Could it be..?

Around mid-October, I heard this rumour and remember laughing it off as unlikely. I mean who would go through such lengths so as to block video hosting, P2P networks and torrents. At that point it seemed unlikely and, to be entirely frank, extremely risque. Can you imagine internet censorship to THAT degree?

Last week, there was a story spreading round (I mentioned even) that a ship had dropped anchor on a deep sea cable, severing lines and subsequently disrupting internet activity in the UAE. Now we all read and acknowledged said event, and understood why a lot of our internet based softwares and websites were acting up. I mentioned that even blogger was slow. By yesterday, all my internet speeds were back up to par.

With one small difference.

YouTube, the web's premier video hosting website, is no longer accessible. NO, it's not 'blocked' but you can no longer connect to their server. So all you end up seeing is a page that reads, "The connection to the server was reset while attempting to contact it." For a while I figured it was just the internet acting up. 5 days and regular internet later I wonder.. Could it be?

Limewire, one of the world's popular P2P networks, refuses to connect. Neither do any of my torrent files. Weird I thought. Internet was fine, so then why do these things refuse to connect. Allowing Etisalat the benefit of the doubt I rang them up to ask them if the internet issues were solved. A nice Pinoy lady responded in the affirmative. Internet was (supposedly) back to normal.

Total brain racking time! What is going on? YouTube, Limewire and torrents STILL not working. Somewhere inside me the conspiracy theorist woke up. I fired up a VPN to check something out.

Guess what I found....

YouTube, Limewire and torrents working JUST fine when the VPN was fired up, but not even connecting when I'm running my regular lines.

From this I will leave you to draw your own conclusions. If anyone has the same problems, or, is not having the same problems, do let me know.

Cheers!

M


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