Pakistan causes worldwide YouTube outage

Pakistan causes worldwide YouTube outage

news.yahoo.com

NEW YORK - Most of the world's Internet users lost access to YouTube for several hours Sunday after an attempt by Pakistan's government to block access domestically affected other countries.

...An Internet expert likened the cause of the outage to "identity theft" by a Pakistani telecommunications company, which accidentally started advertising itself as the fastest route to YouTube. But instead of serving up videos of skateboarding dogs, it sent the traffic into oblivion.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Misrouting occurs every year or so among the world's Internet carriers, usually as a result of typos or other errors, Underwood said. In a more severe example, a Turkish telecom provider in 2004 started advertising that it was the best route to all of the Internet, causing widespread outages for many Web sites over several hours.

Well duh, then maybe no one should be allowed to advertise that they are the fastest route to anything?

Somehow I just don't like the idea that my traffic gets routed through Pakistan at all. But oh yeah, I forgot that Al Quada is a CIA operation, and they hang out in Pakistan. Starting to make sense.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Fascinating find TA! Starred and flagged. And here I thought it was just me... or the particular videos I was attempting to access yesterday. Strangely enough, I had the same difficulties with Google Video at the time. Anyone else have issues with GVid during this time?

I share the same sentiments about our traffic routing. I don't really like the idea of my packets going somewhere like Pakistan because someone "asked" for them by "advertising" themselves as the fastest route...

reply to post by Unit541


Lol, you know what? I just realized something... Read the OP again.

Pakistani telecommunications company, which accidentally started advertising itself as the fastest route to YouTube.

WTF? How do you ACCIDENTALLY start advertising? ROFL!

What in the heck is going on with this. I agree...FLAG

[edit on 25-2-2008 by TrueAmerican]

reply to post by TrueAmerican


lol, the same way we "accidentally" elected, and re-elected Bush I assume. With the flagrant affiliation with Google, and Google's alleged nefarious relationships with various government institutions, and the current situation in Pakistan, I'm sure it won't be long before ATS produces a number of theories on the issue.

why does this not surprise me. If it happens in pakastan, it can happen anywhere. Again big government and big corporations should have no say in the operation of the internet, should be rules by a fair unbiosed group of indivuals.

Ah I also thought it was my crappy internet connection that was doing it. Good find! Cyber Terrorism eh? What does Al Quada have against YouTube anyway?

You would think they would go after the Adult Entertainment Online Industry instead.

reply to post by Unit541


Yup!

I am particularly bothered by Microsoft's takeover of Yahoo, and will definitely change my email address, as I currently use Yahoo. But I digress. Trying to stay focused on the above.

What I also wonder is how in the world could Pakistan even claim they have the fastest route to youtube? Is this even possible, considering the technology available elsewhere?

They want to block Youtube because of a Dutch lawmaker called Geert Wilders (nicknamed: Mozart). Wilders is a radical who is about to release a short movie on the Quran.

The right-wing politician participated in the last elections for the first time with his newly founded Party for Freedom, and achieved a stunning victory of nine seats (out of 150).

Traditional parties were shocked by the outcome and learned there is a growing feeling of discontent towards Muslims, among native Dutch people. Among the reasons are the assassination of movie maker Theo van Gogh by a radical Muslim and the fact that third generations of immigrants from primarily Maroccan decent are responsible for many violent incidents, hate crimes and so on.

He placed the Danish cartoons on his party's site, resulting in over fourty death threats and for years, he's closely guarded by several body guards.

Dutch intelligence told Wilders he should be extremely careful as his provocating movie will most likely anger many Muslims.

We all know what happened after one Danish Imam went to visit Arabic countries to spread the news concerning the Mohammed cartoons. Violent riots and destruction of Danish embassies.

To avoid this I assume the Dutch intelligence agency has contacted Arab countries to take measures, blocking Youtube is one of them, as Wilders will release his movie on that site as well.

Apart from Pakistan I know that Egypt is taking similar measures.

What he thinks of the Quran and how people will react to his movies he tells a Fox reporter:

Worthwhile watching if you want to get an image of his ideology.

Part I

Part II




[edit on 26-2-2008 by Mdv2]

When you show a child a lollipop have you noticed how their eyes spark like they have seen diamonds and rubies? But to take something which will be around them as 'punishment' for being naughty or because it will decay their teeth, and not give it to them. Have u noticed the lengths they go through to get hold of that lollipop or make use of other similar candy?

