Understanding Internet Blackouts
A transparent, audit-ready system for detecting and documenting internet shutdowns using only public, consensual data sources. Designed for journalists, researchers, and policymakers.
📋 How It Works
Data Collection
We continuously poll public APIs from RIPE Atlas and RIPE RIS to gather DNS measurements and BGP routing data.
Evidence Hashing
Every data point is cryptographically hashed and stored in tamper-evident chains for independent verification.
Correlation Analysis
Our engine aligns measurements and routing events to detect patterns consistent with connectivity disruptions.
Visualization
Results are presented in an accessible dashboard with confidence scores, timestamps, and downloadable evidence.
📖 Public Legend
Technical definitions used across the dashboard.
The system that exchanges reachability information between networks on the internet. BGP withdrawals indicate routes being removed from global view.
A block of IP addresses announced in BGP (e.g., 203.0.113.0/24). Prefixes going offline indicate potential connectivity loss.
Unique identifier for a network operator that announces routes to the internet. Used to track which networks are affected.
Upstream network that carries traffic to and from other networks, often enabling international connectivity.
The process of converting domain names to IP addresses. Failed DNS queries can indicate blocking or connectivity issues.
Time delay for data to travel between two points. Elevated latency can indicate network congestion or deliberate throttling.
🛡️ Evidence Principles
Constraints that protect legal defensibility and public trust.
📡 Data Sources
We rely exclusively on public, read-only data sources.
⚠️ What We Cannot Claim
Transparency about our limitations is essential for credibility.
- Intent: We cannot prove why a disruption occurred—only that it did.
- Causality: Correlation does not equal causation. Equipment failures and misconfigurations remain plausible.
- Completeness: Collector gaps may cause false positives or missed events.
- Legal Attribution: This is technical evidence, not legal proof of responsibility.
Explore the Data
View live connectivity signals or download evidence bundles for independent verification.