Syria Has Switched Off the Internet For the Second Time in 6 Months

On Twitter, reports are coming in that the Syrian government has cut off Internet access to its citizens:

A quick check of independent Internet-monitoring services appears to confirm the complaints. Here's a chart showing Syrian traffic to Google dropping off a cliff:

And here's the Web services provider Akamai's report:

And BGPMon:

All three sources show a steep drop in Syrian inbound and outbound Internet traffic beginning around 1:45 p.m. Eastern (6:45 p.m. GMT). The two Syrian top-level domain servers, ns1.tld.sy and ns2.tld.sy, are both down at this time, according to Umbrella Security Labs. It's not clear when they'll be back up.

This isn't the first time Syrians have had their Web access suspended. Back in November 2012, the country vanished from the Web for about two days before returning.