How Governments Can Shut Down the Internet and Defend Yourself

Imagine waking up one morning to find that your phone can no longer connect to the Internet. No social media, no messages, no news. It is not a problem with your device: the entire country has been disconnected. It sounds like science fiction, but it is a reality that some governments can impose on their citizens.

But how does this internet shutdown work technically?

And above all, are there ways to bypass it?

Methods to Block Internet

The Physical Blackout: Unplugging the Power

The most brutal and direct method is the physical one. The Internet, despite seeming abstract and invisible, is made up of cables, servers, and power plants. A government can simply order service providers to shut down the equipment in the plants or disconnect the underwater fiber optic cables that connect the country to the rest of the world. Alternatively, it can more simply cut the power to the servers. It is like closing all the doors and windows of a house: no one can enter or exit. This method creates total isolation, but it is also the most visible and difficult to justify.

The Routing Trick: Becoming Invisible

There is a more sophisticated approach that acts on the GPS of the Internet, called Border Gateway Protocol. Think of it as the system that tells data which route to take to reach its destination. The government can order providers to delete the road maps that connect the addresses of the country to the rest of the world.

The result?

The country literally becomes invisible on the global network. The data do not know how to reach it and cannot exit. It is like erasing a city from all maps: no one knows how to get there anymore.

The Selective Filter: Blocking Specific Sites

Not always does a government want to shut down the entire Internet. Sometimes it prefers to block only certain content. This is where the Domain Name System (DNS) comes into play, the equivalent of the phone book of the Internet. When you type facebook.com, the DNS translates that name into a numerical address that the computer can understand. By manipulating this system, a state can prevent you from reaching specific sites, redirecting you to error pages or controlled content. It is as if someone rewrote the phone book replacing real numbers with fake ones.

The Packet Inspector: Controlling Everything

The most advanced technique is Deep Packet Inspection. On the Internet, information travels divided into small packets, like letters in envelopes. This technology allows you to open each envelope, read its contents, and decide whether to block it or not. It is a real-time control of everything that passes over the network, which can identify and block specific apps, services, or anonymous communication tools.

How to Bypass Censorship: VPNs and Starlink

Two solutions are emerging as particularly effective.

VPNs: The Secret Tunnel

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is like a secret tunnel that connects your computer to a server in another country. All traffic passes through this encrypted tunnel, hiding where you are actually browsing from. It is like sending a letter by putting it inside another envelope addressed to a friend abroad, who then resends it to the final destination. The government of your country only sees that you are communicating with that foreign server, but cannot know what you are actually doing. VPNs make it much harder to censor specific content or track citizens' online activities.

Starlink: Bypassing Terrestrial Infrastructures

Starlink represents an even more radical revolution. This system of low-orbit satellites provides Internet connection directly from space, completely bypassing the terrestrial infrastructures controlled by states. It is like having a phone that works without needing the antennas of your country. If a government blocks cables and plants, Starlink continues to work because its connections are beams of radio waves traveling between the Earth and space. Of course, a government can try to block this by making it illegal to own Starlink antennas, but it is much harder to control technically.

VPNs only work if you already have an active Internet connection. It is a tool that masks and encrypts your traffic, but it still needs cables, servers, and electricity to function. If they physically disconnect the cables or shut down the plants, you have no Internet to mask. Starlink, on the other hand, can work even in the event of a blackout of terrestrial infrastructure, because it completely bypasses terrestrial cables and plants. The connection comes directly from satellites in space.

So:

Total physical blackout: only Starlink (or other satellite systems) can help. VPN useless. DNS blocking or content filtering: VPN very effective, because it masks what you are doing. Routing blocking (BGP): VPN can help if you can connect to a server before the block is complete. Deep Packet Inspection: VPN useful because it encrypts traffic.