Disconnecting an entire country from a world with readily available internet was not considered an easy task even after Egypt got detached from it at the beginning of last year. However, many eye brows have been raised when a similar episode took place in Syria last Thursday. The main cause of concern in this incident was that no one among the authorities knew who had cut off the entire country from the online world.
The episode continued on Saturday when the anxiety of Syrians once again touched a dangerous level, as someone restored the internet connection of the country quietly. In discussing the restoration, networking company Renesys, who track internet connections said it “was achieved just as quickly and neatly as the outage: like a switch being thrown.”
This incident gave birth to a new discussion in other parts of the world. People began asking questions as to whether it is easy for those with the ability to disconnect an entire country from the internet, akin to flipping a switch. If we imagine for a moment that there is such a switch, then the question arises as to how long it might take a person to shut down the internet connection of a state.
The answer to this question will depend on the internet infrastructure of the country. This is because countries that have licensed more companies to rout internet traffic and assign IP addresses, will prove more complicated tasks in this case.
In contrast to them, countries such as Iran, Egypt and Syria, who have limited number of companies which rout traffic and assign IP addresses. Such countries are highly regulated with leadership that exercises control over the in and out flow of traffic from the global network. These are considered as highly risk areas that could face internet disconnection, if a metaphorical switch is thrown.
The latest map below highlights the countries with dark green colour that do not have diverse internet infrastructure and that’s why Renesys has declared them as “severe risk”, which means they are more likely to face disconnection from the internet.
On the other hand, countries in the lightest green colour are declared as most “resistant” by Renesys.
Source: MIT Technology Review
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