Has RT been taken off the internet?

[Ian Jackson]

Although RT was taken off-air on 3 March, it has still been available
online. However, today all I get is an 'Unable to connect' message (even
for the basic website). Does anyone know if it has been taken off
totally, or is this just an ISP decision? [Actually, although it does
give a fascinating insight into the present Russian perverted view of
the world, I'm surprised it has still been available for so long.]
--
Ian

[Richard Tobin]

In article <BOVYpsJg...@brattleho.plus.com>,

Ian Jackson <ianREMOVET...@g3ohx.co.uk> wrote:
>Although RT was taken off-air on 3 March, it has still been available
>online. However, today all I get is an 'Unable to connect' message (even
>for the basic website).

https://www.rt.com and https://www.rt.com/on-air appear to be working,

I note that they want you to install a Firefox extension - I wouldn't
touch that with a bargepole.

-- Richard

[Andy Burns]

Richard Tobin wrote:

> https://www.rt.com and https://www.rt.com/on-air appear to be working,

Works here too.

> I note that they want you to install a Firefox extension - I wouldn't
> touch that with a bargepole.

It didn't ask here, just seems to use a standard <video> element and JWPlayer.

[Robin]

I can't connect to rt.com [91.215.41.4] with Virgin Media or with
NordVPN (not even with their Indian server). All fail at twelve99.net in
(I think) USA. Don't ask me why.

Tracing route to 91.215.41.4 over a maximum of 30 hops

...
9 22 ms 29 ms 21 ms
perr-wblk-1b-xe-200-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.1.218]
10 * * * Request timed out.
11 22 ms 21 ms 20 ms ldn-b3-link.ip.twelve99.net [213.248.84.25]
12 20 ms 19 ms 20 ms ldn-bb4-link.ip.twelve99.net
[62.115.122.180]
13 34 ms 33 ms 32 ms hbg-bb4-link.ip.twelve99.net
[62.115.122.160]
14 42 ms 43 ms 42 ms s-bb2-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.115.59]
15 52 ms 52 ms 52 ms sap-b4-link.ip.twelve99.net
[62.115.115.247]
16 * * * Request timed out.
...



...
7 267 ms 267 ms 267 ms ldn-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net
[62.115.138.168]
8 278 ms 279 ms 278 ms hbg-bb3-link.ip.twelve99.net [80.91.249.11]
9 291 ms 291 ms 290 ms s-bb1-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.134.95]
10 304 ms 304 ms 305 ms sap-b4-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.143.31]
11 * * * Request timed out.
...


--
Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid

[SH]

I get the same here but your ping times are longer than mine....

2 6 ms 5 ms 5 ms 84.65.64.1
3 16 ms 5 ms 5 ms 63.130.104.198
4 6 ms 5 ms 5 ms ae11-100-xcr1.hex.cw.net [195.89.96.1]
5 6 ms 6 ms 5 ms ldn-b2-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.61.190]
6 5 ms 5 ms 6 ms ldn-bb4-link.ip.twelve99.net
[62.115.120.238]
7 19 ms 19 ms 19 ms hbg-bb4-link.ip.twelve99.net
[62.115.122.160]
8 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms s-bb2-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.115.59]
9 41 ms 38 ms 38 ms sap-b4-link.ip.twelve99.net
[62.115.115.247]

[Andy Burns]

> I can't connect to rt.com [91.215.41.4] with Virgin Media or with NordVPN (not
> even with their Indian server). All fail at twelve99.net in (I think) USA. Don't
> ask me why.

From plusnet it doesn't pass through twelve99, but neither ping or traceroute
shows as reaching the destination, but https works.

Tracing route to rt.com [91.215.41.4]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms router.lan [192.168.1.1]
2 12 ms 11 ms 12 ms 195.166.130.249
3 12 ms 13 ms 12 ms gi2-23-442.ptn-gw02.plus.net [84.93.253.75]
4 13 ms 18 ms 12 ms core1-BE1.colindale.ukcore.bt.net [195.99.125.132]
5 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms core5-hu0-7-0-15.faraday.ukcore.bt.net
[195.99.127.36]
6 13 ms 12 ms 12 ms 166-49-209-132.gia.bt.net [166.49.209.132]
7 14 ms 15 ms 14 ms 212.119.4.140
8 14 ms 13 ms 14 ms ae-7.r20.londen12.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.4.140]
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 86 ms 86 ms 85 ms ae-1.r00.nycmny13.us.bb.gin.ntt.net [129.250.2.174]

11 * * * Request timed out.

12 * * * Request timed out ... rinse ... repeat.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <e23037c5-916b-bfa6...@outlook.com>,

Robin <r...@outlook.com> wrote:
>Tracing route to 91.215.41.4 over a maximum of 30 hops

Traceroute doesn't get there for me either, even though it works in
the browser. And curl/wget don't work - they end up with 403
Forbidden pages, apparently from some content delivery network.
Setting the user agent doesn't help. The 403 page contains some
Javascript that I'm not going to analyse; perhaps it would in fact
load the page.

Quite likely they are under constant DDOS attack, and their CDN is
blocking many networks.

It appears that when it works, http://rt.com redirects to
https://rt.com which redirects to https://www.rt.com.

And finally, you're not missing anything except Putin's propaganda.

-- Richard

[NY]

"Andy Burns" <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote in message
news:je6jga...@mid.individual.net...

