Thursday, October 06, 2005

A Small Portion Of The Internet Hates Me

For the past couple of days, I have not been able to access a few sites I like to visit. None of these sites are "major" sites, but they're sites I usually visit either everyday or a couple times a week and it bugs me that I can't even get to them at all. Here are some of the sites I can't access at all:

Photobucket: I don't really visit this site all the time, but I do encounter sites with images I want to see that have them stored on Photobucket accounts. Right now, I access the site or see any pictures from anyone's accounts.

4chan: Ah, that crazy image board. I can't get to it at all. Where will I get my fix for random anime, manga, and video game pics now?

Anime Paper: I wonder if there's a pattern here. Three image-heavy sites that I can't so much as see a front page of. Anime Paper is sort of like a higher-class MiniTokyo. However, I can still access MiniTokyo.

These are the only ones that are affected as far as I know. There is one anime image site, Be Your True Mind, whose HTML is broken enough that only chinese text shows up if you view it in Firefox (my preferred browser).

So, what's the deal? I've confirmed with my friend Cliff (who lives in California and has a different ISP from me) that he can't, at the very least, access Photobucket. He's also told me that he's had trouble accessing several sites. Sites go down for periods of time all the time, so is this just a coincidence? I don't have any spyware, adware, or viruses that I know of (I did scans recently to make sure). Are ISP's blocking these sites for some mysterious, unknown reason? I've heard of some IP addresses being on an ISP's "black list" which makes them inaccessible to their users. Is this the case for these three little sites (and who knows how many other ones?). Anyone out there know?

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous6:37 PM

    Check out; http://news.com.com/Network+feud+leads+to+Net+blackout/2100-1038_3-5889592.html

    This looks like it's hitting people all over


    Network feud leads to Net blackout

    By John Borland
    http://news.com.com/Network+feud+leads+to+Net+blackout/2100-1038_3-5889592.html

    Story last modified Wed Oct 05 17:00:00 PDT 2005

    Two major Internet backbone companies are feuding, potentially cutting off significant swaths of the Internet for some of each other's customers.
    On Wednesday, network company Level 3 Communications cut off its direct "peering" connections to another big network company called Cogent Communications. That technical action means that some customers on each company's network now will find it impossible, or slower, to get to Web sites on the other company's network.

    William Steele, a senior network engineer for Syncro Services, said his company noticed the problem Wednesday morning.

    "There are some people I can't send an e-mail to," Steele said. "At home, I have Road Runner as an ISP, and wasn't even able to remotely connect in order to manage our servers."

    Level 3 contends that its arrangement with Cogent is no longer financially viable, since it is larger than the other company. It has asked Cogent to seek other arrangements, possibly including paying for the traffic exchange, a Level 3 representative said.

    Cogent CEO Dave Schaeffer contested that claim, saying that its network is at least as big as Level 3's, and that it makes no sense to pay for the connection. Cogent is offering any Level 3 user who can't get to Cogent sites free Internet service for a year, in an attempt to attract its rival's customers.

    Previous Next "Our goal is to have this problem go away, whether through Level 3 reconsidering or their customers coming to us," Schaeffer said.

    The Level 3 representative said the company was unlikely to reconsider its position, however.

    The problem is likely to affect only a small number of each company's customers. Many network company customers have several connections to the Internet and can use an alternate connection to reach a site that might otherwise be blocked.

    A similar Net blackout happened in 2001, when Cable & Wireless and PSINet were embroiled in a billing dispute.

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