What the pakistani government did was to eliminate something which can be cloned...stupid really

Originally posted by Mdv2

To avoid this I assume the Dutch intelligence agency has contacted Arab countries to take measures, blocking Youtube is one of them, as Wilders will release his movie on that site as well.

Apart from Pakistan I know that Egypt is taking similar measures.

Based on past history of the Islamic countries along with many Muslims that views any protrayal of Islam is considered a threat and must be censored or outright killed. Same thing happened in Pakistan. Don't need Dutch intelligence to tell you.

Originally posted by deltaboy
Based on past history of the Islamic countries along with many Muslims that views any protrayal of Islam is considered a threat and must be censored or outright killed. Same thing happened in Pakistan. Don't need Dutch intelligence to tell you.

Yeah but I think the Dutch intelligence stressed for additional security measures in order to protect its embassies.

Maybe its just me, but I would think that youtube would be the quickest way to get to youtube....

And there I was cursing Sky Broadband for a crappy service, when I should have been cursing Pakistan!

Ok, I'll know that nextime I can't access my favouritest websites serving up my daily dose of smut and violence its probably becuase of some nutters in the Islamic world... no shock there then.

Joking aside, it is extremely worrying that they can even cause that!

Sounds like a bad dns routing . I have a program that will switch my dns when needed. If it cant make it to a page one route . It will try another

UPDATE: Pakistan lifts YouTube ban, says world outage accidental

Pakistan said Tuesday that it has lifted a ban on YouTube after the website removed cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, adding that an earlier worldwide outage sparked by its actions was unintentional.

Telecommunications officials told AFP that the popular website was up and running again in the conservative Muslim nation after YouTube removed "highly profane and sacrilegious footage" that was offensive to Islam.

"We have issued instructions to all Internet service providers that YouTube should be unblocked as the specific content has been removed by the website," Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) spokesman Khurram Mehran told AFP.

YouTube was not immediately available to confirm whether it had removed the material, which the PTA said was controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed that were republished by Danish newspapers earlier this month.

Authorities ordered the blocking of the website at the weekend in protest at what it said was blasphemous material but the move prompted worldwide problems with access for a few hours.

YouTube said Monday that an Internet service provider complying with Pakistan's ban on the website routed many worldwide users to nowhere for a couple of hours over the weekend.

"This was not intentional and might have happened when an international company, which is routing Internet traffic to Pakistan, tried to block the specific (web address)," a senior PTA official told AFP.

The ban was only partially effective, with industry officials saying that some Pakistani users were able to access YouTube through at least one major service provider that relies on a foreign-based router.

YouTube earlier said it was working to ensure there could be no repeat of the worldwide problems sparked by Pakistan's actions.

"For about two hours (Sunday), traffic to YouTube was routed according to erroneous Internet Protocols, and many users around the world could not access our site," YouTube said in a written reply to an AFP inquiry.

"We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan. We are investigating and working with others in the Internet community to prevent this from happening again."

Something still doesn't smell right here.

i was looking for bas rutten highlights

the google videos links worked but youtube ones didn't

Originally posted by TrueAmerican
UPDATE: Pakistan lifts YouTube ban, says world outage accidental

"We have issued instructions to all Internet service providers that YouTube should be unblocked as the specific content has been removed by the website," Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) spokesman Khurram Mehran told AFP.

Emphasis in the quote is mine. Pakistan blocked YouTube for the entire world until YouTube capitulated to their demands. It wasn't that they realized they blew it and corrected what they did. No, according to the PTA spokesman, they did it after YouTube bent under their demands.

Anyone else find that typical disturbing?

Originally posted by junglejake
Emphasis in the quote is mine. Pakistan blocked YouTube for the entire world until YouTube capitulated to their demands. It wasn't that they realized they blew it and corrected what they did. No, according to the PTA spokesman, they did it after YouTube bent under their demands.

Anyone else find that typical disturbing?

Uhh, yeah. Me. Thanks for that point JJ. Youtube is owned by google, correct?

So why in the heck would google even allow at anytime the ability for Pakistan to shut down the site WORLDWIDE? I mean WTF. There may be a lot more going on in Pakistan than anyone realizes. Probably another rogue element of our wonderful CIA at work again? This is just friggin weird, and makes no sense at all to me, even with all the posts above.

maybe their dns program had a glitch an they needed time to reroute all the video feeds again so no one would know where the terrorist videos are comming from...

or they are simply trying to stop a certain string of videos of a event they dont want anyone to know about.....

either or, when u block worldwide connections to a site, someone tunalike is going on....