Burma’s Internet services “under attack” pre-election. Timely.

A massive ongoing attack on Burma’s Internet service has left the country with no means of outside communication via the web.

Internet users in the military-ruled country have reported slow connections and sporadic outages for more than a week but today it has reportedly left the country completely without access.

The attack comes just days before Burma’s first election in 20 years, leaving many in no doubt that the attack is an orchestrated one by the Burma government and specifically timed to ensure rigged and unfair elections are not heard about outside of the country. With little or no Internet access it will leave journalists and bloggers with no opportunity to share images, articles or video over the Internet – yet another reason for Burma’s inclusion in the CPJ’s list of Worst Countries to Be A Blogger.

US-based IT security firm Arbor Networks says the DDOS attack  was “several hundred times” more than enough to overwhelm the country’s terrestrial and satellite links. While there was no direct proof of the authorities involvement in the attack, Arbor Networks says that analysis of similar events were often proved to be politically motivated.

What’s more, this isn’t a first.

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During protests in 2007, the web was used by Burma’s citizens to share information with the outside world, immediately leading to the authorities blocking off Internet access.