The third option you've missed is "this is all bullshit." Either because it's not happening at all, or because the embassy's internet is down due to some routine outage.
Perhaps a temporary data hiccup might be a more realistic solution (or simulation, if malicious) versus "Call cannot be connected".
I don't think Assange runs the wikileaks twitter account. So probably he messages them every day and when they don't get a message they know something is wrong.
Not necessarily. Russia could think that it's best interest is that Wikileaks' dead man switch goes off. They could be pressuring Ecuador or actually have cut the connection themselves.
> Also, this is central London - the internet floats freely through the air. Contingency measure is tethering?
Cellphone signals can be easily jammed, as shown at DEFCON and other events. No one has reported on whether or not they can get signal at the Ecuadorian embassy AFAIK.
EDIT: Some people streamed Periscope from the embassy, so no cellphone jamming. If Ecuador is involved, of course, they could just take away all of Assange's devices.
As for signal jamming. Not an area I know a lot about, but I assume it is achieved by flooding an area with noise. Pretty detectable is what I'm saying - anyone nipped down to see if that's actually happening? Would be quite a scoop.
In any case, this is all speculation until we get some kind of evidence of some kind.
"State actor" can only really mean UK or Ecuadorian government - or at the very least one of those two must be pulling the trigger.
If it's Ecuador that makes some sense, they control the connections to the outside world - they could just change some passwords and internet is cut. But that would be very obviously what had happened so why not just name them.
Alternatively the UK could cut the connection from outside the embassy. I don't see how that could be done without cutting off the internet for the whole embassy. That would possibly be in breach of the Vienna Convention [0] but at the very least I can't imagine it happening without creating a gigantic diplomatic stink.
Neither of those options sound that plausible. Is there a third I've missed? Somehow know it's Assange browsing and kill all his packets in flight?
Also, this is central London - the internet floats freely through the air. Contingency measure is tethering?
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_Convention_on_Diplomati...