Pakistan-wide censorship results in 2-hour YouTube Global Shutdown

Yesterday in a funny yet serious incident youtube was knocked off-line for over two hours and in a comedy of events the blame goes squarely on our beloved Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and their attempt to censor the offending video of the Dutch (Right-Wing) Politician Geert Wilders. Yesterday we had reported that the offending video has been removed from YouTube but somehow PTCL contributed to a hijack of the IP of YouTube, and published it – via PCCW – leading to whole YouTube collapse

On Pakistan end, YouTube is still blocked.

David Ulevitch of OpenDNS believes that “Pakistan Telecom has decided to (accidentally probably) hijack their IP address space”. By blocking YouTube IP addresses internally led to ISPs blocking the site globally.

The BBC Web site’s technology editor, Darren Waters, says that it’s likely that–to prevent Pakistan’s residents from accessing the site–Pakistan Telecom hijacked YouTube’s IP and passed that information on to the country’s Internet service providers so that queries to YouTube would be redirected. However, the details were apparently leaked by Asian ISP PCCW, leading Internet service providers around the world to mistakenly block YouTube, the BCC reported.

Engineers at YouTube were able to lift the blockade after contacting PCCW, according to the report. “This was probably a simple mistake by an engineer at Pakistan Telecom,” an unidentified “leading net professional” told the BCC. “There’s nothing to suggest this was malicious.”


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Comments

8 responses to “Pakistan-wide censorship results in 2-hour YouTube Global Shutdown”

  1. MK Avatar

    Thank you for helping the spread of the curiosity for the video worldwide. Look at the incoherent story that has been brewed up. The editor is just making guesses. And thanks to him and many others the story is a woldwide issue and now there will be a pitched debate about how bad Pakistan is and how bad Islam is. Thank you for helping it catch a fire.

  2. JinnahFan Avatar
    JinnahFan

    This is INSANE! The story was so obvious and popular in the Pakistani blogosphere–the FACT that the Musharraf government had blocked YouTube after so many bloggers posted links of obvious rigging activities.

    I just sent an email to BBC, and I recommend everyone else to do so as well.

    The comments made by the reporter and the other people are very, very bad….I can’t believe they’re so naive….if it fits the stereotype, hey, why the hell not?

  3. Malik Aman Avatar
    Malik Aman

    i think pakistan should have totally defaced(a term used in hacking for taking the website off the net) you tube. but who ever told this story is a total idiot i am electronic engineer and i know that u can not do that .

    come on jus imagine if we have that kind of technology than who easy is it is for us to deface Inidian defence sites.hehehhehehe

    Even expert Pakistani hackers like NDSA can not do that

  4. Raza Avatar

    *Geert Wilders is the name.

    The guy seems to have a personal agenda against the Muslims. Nutbag!

  5. Teeth Maestro Avatar

    @Raza – Hat tip
    thank you for pointing the error out

  6. Zovc Avatar

    LOL …. good going Pakistan!

  7. ilona Avatar
    ilona

    The guy is very smart, you and your islam are the ones with the problem. don’t knock it till you’ve seen it.
    Ilona from Holland

  8. fh Avatar
    fh

    Jonathan Zittrain talks about this occurence.

    http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_zittrain_the_we