Pakistan Removed from the Internet

[Lenny]

A direct lift from my post on a different forum.

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Quite amusing, really. An ISP took government legislation literally, blocked access to YouTube by routing all of YouTube's IP requests to other sites it thought was more appropriate... and that means ALL IP addresses, worldwide. They collapsed under the sheer amount of traffic, bringing Pakistani internet access to a complete halt. The Pakistani government, whose legislation it was (apparently YouTube contains blasphemous content... oooh... scary), effectively DDoS'd Pakistan. "Owned", you might say.

I'll quote the whole article, as it's quite short:

The telecom company that carries most of Pakistan’s traffic, PCCW, has found it necessary to shut Pakistan off from the Internet while they filter out the malicious routes that a Pakistani ISP, PieNet, announced earlier today. Evidently PieNet took this step to enforce a decree from the Pakistani government that ISP’s must block access to YouTube because it was a source of blasphemous content.

I cannot let the irony pass with out commenting. A religious state, Pakistan, identifies a content provider, YouTube, as the source of blasphemous, seditious content and orders, King Canute style, that the Internet tides be stopped. A zealous ISP ignorantly decides the best way to comply with the decree is to re-route all of YouTube’s IP addresses to whatever site they thought was more appropriate. The first repercussion was that YouTube disappeared from the Internet for almost an hour. I suspect the second repercussion was that Pakistan’s Internet access crawled to a halt as all of a sudden they were handling IP requests for one of the busiest sites in the world. As of this writing YouTube has announced more granular routes so that at least in the US they supercede the routes announced by PieNet. The rest of the world is still struggling. So, while working on a fix that will filter out the spurious route announcements, PCCW has found it necessary to shut down Pakistan’s Internet access. The leadership of Pakistan just created a massive Denial of Service on their own country.

I could say: “be careful what you wish for” to those elements that object to free and open access to information and expression of ideas. But to put it in terms they might understand better: Do not anger the Internet gods or you will suffer their wrath!

Update: This blog points out that the “blasphemous content” claim may be a red herring. There may be more political motivations behind it.

Pakistan removed from the Internet | Threat Chaos | ZDNet.com

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Just thought I'd add a couple more things that I've heard:

- The DDoS was done by one person -- apparently a very young engineer (late teens/early twenties)
- It succeeded in stopping YouTube access for the whole world because the YouTube server bank is in one place -- if that goes down, the whole operation goes down, whereas with something like Google where the server banks are spread out and separate, if one goes down there are backups.
- The fella has been offered a job by either Microsoft or Google (different people have told me different things. I'd put my money on it being Google).
- Said fella is said to be considering the offer because he is now facing extremist threats (from the free speech lobbyists and whatnot).

Amazing thing to have done.

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EDIT: Just to explain DDoS for the non-techies.

A Distributed Denial of Service attack is usually carried out by a kid in a garage on a tiny site that very few people will visit... say www.my-cat-fluffy.com. The name says it all - the attack aims to deny a service. In the case of websites, a DDoS usually shuts off access to the site, which is what happened to YouTube.

To do it to a small-scale site is an achievement, to do it worldwide to something like YouTube is, excuse my French, -ing amazing!! And for all the damage it caused (millions upon millions of dollars, and it's forced YouTube to take precautions, which would have cost even more money), you've got to admire the guy. One hell of an IT Engineer!

 

[nomad45]

I really think the world would be better off without folks who seek to change everyone else to suit thier world view.
I mean really, these extremeists on all sides are I believe psychotic.

If youtube was a source of "blasphemous content" well then don't watch it. Problem soved. What wack jobs.

 

[Rane Longfox]

Sorry for my lack of internet know-how, but how can one ISP provider stop a site from being available through other providers?

 

[Lenny]

Rather than stopping the site from being available through other providers, the ISP in question had an engineer write some code that re-routed all of YouTube's traffic through their own servers, which eventually crashed, causing widespread YouTube black outs.

It's like me posting a letter to you in Student Halls, but rather than it going straight to you and landing on your desk in your room, the letter goes first to the University, who passes it on to you. Now imagine millions of letters all for you, with each one having to go through the University before you can get it. Within a matter of minutes, the base of operations would shut down and you'd have no post.