Pakistan's Censors Target YouTube, Trigger Brief World-Wide Outage
Service on Google Inc.'s YouTube site was disrupted around the world for several hours Sunday after a botched effort by the Pakistan government to block access to a video clip critical of Islam.
The incident, which is still being investigated by YouTube, underscores the vulnerability of the global communications infrastructure. The unusual circumstances surrounding the breakdown also point to the growing role sites like YouTube have played in spreading politically charged content -- including in Pakistan, a nation that is already a tinderbox of political tensions.
The story began unfolding Friday when the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, the nation's telecom regulator, ordered Pakistan's Internet service providers to immediately block access to a specific YouTube video which it said was so incendiary it could trigger riots. A senior official at the authority said it also contacted YouTube, requesting that the site remove the video. The PTA argued the clip was a violation of YouTube's terms of service, which ban hate speech. YouTube has since removed the clip. The site says it does not comment on reasons for removing specific videos.
According to the senior official at PTA, the clip in question featured several minutes of a film made by a Dutch politician Geert Wilders, whose outspoken comments against Islam have made him a target of protests in the Muslim world and elsewhere. According to Mr. Wilders's own Web site, his film portrays the Koran as a fascist book that incites people to murder. Mr. Wilders has previously compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf.'
Even though less than 5% of Pakistan's citizens are connected to the Internet, the government feared the film could spark riots similar to the deadly violence that broke out in the Muslim world after a Danish newspaper published a cartoon about the prophet Mohammed in 2006, according to a senior official at PTA. Violent protests have erupted repeatedly in Pakistan in recent months following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There have been new protests about the cartoons in recent weeks after Danish authorities arrested several people who were allegedly plotting a 'terror-related assassination' of the cartoonist behind the drawings.
The government's efforts to block the clip in Pakistan wound up affecting YouTube users around the world. YouTube spokesman Ricardo Reyes confirmed in an email that YouTube traffic was disrupted world-wide for about two hours Sunday. 'We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan,' said Mr. Reyes. 'We are investigating and working with others in the internet community to prevent this from happening again.'
The problem began when Pakistan Telecommunication Corp. Ltd., or PTCL, began implementing the government orders to block the Dutch video on YouTube, according to one explanation offered by a person familiar with PTCL's network operations.
PTCL is Pakistan's largest telecommunications company, and controls the vast majority of the nation's network infrastructure. According to several people familiar with the matter, the company only meant to block YouTube within Pakistan. But erroneous handling of PTCL's routers inadvertently brought YouTube down, according to an explanation offered by two people with knowledge of the situation in Pakistan.
PTCL was simply trying to block traffic from YouTube to Pakistan, a process commonly known as 'black holing,' according to these people. The instructions sent out across PTCL's network were meant to apply only to traffic within Pakistan. But somehow that message started getting replicated on the Internet world-wide, and other Internet service providers started experiencing trouble accessing the site.
'The traffic that was supposed to be going to our address was being rerouted to Pakistan, and subsequently dropping,' said Mr. Reyes of YouTube.
The message was communicated around the world via PCCW Ltd., a Hong Kong telecommunications company which inadvertently transmitted the message internationally over its network. PTCL is connected to the global Internet through PCCW's networks, among others. Technical experts say this type of problem is extremely rare -- and is essentially beyond YouTube's control. PCCW didn't immediately respond to inquiries.
Shahzad Ahmed, a civil rights activist who monitors Internet issues for the group Rights for All in Pakistan, suggested that the Musharraf government had another motive to block YouTube besides the Geert Wilders film.
He said YouTube has been flooded with anti-Musharraf videos in recent weeks, including videos accusing the government of rigging the nation's election, crowds protesting against Musharraf, and audio clips of a popular cellphone ringtone in Pakistan featuring the chant 'Go Go Musharraf.'
'People are putting a lot of material against Musharraf and the government on YouTube, and the government has been trying to find a reason to block this Web site,' said Mr. Ahmed. 'If this was really about the film and Islam, they would have blocked Wikipedia and tons of other sites containing hate material against Islam.' Wikipedia's site, which isn't blocked in Pakistan, reprints the Danish cartoons that triggered the riots.
Pakistan intensified its Internet censorship efforts two years ago, following the cartoon flare-up. The Supreme Court instituted a ban on all content deemed 'blasphemous.' But PTA has also regularly filtered content determined to be antistate or antimilitary, according to the OpenNet Initiative, a global organization that promotes freedom of information on the Internet.
YouTube reserves the right to remove content from the site that it deems inappropriate, according to the terms of service posted on the company's site. YouTube's community guidelines state: 'We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view....But we don't permit hate speech.'
Many of Pakistan's Internet users received notices about the ban on YouTube from their Internet service providers. 'Dear valued Customer,' reads one from Micronet Broadband PVt. Ltd. 'The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has directed all ISPs of the country to block access to www.youtube.com for containing blasphemous web content/movies.' The letter urged Internet users to write youtube.com to urge them to remove the objectionable videos.
