Web surfers hit by YouTube blackoutWeb surfers hit by YouTube blackout Web surfers in the UK were among those hit by a YouTube blackout blamed on Pakistan's attempt to block access to the site.
The government in Islamabad told internet service providers (ISPs) on Friday that the clip-sharing website was off limits to nationals due to content deemed to be offensive to Islam.
But experts believed that attempts by at least one provider to comply with the ban resulted in users around the world being blocked on Sunday by mistake.
The Pakistan Telecommunications Authority told 70 ISPs in the country to block access to the popular website until further notice.
The authority has not specified what the offending material was, but an official said it concerned a trailer for an upcoming film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders. He has said he plans to release an anti-Koran movie, portraying the religion as fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals.
It is thought that a two-hour global YouTube "outage" was connected to attempts by Pakistan Telecom and ISP PCCW to comply with the demand. To block access to the site, the Government would have told ISPs to stop users accessing YouTube's web server address. To do this they may have "hijacked" the IP address and redirected users to another address.
Christopher Barnatt, internet expert at Nottingham University Business School, described the technique as "an established mechanism". But it appears that the block on access leaked out from Pakistan.
Mr Barnatt explained: "What probably happened was it got placed on a global banned list."
As a result, other providers mistakenly banned users from YouTube either by thinking that the site was being legitimately banned or by directing users to the hijacked address, computer experts have suggested. The block on international servers ended when engineers at YouTube contacted PCCW, it has been reported.
A YouTube spokesman, said: "For about two hours, traffic to YouTube was routed according to erroneous Internet Protocols, and many users around the world could not access our site. We have determined that the source of these events was a network in Pakistan. We are investigating and working with others in the internet community to prevent this from happening again."
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Topic: Muslims block access to YouTube, UK suffers. (Read 1060 times)