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A Syrian man looks at his mobile phone in a neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria. (Image: Associated Press)

Random disconnections, mass censorship, and widespread online surveillance that could see activists' doors kicked down at any time by forces loyal to the country's oppressive leader.

It's just another day in the life of the Syrian Internet.

Little is known (and even less has been reported in mainstream media) about the state of Internet access in the troubled, war-torn state, or how technology is used to fight the despotic President Bashar al Assad.

Declared a civil war by the United Nations almost exactly two years ago in December 2011, the vast majority of those living, working, and fighting on the ground call it something else a "revolution" much in the way that those in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt declared during their own uprisings in the so-called Arab Spring.

The fighting in Syria has not subsided. It has intensified, and has no end in sight. And make no mistake; the opposition forces are not winning the war. They are however far ahead in the war of words on the Western front by way of old-fashioned propaganda, thanks to a technological embrace.

But it's not fooling everyone.

Though the U.N. has previously said there is mounting evidence to show Assad and senior officials have beeninvolved in war crimes, the global body has alsovoiced concerns over the opposition's actions during the course of the conflict.

This once developed and burgeoning economy has in the last two years been ravished by fighting, where almost every city block can be a micro-battlefield. But culturally and societally it is not so far removed from the Western world. The Syrian people have kept perhaps surprisingly as up to date with modern technological advances as they can be, in spite of foreign embargoes and severed trade routes.

In speaking to ordinary civilians, media activists, opposition members, and the occasional ground fighter over the course of the last four months, it became clear the war was fought not just with weapons and words, but also over the Web.

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Censorship, surveillance, and Android phones: Syria's tech revolution, from the cutting room floor