Paint it black—How Syria methodically erased itself from 'Net

Just after noon Damascus time on Thursday, the government-owned Syrian Telecommunications Establishment essentially deleted the whole country from the Internet's routing tables, blocking all inbound and outbound network traffic. Rather than the result of terrorist attacks, as the government claimed on state television, the blackout was a well-rehearsed and deliberate act intended to deny connection to Syria's citizens and the opposition forces currently trying to topple the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad.

That means that citizens trying to circumvent the blackout—whether the government admits to it being under their control or not—may place themselves at even greater risk of surveillance and detection. As the pressure on the Assad regime builds, that risk may be more than most citizens—no matter what their status or wealth—are willing to take on.