巴基斯坦出手封杀，YouTube全球瘫痪
http://www.handandaily.com
The incident, which is still being investigated by YouTube, underscores the vulnerability of the global communications infrastructure. The unusual circumstances surrounding the breakdown also point to the growing role sites like YouTube have played in spreading politically charged content -- including in Pakistan, a nation that is already a tinderbox of political tensions.
The story began unfolding Friday when the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, the nation's telecom regulator, ordered Pakistan's Internet service providers to immediately block access to a specific YouTube video which it said was so incendiary it could trigger riots. A senior official at the authority said it also contacted YouTube, requesting that the site remove the video. The PTA argued the clip was a violation of YouTube's terms of service, which ban hate speech. YouTube has since removed the clip. The site says it does not comment on reasons for removing specific videos.
According to the senior official at PTA, the clip in question featured several minutes of a film made by a Dutch politician Geert Wilders, whose outspoken comments against Islam have made him a target of protests in the Muslim world and elsewhere. According to Mr. Wilders's own Web site, his film portrays the Koran as a fascist book that incites people to murder. Mr. Wilders has previously compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler's 'Mein Kampf.'
Even though less than 5% of Pakistan's citizens are connected to the Internet, the government feared the film could spark riots similar to the deadly violence that broke out in the Muslim world after a Danish newspaper published a cartoon about the prophet Mohammed in 2006, according to a senior official at PTA. Violent protests have erupted repeatedly in Pakistan in recent months following the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. There have been new protests about the cartoons in recent weeks after Danish authorities arrested several people who were allegedly plotting a 'terror-related assassination' of the cartoonist behind the drawings.
The government's efforts to block the clip in Pakistan wound up affecting YouTube users around the world. YouTube spokesman Ricardo Reyes confirmed in an email that YouTube traffic was disrupted world-wide for about two hours Sunday. 'We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan,' said Mr. Reyes. 'We are investigating and working with others in the internet community to prevent this from happening again.'
The problem began when Pakistan Telecommunication Corp. Ltd., or PTCL, began implementing the government orders to block the Dutch video on YouTube, according to one explanation offered by a person familiar with PTCL's network operations.
PTCL is Pakistan's largest telecommunications company, and controls the vast majority of the nation's network infrastructure. According to several people familiar with the matter, the company only meant to block YouTube within Pakistan. But erroneous handling of PTCL's routers inadvertently brought YouTube down, according to an explanation offered by two people with knowledge of the situation in Pakistan.
PTCL was simply trying to block traffic from YouTube to Pakistan, a process commonly known as 'black holing,' according to these people. The instructions sent out across PTCL's network were meant to apply only to traffic within Pakistan. But somehow that message started getting replicated on the Internet world-wide, and other Internet service providers started experiencing trouble accessing the site.
'The traffic that was supposed to be going to our address was being rerouted to Pakistan, and subsequently dropping,' said Mr. Reyes of YouTube.
The message was communicated around the world via PCCW Ltd., a Hong Kong telecommunications company which inadvertently transmitted the message internationally over its network. PTCL is connected to the global Internet through PCCW's networks, among others. Technical experts say this type of problem is extremely rare -- and is essentially beyond YouTube's control. PCCW didn't immediately respond to inquiries.
Shahzad Ahmed, a civil rights activist who monitors Internet issues for the group Rights for All in Pakistan, suggested that the Musharraf government had another motive to block YouTube besides the Geert Wilders film.
He said YouTube has been flooded with anti-Musharraf videos in recent weeks, including videos accusing the government of rigging the nation's election, crowds protesting against Musharraf, and audio clips of a popular cellphone ringtone in Pakistan featuring the chant 'Go Go Musharraf.'
'People are putting a lot of material against Musharraf and the government on YouTube, and the government has been trying to find a reason to block this Web site,' said Mr. Ahmed. 'If this was really about the film and Islam, they would have blocked Wikipedia and tons of other sites containing hate material against Islam.' Wikipedia's site, which isn't blocked in Pakistan, reprints the Danish cartoons that triggered the riots.
Pakistan intensified its Internet censorship efforts two years ago, following the cartoon flare-up. The Supreme Court instituted a ban on all content deemed 'blasphemous.' But PTA has also regularly filtered content determined to be antistate or antimilitary, according to the OpenNet Initiative, a global organization that promotes freedom of information on the Internet.
YouTube reserves the right to remove content from the site that it deems inappropriate, according to the terms of service posted on the company's site. YouTube's community guidelines state: 'We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view....But we don't permit hate speech.'
Many of Pakistan's Internet users received notices about the ban on YouTube from their Internet service providers. 'Dear valued Customer,' reads one from Micronet Broadband PVt. Ltd. 'The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has directed all ISPs of the country to block access to www.youtube.com for containing blasphemous web content/movies.' The letter urged Internet users to write youtube.com to urge them to remove the objectionable videos.
巴基斯坦出手封杀，YouTube全球瘫痪
http://www.handandaily.com