Libya turns off its internet: this time it's a flatline

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/?r=LY&l=WEBSEARCH&csd=1299014407973&ced=1299241800000

by motters • 15 years ago

192 69 15 years ago

google.com

bigohms• 15 years ago

FYI chart doesn't display fully on iPhone

jwr• 15 years ago

Where are the nameservers for .ly? Will bit.ly be affected?

aeden• 15 years ago

See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2237865

joebananas2• 15 years ago

It'd be sort of nice if they did go down. Then maybe people would think twice before doing business with brutal dictatorships in the future.

parfe6• 15 years ago

Does your IPhone Made in China count?

keiferski• 15 years ago

I hope it goes down too, but for a different reason: so startups will stop using "ly" at the end of their name.

lancewiggs• 15 years ago

Actually no - the RIGHT kind of business is good - as it means a middle class is created in those countries - and well, we can see the results. The right kind of business is in consumer goods - it's hard to have low aspirations when you are making iPhones or part of a call center helping solve first world problems.

North Korea has no trade to speak of - and no hope that its population will assert itself.

iyerrag• 15 years ago

Most probably not : http://www.quora.com/Can-http-bit-ly-and-others-using-Libya-...

derobert• 15 years ago

Fairly easy to answer:

   $ host -t NS ly.
   ly name server phloem.uoregon.edu.
   ly name server ns-ly.ripe.net.
   ly name server dns1.lttnet.net.
   ly name server dns.lttnet.net.
   ly name server auth02.ns.uu.net.

RoyceFullerton• 15 years ago

Wow, that's flat!

But, perhaps they haven't turned it off: "Data after this point are still being finalized. Interpret them with caution."

We will have to wait and see.

motters• 15 years ago

Looks like the patient is dead. Maybe someone cut some cables, or perhaps some critical infrastructure was destroyed in the fighting.

templaedhel• 15 years ago

Interesting, there is still some very low level gmail activity. I wonder why?

wladimir• 15 years ago

I suppose that traffic is under very close scrutiny by foreign intelligence services. It likely belongs to the regime, or close privileged persons that are not kicked off for some reason.

buro9• 15 years ago

Network and system admins.

JonnieCache• 15 years ago

Renesys' always excellent coverage throws some more light. They say the routers are all still up, there haven't been any routes withdrawn, but packets are just stopping somewhere on the way into libya. Firewalled I'm guessing, so privileged parties can still communicate.

http://www.renesys.com/blog/2011/02/libyan-disconnect-1.shtm...

http://www.renesys.com/blog/assets_c/2011/03/latencies_Libya...

The second one is a plot of traceroutes into libya over 24 hours.

mahmud• 15 years ago

There is a way around it. Libyan activists, specially those in Tripoli are able to get the word out even if he powers down the whole country.

Fret not, all Gaddafi is doing is signal to those in areas under his control that he is losing control. Nothing could damage him now more than a mismanaged public image; that's why you see the cleaning crew sweeping streets and taking out garbage, to send strong signals of normalcy by attending to mundane chores. It's all poker bluffs; if a handful of generals understood he is out, and accepted it, he will be out.

adamcharnock• 15 years ago

"Libya Traffic Divided by Worldwide Traffic and Normalized"

Maybe Google search volume just skyrocketed elsewhere on the planet? ;)

mryall2• 15 years ago

Maybe they just cut off access to Google.

pg• 15 years ago

I wonder if turning off the Internet will start to be treated as a reliable predictor that the government is going to fall. So far it's a pretty good one.

DanielBMarkham• 15 years ago

I've been wondering the converse: if having an open internet will be an indicator that true reform has taken place.

Whatever the case, we live in interesting times.

iron_ball• 15 years ago

America has an open internet, and we're pretty awful at reform. Apples and oranges, though. We're replacing rotten floorboards and broken balcony rails; they're building a house up from rubble.

lsb2• 15 years ago

So far, North Korea hasn't fallen. All governments eventually fall; what timeline were you thinking of?

PostOnce2• 15 years ago

The Japanese monarchy has supposedly been around since 660 BC.

dspillett• 15 years ago

But North Korea's access has never been open by any stretch of the imagination to start with.

akjj• 15 years ago

Burma shut down Internet access during its 2007 protests and so far its government is still in place.

VomisaCaasi• 15 years ago

Burma's internet use is almost non-existant. OpenNet Initiative says only 0.2% [1] out of population of 55M are internet users. I'd rather be making a comparison towards North Korea, than to Egypt, where 24.3% [2] of the population is using internet.

[1] http://opennet.net/research/profiles/burma

[2] http://opennet.net/research/profiles/egypt

bugsy• 15 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. So far this tactic has not worked well in the cases where it has been tried, the last gasp of a desperate autocrat.

On the other hand, banning the media has worked well in the past, such as when China ordered the media out of Tiananmen before getting serious at the end. The problem is that nowadays with cellphones and twitter, banning the media accomplishes nothing because that merely deputizes the entire populace to become journalists. At Tiananmen no one could post to the internet from their cell phone. Things have changed since then. Now the only way to stop the media is to shut down the internet, cell phones, and land lines that might contact fax machines. But this leaves the autocrat with no reliable feedback about what is going on on the ground, while people manage to communicate news reports via satellite phone, ham radio, pigeons, across the border local wifi, and who knows what else.

A big question is what will governments do in response to this loss of control, something they can not stand? Something like the great firewall of china is one solution - leave the internet running but have the ability to monitor 100% of net traffic in real time and block prohibited communication instantly. In the US there is an approach of monitoring traffic for keywords (but no blocking) combined with psyops such as persona management and media control in order to get the sheep to go in the direction the herder wants them to go.

stcredzero• 15 years ago

Yes, it's much better to monitor and manipulate than it is to openly oppose the crowd. The general populace is often bigger than you are. Nowadays, they can coordinate and communicate.

If the Tiananmen protestors had waited until this moment in 2011 to protest, then you would have seen the fall of China. As it is, I suspect that the Chinese government was forced to wise up about controlling an Internet-connected populace.

As for psy-ops and media control, that's been going on since the late 19th century, and was down to a science by the early 20th.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6718420906413643126#

ck22• 15 years ago

Thanks to certain senators, the US will have a similar killswitch soon too (they resurrected the bill and snuck it back in).

canadaduane• 15 years ago

Where it's status now?

Sargis• 15 years ago

Imagine the increase in development speed of projects that aim to create a true decentralized internet, if the bill passes. The killswitch might not be so bad after all.

mryall2• 15 years ago

What does "true decentralized internet" mean to you? Surely if you want to communicate with people around the world, you need to rely on someone to transport the data for you across the country and the oceans. If not government, then who? Why would you trust them more?

ck22• 15 years ago

Unless they are going to put FIDOnet back online (or is it still around?) you need a backbone for the internet, which means governments can always control and close it at will.

The mere fact the US is pursuing such an option is a demonstration of bad government that threatens and controls it's people with FUD.

demetris• 15 years ago

Grim.

EGreg• 15 years ago

Does that mean we can't place job ads for the Amazonian Guard?

known• 15 years ago

http://www.middle-east-info.org/gateway.html

Libya turns off its internet: this time it's a flatline

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