[Pen-l] Pakistan, YouTube and "honest corporatism"

[ravi <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

So, Pakistan is unhappy with YouTube material which they consider  
blasphemous. They instructed Pakistani ISPs to block access to  
YouTube. While this was afoot, something strange happened in the world  
of Internet routing: a Pakistani network provider started advertising  
routes to YouTube's computers.

=== geeks (and those not interested in geek talk) can skip the below ===

A very quick primer: as you know, the Internet is a network of  
networks that interconnect at various points. Your computer is able to  
another computer on the Internet because (a) each of you has --  
roughly speaking -- a unique IP address that identifies you, and (b)  
"routers", the devices that interconnect the networks, exchange routes  
to inform each other how to reach the computers that are on their  
network. So, even though your computer and mine are on different  
networks, they can talk to each other because the routers on our  
network tells the router on the other one about our existence and how  
to reach us.

A network, in this sense, is a set of IP addresses identified by their  
common "prefix" e.g: 192.168 could be the prefix for computers with IP  
addresses like 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.5.2. I say "could be" because  
this is a two byte (16 bit) prefix. But there could be a more specific  
network with a longer prefix, say 24 bits, 192.168.1 that consists of  
computers with addresses like 192.168.1.4 or 192.168.1.104 (but not  
192.168.5.2).

This prefix or network address is what routers advertise to each  
other, essentially telling other routers the prefixes that exist  
"behind" them (i.e., the networks that connect through them to the  
Internet). If I have a prefix that my router advertises, you can, with  
some ease, "highjack" my prefix by advertising bogus routes to my  
prefix or a more specific prefix/network with the same address as mine.

=== end geek skip  
=======================================================

So, the network operations community noticed the bad route  
advertisements emanating from Pakistan and the problem was ultimately  
corrected (by the Pakistani network operator fixing their router). In  
the meantime, "analysis" of the issue took a predictable turn to  
"Islamic Cyber Jihad" etc. Nothing particularly worthy of reproduction  
in an economists mailing list, but in the midst of the conversation, I  
found this gem, offered as an indignant summary of the set of events:

> This is a great example of global politics getting in the way of  
> honest corporatism.

I thought some of you may find the quote amusing (even considering non- 
pejorative usage),

	--ravi

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