No. 002 · Hall of Lost Packets

YouTube, Briefly Owned by Pakistan Telecom

· about 2 hours

  1. 1Pakistan Telecom is ordered to block YouTube domestically
  2. 2It announces a more specific route for YouTube's address block to do so
  3. 3Its upstream provider passes the announcement on to the rest of the internet
  4. 4Routers everywhere prefer the more specific route
  5. 5Most of the world's YouTube traffic heads into Pakistan and disappears ✕

BGP believes what it is told. Filter what your customers announce.

Source: RIPE NCC case study, 2008

YouTube BGP hijack, February 2008. Duration: about 2 hours. 5 hops from the first change to the failure.