
Libya turns off its internet: this time it's a flatline - motters
http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/traffic/?r=LY&l=WEBSEARCH&csd=1299014407973&ced=1299241800000
======
pg
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.

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

~~~
PostOnce
The Japanese monarchy has supposedly been around since 660 BC.

~~~
pjscott
If they don't govern anymore, are they still a government?

~~~
PostOnce
The Japanese monarchy has gone through cycles of governance and non-
governance, remember the shogunate? I have no reason to believe that it won't
happen again 50, 100, or 200 years from now, without ever having broken the
chain of succession.

~~~
patio11
The chain of succession has been broken a few times, most prominently by
assassination, where the next candidate assuming the throne had, ahem, well,
ample reasons to be glad they hadn't invented DNA testing yet. The unbroken
succession is largely an article of faith, concocted in the late 1800s in the
service of turning an often fractious bunch into a modern nation-state.

------
JonnieCache
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routers are all still up, there haven't been any routes withdrawn, but packets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/2011/02/libyan-
disconnect-1.shtml#latest)

[http://www.renesys.com/blog/assets_c/2011/03/latencies_Libya...](http://www.renesys.com/blog/assets_c/2011/03/latencies_Libya2_AllSources_c-275.shtml)

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

------
mahmud
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.

------
ck2
Thanks to certain senators, the US will have a similar killswitch soon too
(they resurrected the bill and snuck it back in).

~~~
Sargis
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.

~~~
mryall
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?

------
RoyceFullerton
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.

------
adamcharnock
"Libya Traffic Divided by Worldwide Traffic and Normalized"

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

~~~
mryall
Maybe they just cut off access to Google.

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

~~~
joebananas
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.

~~~
parfe
Does your IPhone Made in China count?

~~~
olalonde
Obviously you haven't asked many Chinese whether they think their government
is a "brutal dictatorship".

~~~
sdizdar
I have to answer to this comment since this is the same argument governments
had back in social and communist countries in Eastern Europe.

It is not about whether majority of people approve government or think their
government is a "brutal dictatorship". It is about what that government does
with people who doesn't approve the government.

~~~
jquery
Say what you want about the Chinese form of government, it's a lot more
functional than most Western democracies.

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

~~~
wladimir
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
Network and system admins.

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

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

------
demetris
Grim.

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

------
bigohms
FYI chart doesn't display fully on iPhone

