90M people. 118 hours of silence. One nation erased from the internet
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THE
BLACKOUT
90 million people. 119+ hours of silence. One nation erased from the internet.This is how they did it
Day --|--h --m|--% connectivity|-- networks monitored
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JOINT STATEMENT FROM INTERNET ARCHITECTS & LEADERS
"By severing the digital lifelines of over 90 million people, the authorities are inflicting profound harm on their own citizens."
Esther Dyson · ICANN FounderBruce Schneier · CryptographerMeredith Whittaker · Signal PresidentLawrence Lessig · Harvard Law+30 more signatories
BGP Routing Activity
Telecommunication Company of Iran (AS58224)
Route Instability (Flapping)
BGP UPDATE MESSAGES • HIGH VOLUME = ROUTERS LOSING & RE-LEARNING PATHS
CLICK CHART FOR DETAILED ANALYSIS
ACT I — THE CALM
A Nation Connected
December 2025. The Rial has collapsed. Inflation hits 42%. Protests erupt in the Grand Bazaar and spread to 31 provinces.
But the internet still works. TCI, the national backbone, hums along at 1.2 million routing updates daily—the steady heartbeat of a connected nation.
ACT II — THE SCREAM
January 8th, 03:00 UTC
Then came the order. Not a shutdown—something worse. The routers didn't go silent. They screamed.
BGP announcements exploded from 1.2 million to 5.6 million in hours. Filtering rules conflicted. Routes flapped. The network began eating itself alive.
"Iran is technically connected to the internet, even if no one can communicate there. They've kind of just turned it off, even though they're connected."
— Doug Madory, Director of Internet Analysis at Kentik
SourceSystem-Wide Instability
BGP UPDATE VOLUME (% CHANGE FROM BASELINE) • 10 NETWORKS MONITORED
CLICK LEGEND ITEMS FOR DETAILED ASN ANALYSIS
ACT III — THE CONTAGION
Everyone Falls Together
It wasn't just the backbone. Watch the chart: every major network in Iran spiked in exact unison.
Irancell. MCI. Rightel. Shatel. Afranet. Ten networks. Ten simultaneous failures. This wasn't a cascade—it was coordinated demolition.
"In over 20 years of research, I've never seen anything like it."
— Amir Rashidi, Director of Internet Security at Miaan Group
SourceKEY FINDINGS
What the Data Proves
Evidence A: Synchronization
10 out of 10 networks destabilized in the exact same 3-hour window. Mobile carriers. Fixed lines. Hosting providers. All at once. This is not congestion—it's a command.
Evidence B: Intranet Isolation
Afranet hosts Iran's domestic services—banks, taxis, food delivery. Its 341% spike proves this wasn't just about blocking the outside world. It was a reconfiguration of the entire National Information Network.
January 8th was a stress-test for total disconnection. BGP withdrawals reveal route leaks from a "Filter-First, Route-Second" policy being forced onto core gateways.
THE HUMAN COST
Behind the Numbers
While routers screamed and protocols collapsed, real people were being silenced. The blackout wasn't just technical—it was a cover for violence.
12,000+
estimated killed
Over two nights (Jan 8-9). Largest killing in Iran's modern history.
648+
independently verified
By Iran Human Rights. True toll hidden by blackout.
16,784+
arrests
Journalists. Students. Lawyers. Parents.
606+
protest locations
187 cities. All 31 provinces.
2,000+
admitted by regime
First official acknowledgment of mass casualties.
Sources: Iran International, Iran Human Rights, HRANA, Reuters — Updated Jan 13, 2026
Structural Damage: The Protocol Gravesite
NORMALIZED REACHABILITY (BASELINE = 100) • REAL RIPE RIS DATA • Note: Rapid jumps indicate route flapping/instability.
ACT IV — THE EXTINCTION
Killing the Future
IPv6 is the modern internet. Faster. More secure. The future of connectivity.
Watch the purple line: it doesn't degrade. It flatlines to zero. The regime's filtering boxes couldn't handle IPv6 traffic properly. Their solution? Delete it entirely.
ACT V — THE HUNT
Hunting the Workarounds
Citizens didn't give up. They turned to VPNs. Encrypted messengers. Tor.The regime was ready.
OONI probes captured a three-stage "Kill Chain": Inspect. Inject. Silence.Every privacy tool was being actively hunted.
CONFIRMED TARGETS
Session & Psiphon Blocked
OONI probes confirmed DNS Injection targeting Session Messenger and Middlebox Interference against Psiphon VPN.
- > GET session.org -> [DNS SPOOF LOGGED]
- > CONNECT psiphon -> [HTTP HEADER MANIPULATED]
"This blanket internet shutdown not only hides human rights violations but amounts to a serious human rights violation in itself."
— Rebecca White, Iran Researcher at Amnesty International
SourceProtocol-Level Degradation
BGP peer visibility during the blackout period (Jan 7-12, 2026)
82%
IPv4 Peer Drop
313 → 56 peers
100%
IPv6 Blackout
No visibility after Jan 9
3,278
Pre-Blackout Prefixes
IPv4 baseline
93
IPv6 Prefixes Lost
Complete withdrawal
BGP Peer Visibility (Higher = More Global Visibility)
Active Prefix Announcements
Key Finding: IPv6 connectivity was completely severed after January 9th, while IPv4 experienced severe degradation with peer visibility dropping from 313 to as low as 56 peers (82% reduction). This indicates a targeted, protocol-aware shutdown strategy.
PROTOCOL ANALYSIS
IPv6: Complete Erasure
The modern internet runs on two protocols: IPv4 (legacy) and IPv6 (future). During the blackout, IPv6 was completely severed.
After January 9th, zero IPv6 prefixes were visible to global BGP peers. This wasn't degradation—it was digital amputation.
IPv4: SEVERE DEGRADATION
82% Visibility Loss
IPv4 peer visibility crashed from 313 peers to just 56 peers—an 82% reduction.
This explains why some connectivity remained: the state couldn't completely kill IPv4 without severing its own access. IPv6, with no such dependencies, was simply switched off.
ACT VI — THE LAST HOPE
Looking to the Sky
When the ground-based internet died, people looked up.Starlink—Elon Musk's satellite network—became the last lifeline.
Small dishes, smuggled across borders, beamed hope from orbit. For a moment, it seemed the sky might save them.
THE DARKEST HOUR
Even Space Wasn't Safe
The regime deployed military-grade GPS jammers—Murmansk-BN and Krasukha-4 systems, likely supplied by Russia.
Signal quality crashed from 99% to 15%. Packet loss hit 85%. The satellites were useless.
SpaceX pushed emergency firmware updates. But for 119+ hours, 90 million people had nowhere left to turn.