The Jungle Book

Brasil Telecom for the first time acknowledged the YouTube blocking. Bia Kunze, a local blogger,podcaster, journalist and radio personality managed to reach a representative of BRT, and digged the statement, from a phone call 1 hour ago:

“We are aware of the YouTube non-access (sic). However we don´t have any more information right now. We ask you to wait for a formal statement”

Bia noticed that the press assessor measured “word by word” and the word “problem” never once used. (in a way longer conversation, while her credentials were checked at CBN Radio)

I did a few checks using Bia´s connection.

Not only Brasil Telecom is blocking the outside traffic to YouTube, but they´re also blocking any DNS requests, too. Pings return “could not find host”. Direct pings to YouTube´s IPs return “host unreachable”.

A traceroute ends at their last machine in Brazil:

C:\Documents and Settings\Bia>tracert 208.65.153.241

Rastreando a rota para 208.65.153.241 com no máximo 30 saltos

1 2 ms 2 ms 2 ms 10.1.1.1
2 16 ms 15 ms 14 ms BrT-L10-ctaje700.dsl.brasiltelecom.net.br [201.1. 5.255.254]
3 * * 18 ms BrT-G8-2-700-ctaje300.brasiltelecom.net.br [201.
10.218.21]
4 * * * Esgotado o tempo limite do pedido.
5 * * * Esgotado o tempo limite do pedido.
6 * * * Esgotado o tempo limite do pedido.
7 * * * Esgotado o tempo limite do pedido.

We´re all becoming VERY worried down here, because Brazil has a history of totalitarism, censorship and fragile civil liberties. And no, we don´t have an ACLU here. Not even an EFF.