In the first quarter of 2026, government-directed shutdowns figured prominently, with prolonged Internet blackouts in both Uganda and Iran, a stark contrast to the lack of observed government-directed shutdowns in the same quarter a year prior. This quarter, we also observed a number of Internet disruptions caused by power outages, including three separate collapses of Cuba's national electrical g...
The first quarter of 2026 revealed a troubling pattern: Internet disruptions are no longer just technical failures but deliberate tools of control and collateral damage in geopolitical conflicts. The government-directed shutdowns in Uganda and Iran, framed as necessary for "security" or "election integrity," echo a global trend where digital access is weaponized to suppress dissent or manipulate information flows. The AWS data center attacks in the Middle East represent a new frontier—where kine...