February 24th, 2008
Pakistan declares war on YouTube
What could at first have been just one of those days on the Internet where some newbie engineer accidentally announces a spurious route and takes out a segment of the network has turned into an international fiasco. But no, Pakastan has ordered all ISP’s to block YouTube. From Yahoo news:
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan has ordered all Internet service providers to block the YouTube website for containing “blasphemous” content and material considered offensive to Islam, officials said Sunday.
YouTube because it contained “blasphemous content, videos and documents,” a government official told AFP.
“The site will remain blocked till further orders,” he said.
So an ISP in Pakistan decided to announce a route that would re-direct anyone trying to get to YouTube to some other site that probably hosted a warning about the blasphemous content. Results were predictable. YouTube itself disapeared from the Internet, And, I suspect that most of Pakistan is experiencing performance issues as they are receiving ALL of the YouTube requests from around the world. By 2:30 the Internet watch guards had alerted the backbone provider for Pakistan to filter out those malicious route announcements and alerted YouTube to announce more granular routes that would supercede the Pakistani routes, at least in the US.
As of this writing, 3:30 Eastern most of the rest of world can still not get to YouTube.
Richard Stiennon is an industry consultant. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
