[gnarea]

> There is no plausible solution for multitude of reasons listed in other comments. > What I suggest, perhaps as last ditch effort, is look in the opposite direction: attacking the remaining Beltelecom and mobile layer2/3 connectivity in the country.

Is that really plausible though? I'm sure it's technically doable, but I'm not sure it's realistic or even a good idea if you could pull it off.

Who has the ability _and_ incentive to carry out such an attack? You could hire someone to do a DDoS attack, for example, but who would pay for that?

Let's say you've pulled it off. Have you considered the collateral damage?

Can we be certain that whoever has the capacity to do this will only ever use it "for good"? What's "for good" anyway?

Have you even considered that not all the people who remained connected in the country may be government officials? I don't know about this specific Internet blackout, but quite often other organisations (e.g., international NGOs, consulates/embassies, hotels) remain connected (see this for example: https://qz.com/africa/1884387/ethiopia-internet-is-back-on-b...).

[baybal2]

> Is that really plausible though? I'm sure it's technically doable, but I'm not sure it's realistic or even a good idea if you could pull it off.

I'd say a blackout may well pull more people to the street, and open more opportunities for spontaneous openings. The same was in USSR in 1991.

People are actually being attracted by the sound of gunfire, fire, and smoke, if all other decision making inputs are cut off.

Sounds of intense gunfire in a city often result in people being inadvertently "herded" into big crowds, and formation of street-to-street fronts, which result in assailants being surrounded.

Then, when people see enemies surrounded, and trembling in fear, human primal instincts kick in, and crazy things happen. Moscow 1991, Bishkek 2010, Kyiv 2014, Istanbul 2016 all demonstrated that effect.

How powerful can it be? There were historical precedents when such spontaneous crowds went on offensive again fully armed military forces, and won, with Istanbul, and Bishkek events being the most vivid.

In Bishkek, a column of smoke rising from a key government building, along with a comms blackout, was enough to instantaneously gather a crowd of 5000-6000 bystanders, and onlookers who in just 3-4 hours turned into am unstoppable human wave.

It were these complete randoms who then marched against an elite SF battalion, 10+ snipers, fire from 12.7mm, took 5 RPG shots (!!!), and, in the end, still managed to steamroll that battalion to the last man. Even the relatively tame footage that managed to escape Youtube censorship if still horrifying.

I cannot find the original Euronews footage on the net now, but here is the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3zUSe2peRE&t=30s (quite intense, be prepared.) Take a look at the footage starting at 0:30, and give attention to what happens after 1:05.

[totetsu]

From the "Kyrgyz Revolution" wikipedia page. "the Eurasian Daily Monitor reported on 1 April that, for two weeks, the Kremlin had used the Russian mass media to run a negative campaign against Bakiyev.[20] Russia controls much of the media in Kyrgyzstan.[20] The campaign sought to associate Bakiyev and his son, Maxim Bakiyev, with an allegedly corrupt businessman whose company had worked in a government project. "

[baybal2]

Yes, not to say that Russia was a beneficiary of all of that was more than an understatement. The end result of that was the closure of USA base there, at a laughable cost for the Kremlin.

It does not still negate the fact that Bakiyev totally deserved that outcome, as an amoral, corrupt, and incompetent president, regardless of whom capitalised on the outcome of his ousting.

USA has a terrible talent betting on political leaders who are almost certain to lose power.

[varjag]

In fact I don't think you can do that with DDoS attack easily. What I had in mind is more like a physical attack on switching equipment at a handful of branch exchange or backbone stations. That would require getting the network layout documentation, but IT sector in Belarus is enormous and well connected.

Yes there will be collateral of course, the most serious is to emergency response services who use the same network.

I realise it sounds a bit like that Death Star vent attack, but it is still more realistic than a Bluetooth mesh network that doesn't fold with more than a handful users.

[kova12]

It might be much more plausible than you think. A single rogue engineer can put it down so well that it would take days to detangle in even normal circumstances.