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Corante Media
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YouTube's IP addresses are hijacked
YouTube has disappeared from the Internet, apparently the victim of hackers who managed to gain control of its root DNS record[IP routing ... see below for details]. My wife and I were just moments ago watching some videos and suddenly YouTube became unreachable. A whois request for Youtube.com returns this:
Whois Server Version 2.0
Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.
YOUTUBE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM
YOUTUBE.COM.MORE.INFO.AT.WWW.BEYONDWHOIS.COM
YOUTUBE.COM.IS.N0T.AS.1337.AS.WWW.GULLI.COM
YOUTUBE.COM
... and all packets destined for YouTube are disappearing into the network of PCCW Telecom of Hong Kong.
[Update 4:19 PM EST]
YouTube is back on the air now. Others have pointed out that the zzzzz.get.laid and so on citations in the whois registry may not be related to this outage; it's a separate prank. A comment below from OpenDNS points a finger at Pakistan but indicates it may all have been a screwup. Hard to tell. but if you subscribe to the school of thought that says "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity," it does make sense.
[Update 4:58 PM EST]
A post at merit.edu gets into some technical details: It was router poisoning, not DNS (which converts names into numbers that routers can understand). And it is troubling that the infrastructure of the Internet, which is supposed to route around obstructions, turns out to be so fragile.
[Update 5:17 PM EST]
I've changed the headline to reflect that IP addresses, not DNS, were hijacked. It'll be interesting to see if this prompts some reconsideration of how routing data is handled on the Internet. If a rogue participant in the global network can black out a major information resource -- commercial or governmental -- so easily, we have a problem.
Comments
Woah
Yeah. I get the same result. Owned.
YouTube Hacked
Thanks for the update. I've been searching the web for info and your blog post was first I found.
Since your write about journalism (among other things), you might enjoy AngryJournalist.com.
Steve Mahys
Just noted that YouTube is Off the Net
I just saw this, sir. I agree. This is outrageous. I understand that some content on YouTube is offensive. Indeed I find some of it offensive. However, this is a terrorist attack as far as I am concerned. It means no one is safe.
There are other ways to handle a disagreement, but to simply be a the bully because because one doesn't like something or someone is plan wrong.
To me this matter of principle. Freedom at speech is at risk here.
I'd hope the freedom loving people of the world won't put up with and do whatever is necessary to teach these bullies a lesson they won't forget.
The spam in the first three
The spam in the first three isn't unusual. whois includes named nameservers, so for example YOUTUBE.COM.ZZZZZ.GET.LAID.AT.WWW.SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM is actually a registered nameserver for SWINGINGCOMMUNITY.COM. People love tagging microsoft's whois with this!
Hello its not anything like
Hello
its not anything like that why ?
The dns u see are not of youtube but other domains..
even you can create something similar with your domain ... so its not hacked
the server is down updates are available at http://www.roundviews.com/
Youtube doesn't have "a" server
Youtube doesn't have a server; it has a huge, redundant farm of servers and it's part of Google, which doesn't take global outages.
This is one of the more thorough attacks I've seen.
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, so I'm not rushing to attribute this to a political cause. It's coincidental with the Pakistani block, but YouTube has been blocked by many other foreign governments, off and on, over the last couple of years. It's probably just hackers showing off.
never seen...
a world famous site go down for an entire day across the entire globe before though....
I mean, youtube is massive, as is google... hackers are good - but to shut down the entire site like this for this duration?
I'd put money on Pakistan having something to do with it....
This is from OpenDNS
This is from OpenDNS
"Youtube.com is down right now because Pakistan Telecom has decided to (accidentally probably) hijack their IP address space which means that nobody in the world can reach Youtube. This isn’t an OpenDNS issue. Just letting you all know."
Terror attacks.....please stop the drivel.
Please calm down with mildly xenophobic remarks related to terror attacks, the US's supposed "freedom of speech" leaves a lot to be desired when compared to other parts of the world, can you not see how others may take offence to many of the US inhabitants constant hatred of others when your democratic model is so blatantly abused every time you re-elect a new right wing President....and you "sell" it to the rest of the world by force.
Subversive is the only way to describe the US government and many other western countries "democracy"....you are part of the problem i am afraid due to brainwashing.
Sometimes others have to play a little underhand to level the field out when the big boys want to monopolise every damn thing they can make money out of.
No, i do not condone attacks on legit companies, but spare me the TERROR lets go kill type crap.
Youtube...freedom of speech, yeh right....it does not exist anywhere if you talk loud enough.
Peace and rationale please.
Pakistan knocked off the net
ZDNet blogger Richard Stiennon says PCCW, the Hong Kong ISP that handles a lot of Asian connectivity, had to disconnect Pakistan entirely in order to begin untangling the routing mess that originated at PieNet, a Pakistani ISP.
YouTube gets a lot of traffic. By directing all the YouTube traffic to Pakistan, the government (inadvertently?) created a massive denial-of-service attack on the Pakistani Internet infrastructure.
I'd bet a lot of people in Pakistan are PO'ed about this, too.
There's a good timeline at Renesys.com.
Response to 'Terrorist Attacks"
Hello Anthony (can I call you Tony?):
This blog site, as far as I can determine via googling was either the first or one of the first blogs to note the Hijacking of YouTube.
Today's (02/25/2008), Wall Street Journal said better than what I said when I stated that the 'Bullies" needed to be taught a lesson in way they won't forget.
Here it is:
"Richard Stiennon a ZDNet Blogger wrote: 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!"
Perhaps the opponents of free access to information and expression of ideas will experience that wrath. They certainly deserve it as I, for one, don't believe it was an accident.
Here's the whole article for those interested:
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/25/pakistan-blamed-for-worldwid...
Youtube is gone again! It
Youtube is gone again! It disappeared on me just under a half hour ago.
And its off again today!
Is anyone else getting the same error today? - I wonder if its Borris Jonson or Robert Mugabe? Maybe they're acting in cohoots, or maybe its just my computer!?
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