined Populace Right Here
...aaaand what does this have to do with the point of the post?
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Ninja (profile), 26 Jul 2012 @ 4:10am

Syria was just playing peekaboo. It's just that DNS servers don't react that fast.

ahem. Hopefully the cut is a signal that the Syrian Govt is about to fall. It's a shame to see China and Russia protecting the regime. Not unexpected though.
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