gHacks technology news » youtube ban http://www.ghacks.net A technology blog covering software, mobile phones, gadgets, security, the Internet and other relevant areas. Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:22:46 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 When Bans go wrong. Pakistan vs. Youtube http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/25/when-bans-go-wrong-pakistan-vs-youtube/ http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/25/when-bans-go-wrong-pakistan-vs-youtube/#comments Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:37:49 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/25/when-bans-go-wrong-pakistan-vs-youtube/ Once again the leaders of a country decided to ban a website because of (pick one: religious beliefs, political beliefs, constitution, local laws, medieval mindsets) which reminds me a lot of the kid that goes crying to their mama if another kid is mean to them. The other kid being Youtube in this case and the crying baby Pakistan, or more precisely the leaders of Pakistan.

An order was given to ban Youtube in Pakistan and instead of banning the IPs of the Youtube servers they decided to do this the clever way. Rerouting all Youtube IPs to appropriate content was the way to go they thought. What they did not realize at this point, or maybe they did, was that this affected ALL of the Internet because of their meddling with BGP routes.

The effect was that all Youtube traffic was redirected and that the Pakistani Internet providers had to handle all IP requests. Youtube was gone for a time and so was the Pakistani Internet not capable of handling all those incoming traffic of one of the busiest websites in the world.

This is obviously a huge flaw that there are no security barriers for something like this to happen, that an ISP in one country can affect the Internet on such a large scale.

Tags: , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2008/02/25/when-bans-go-wrong-pakistan-vs-youtube/feed/ 3 Youtube obeys fake takedown request http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/15/youtube-obeys-fake-takedown-request/ http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/15/youtube-obeys-fake-takedown-request/#comments Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:21:04 +0000 Martin http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/15/youtube-obeys-fake-takedown-request/ Youtube Sunday it seems. We all know that Youtube likes to cooperate with everyone who looks a bit like authority and takes down videos pretty fast. It does not always have to be copyright infringement, it can also be original works of art that some authorities like the Turkish or Thai government want removed from Youtube pressuring the site with a countrywide ban. (man I love the Turkish interpretation of Democracy and free speech)

It is apparently even easier. A 15 year old Australian boy send a fake takedown notice to Youtube pretending to be a representative of the Australian Broadcast Company. He requested the takedown of hundreds of videos from a popular comedy show. Guess what ? Youtube reacted immediately and removed the videos and even send a message to the users who uploaded the videos threatening them with a ban if they would continue to upload copyrighted videos.

One would think that Youtube would try and reach someone from the company who is requesting the takedown before they actually take the videos down. This was apparently not the case which makes me wonder if anyone can send fake takedown requests to Youtube to delete videos ? Thailand, Turkey are you listening ? It is easier than banning Youtube. Just send in a fake takedown request and everything should go your way..

Tags: , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://www.ghacks.net/2007/04/15/youtube-obeys-fake-takedown-request/feed/ 6