Syrian Internet Back, Up and Running; Blackout a Technical Fault or a Deliberate Cut?

Internet in Syria came alive after more than 19 hours of complete blackout in the country, reports BBC News.

Internet access across Syria was completely cut off since Tuesday. The Syrian government blamed the nationwide blackout to a technical problem in one of the four optic cables, which runs through Turkey providing Internet access to the country.

But security officials say all four cables, including the three which run undersea, must be cut simultaneously to cause such an outage. Experts and technologists are accusing the regime of deliberately cutting the Internet across the country to conceal military operations. Renesys, an Internet Intelligence Authority, reported Internet activity confirming the restoration of Internet in some parts of the country on Wednesday afternoon.

"Our monitoring shows that Syria's international Internet connectivity is through at least four providers, and published submarine cable maps show connectivity through three active cables," David Belson, of Akamai, said in a statement, according to BBC News. "As such, the failure of a single optical cable is unlikely to cause a complete Internet outage for the country."

State run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported Bakr Bakr, the director general of Syria's General Establishment for Communications, saying the cause of such a major blackout was due to a technical problem in an optic cable.

A similar incident of a nationwide blackout in Syria was reported in November last year. The Syrian government blamed the terrorists for the act, but according to a report in The New York Times, evidence of government's involvement was reported. Activists said that it may have been an attempt by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad to "silence" communications between the rebels.

According to Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), U.S.-based digital rights group, voiced concern about the nationwide blackout as "a deliberate attempt to silence Syria's online communications and further draw a curtain over grave events currently unfolding on the ground in Syria."

"While heavily censored, monitored and compromised, the internet has served as an important window connecting the world at large to Syria, and one way that international observers could connect with individuals on the ground in that country," EFF said in a statement. "A number of activists on the ground in Syria have access to internet via satellite links, which can connect them to the internet but carries a high risk for detection, which can be life-threatening."

As a result of the Syrian Internet blackout, a brief pause in the Syrian Electronic Army's hacking into Twitter accounts of major media organizations was noticed. So far, several media organizations' Twitter feeds have been hacked, which include The Onion, E! Online, The Guardian, The Associated Press and CBS News.