Youtube downtime blamed on Pakistan

[Peter]

Not sure if many people noticed but on Sunday youtube suffered some downtime.

It now seems to have come to light why.

BBC News has learned that the nearly two-hour long blackout was almost certainly connected to Pakistan Telecom and internet service provider PCCW.

The country ordered ISPs to block the video-sharing website because of content deemed offensive to Islam.

The BBC News website's technology editor, Darren Waters, says that to block Pakistan's citizens from accessing YouTube it is believed Pakistan Telecom "hijacked" the web server address of the popular video site.


Rory Cellan-Jones
What we need to know now is whether this was a mistake or a deliberate attempt by Pakistan to disrupt YouTube
Rory Cellan-Jones

Read more on Rory's blog
Those details were then passed on to the country's internet service providers so that anyone in Pakistan attempting to go to YouTube was instead re-directed to a different address.

But the details of the "hijack" were leaked out into the wider internet from PCCW and as a result YouTube was mistakenly blocked by internet service providers around the world.

SOURCE

 

[wild]

LoL :D hahha I don't think so. :hehe:

 

[Peter]

LoL :D hahha I don't think so. :hehe:

Why do you not think so? The BBC is not the only source for the information. Simply do a search and you will find others giving similar information which was reported before the BBC article.

It is entirely possible to taint DNS etc to cause such downtime.

 

[labrocca]

The War on Terror is now become a War Online. Time to firewall the middle east imho.

Each country should start by firewalling out all other countries and work from there. Fraud, theft, scams, hackers, are just some of the reasons to start this. Eventually imho it will happen. Many countries already do block out all other traffic and use a firewall system that's set to whitelist only allowances.

 

[shockie]

yikes. how would they hijack the site to the point where people outside of pakistan can't even access it?

 

[wild]

yikes. how would they hijack the site to the point where people outside of pakistan can't even access it?

That's point to be noted!


:hi:

 

[Peter]

It really depends on how they we nt about doing this. If they simply tainted the DNS which is quite possible. Such a thing would not merely cause loss of visibility within 1 location. The DNS would propagate throughout the internet.

Such attacks have happened in the past.