Venezuela: WordPress reported inaccessible for three days

Written byMarianne Diaz
Posted 1 October 2010 13:20 GMT

Since Sunday afternoon, September 26th, 2010, while Venezuelan elections for the National Assembly were still being held, several users started reporting that they were unable to access any blog hosted on the free blogging platform WordPress.com from their internet connections within the country.

Blogger Elena Sanchez Vilela said [Spanish]:

Karakenio me confirmó que su blog sí se podía ver en el exterior pero que para él visualizarlo debía usar un proxy. Gabriel luego me dijo que desde su internet en el celular su blog sí se leía. Captain Arepa usó hidemyass para escribirle a WP sobre el asunto (su respuesta aún no la sé).
A esta hora de la noche sigo viendo en twitter que la gente se queja sobre el bloqueo o el filtro que aplicó ABA CANTV a todas las direcciones que incluyan la palabra “wordpress” en el url; @fabianadipolo me explicó que ella tiene blogs con dominio propio que sí se abren. Y está confirmado que es con CANTV porque usando el internet de INTER, la red 3G de Movistar, Movilnet y Digitel estos blogs sí se ven.

Karakenio confirmed to me that his blog could be seen abroad, but for him to see it, he needed to use a proxy. Gabriel said to me later that from his cellphone his blog could be read. Captain Arepa used hidemyass to write to WP about the issue (their answer I still don’t know it).
At this time at night, I still see on twitter people complaining about the blockage or the filter that ABA CANTV applied to all addresses including the word “wordpress” in the url; @fabianadipolo explained to me that she has several wordpress blogs using custom domain names that do open. And it has been confirmed that it’s [only] with CANTV, since the access to wordpress.com from INTER, the 3G net from Movistar, Movilnet and Digitel these blogs is working.

The website Código Venezuela stated [Spanish]:

La falla que se presentó de manera intermitente el día de las elecciones, domingo 26 de septiembre, se mantiene hasta este martes. El sistema Nacional de Gestión de Incidentes Telemáticos (VenCERT) realizó un monitoreo sobre más de mil quinientos (1500) sitios web donde supervisaron contenidos ilegales en diversas páginas desde el pasado viernes 24 hasta el lunes 27, según precisa el Ministerio de Ciencia, Teconología e Industrias Intermedias en su web.
Al respecto, un 48% de las páginas, cuyo nombre no se específica, presentaba “publicación ilegal de contenido electoral”, que según el organismo se solventó con acciones orientadas al “resguardo de la integridad y disponibilidad de la información publicada”, señala VenCERT.
[…]Las páginas hospedadas en WordPress pueden ser accedidas desde España, así como el Reino Unido, inclusive se puede ver desde Venezuela utilizando un sistema de proxy, según apunta, Sergio Almendro, director de zuplemento.com

The failure that presented intermittently the day of elections, Sunday september 26th, maintains until Tuesday. The National System for Gestion of Telematic Incidents (VENCERT, for its Spanish acronym) performed a monitoring over one thousand and half (1500) websites, where they supervised illegal content on several web pages, between Friday 24 and Monday 27, according to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Intermediate Industries on its website.
In this regard, 48% of the pages, which names aren't specified, presented “illegal publication of electoral content” that according to the organism, was solved with actions oriented to the “preservation of the integrity and availability of the information published“, points VenCERT.
[…] The pages hosted on WordPress can be accessed from Spain, and the UK; they can even be seen from Venezuela using a proxy system, according to Sergio Almendro, director of zuplemento.com

However, the same website stated later, in a different post, that “a font” from CANTV informed:

WordPress.com está realizando labores de mantenimiento y backup en sus servidores, por lo que algunos blogs estaban caidos. Esta caída se alojó en los proxys de CANTV y, como no nos dimos cuenta de la falla, se quedó alojada allí. Es por eso que los blogs, aunque recuperarun su status de “en funcionamiento” igual aparecían como “tumbados” si se trataba de acceder desde el servicio ABA. Ya estamos limpiando los proxys. Es una falla ajena a nosotros y no tuvo que ver con las elecciones. Fue una coincidencia”

WordPress is performing maintenance and backup Works on its servers, and therefore some blogs were down. This downfall hosted itself in CANTV proxys, and, as we didn't notice the failure, it stayed hosted there. That's why the blogs, even though recovered its “functioning” status, still appear as “down” if they were attempted to be reached from the ABA service. We're already cleaning the proxys. It's a failure foreign to us and was not related to elections. It was a coincidence.

Twitter user @jesusbolivar, stated through a public GoogleDoc:

No es un problema de wordpress, ya que si el problema fuesen ellos, no se pudiese entrar a ningun blog desde ningun proveedor, ya que independientemente de si visitas los blogs desde Movistar, Digitel o CANTV igual “caes” en lb.wordpress.com, adicional a esto, el problema tampoco son los proxys de CANTV ya que al contrario de lo expuesto en el articulo de Codigo Venezuela las fallas de este tipo no se “alojan” en los proxys -la duracion de los caches es de minutos y ya llevamos dos dias sin acceso a estas paginas-

It is not a wordpress problem, because if WP was the main problem, it wasn't possible to access any wordpress hoisted blog from any provider, no matter if you visit these blogs from Movistar, Digitel or CANTV, you still “fall” in lb.wordpress.com; besides that, the problem also is not related to CANTV proxys, since, on the contrary of what's exposed in Codigo Venezuela's article, this kind of failures aren't “hosted” in the proxys –the duration of caches is in minutes and we've been without access to this pages for two days already-.

In the afternoon of Wednesday 29, access to all WordPress-hosted blogs was suddenly reestablished, without further explanation.

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Written byMarianne Diaz

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