Intriguingly, my Plusnet connection (with a TPLink router, not a Plusnet
one) resolves rt.com to 127.0.0.1 (local loopback) on both Windows and Linux
(Raspbian).

That's for the router's DHCP allocating 192.168.1.1 / 208.67.222.222
(OpenDNS) as primary and secondary DNS servers for use by clients, and the
router's WAN connection set to 212.159.6.9 / 212.159.6.10 (Plusnet's DNS). I
presume the combination of the two means that it tries 212.159.6.9 first,
then 212.159.6.10 and finally 208.67.222.222. (*)

I wonder if some DNS servers have been "poisoned" so they will not resolve
rt.com, and instead "resolve" it to localhost so it fails gracefully. If I
set my Android phone to use Vodafone's mobile internet instead of Plusnet's
connection, I can resolve and ping the RT server.


(*) The mixture of DNS servers was an attempt to work around an intermittent
problem where one Android phone on the network sometimes (for about a week)
fails to connect to one specific web site, although all other devices manage
it perfectly - so I wanted to be able to fall back to an non-ISP DNS if
there was an intermittent problem with the ISP's ones. It didn't work! The
fault remains, and is not cured by rebooting phone or router, or by clearing
the phone's DNS cache. It fails almost 100% of the time for every attempt,
then suddenly one day works perfectly for a week or so, then it almost
consistently fails again. Since the phone is connected by wifi, it is
difficult to gather LAN traces with Wireshark because WS on a Windows/Linux
PC (even if connected by wifi) cannot see all the phone-router traffic.
Running NetAnalyzer Pro on the phone shows that at times of failure, pings
by URL or IP work, but that a port scan finds all the web servers ports are
closed or blocked. I can't decide whether it's a phone or ISP problem, but
it is significant that if I turn off the phone's wifi, forcing it to connect
by Vodafone mobile internet, it always works... But if it was an ISP problem
(which is what it looks like) why would it only affect one device?

[Dave W]

On Chrome browser I instantly get "This site can't be reached". On
Firefox, it gets through eventually. There is a banner inviting you to
install a Firefox extension, but the site still works if you dismiss
the banner.
--
Dave W

[Andy Burns]

ric...@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) wrote:

> you're not missing anything except Putin's propaganda.

And it's propaganda specifically for a non-Russian audience.

[Andy Burns]

NY wrote:

> Intriguingly, my Plusnet connection (with a TPLink router, not a Plusnet one)
> resolves rt.com to 127.0.0.1 (local loopback) on both Windows and Linux (Raspbian).

sure you've not got a hosts file with some "blocking" entries?

> That's for the router's DHCP allocating 192.168.1.1 / 208.67.222.222 (OpenDNS)
> as primary and secondary DNS servers for use by clients, and the router's WAN
> connection set to 212.159.6.9 / 212.159.6.10 (Plusnet's DNS). I presume the
> combination of the two means that it tries 212.159.6.9 first, then 212.159.6.10
> and finally 208.67.222.222. (*)

It'll generally find the first that works and stick with it

[NY]

"NY" <m...@privacy.invalid> wrote in message
news:t5l8c4$sec$1...@dont-email.me...

I've just spotted: line "8" on your tracert refers to a server called
"londen12" - ie with an E not an O ;-)




Yes, it looks as if Plusnet have poisoned their DNS servers. If I configure
a Windows PC's IP configuration with a static DNS server rather than using
the ones that my router's DHCP allocates, I get the following

PN (212.159.6.10) 127.0.0.1
Google (8.8.8.8) 91.215.41.4
OpenDNS (208.67.222.222) 91.215.41.4

For Google as the DNS, tracert gives

Tracing route to rt.com [91.215.41.4]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 4 ms 5 ms 4 ms 172.16.13.210
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 18 ms 12 ms 16 ms 140.hiper04.sheff.dial.plus.net.uk
[195.166.143.
140]
5 12 ms 15 ms 19 ms peer7-et-0-1-5.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net
[109.159.
252.90]
6 39 ms 49 ms 12 ms 166-49-214-194.gia.bt.net [166.49.214.194]
7 18 ms 19 ms 19 ms 212.119.4.136
8 19 ms 12 ms 12 ms ae-0.r20.londen12.uk.bb.gin.ntt.net
[129.250.3.2
12]
9 88 ms 83 ms 84 ms ae-7.r20.nwrknj03.us.bb.gin.ntt.net
[129.250.6.1
47]
10 89 ms 99 ms 90 ms ae-1.r00.nycmny13.us.bb.gin.ntt.net
[129.250.2.1

74]
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 * * * Request timed out.

13 * * * Request timed out.
14 * * * Request timed out.

[Richard Tobin]

In article <t5lab2$bps$1...@dont-email.me>, NY <m...@privacy.invalid> wrote:

>I've just spotted: line "8" on your tracert refers to a server called
>"londen12" - ie with an E not an O ;-)

I think that will be "Lond[on] En[gland]". They have other hosts with
names like amstnl06 and miamfl02.

-- Richard

[Java Jive]

On 13/05/2022 10:28, NY wrote:
>
> "Andy Burns" <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote in message
> news:je6jga...@mid.individual.net...
>>

[Quoting broken, someone else wrote:]

Here, my house's broadband connection is via mobile ISP Three, and, as
with Andy above, I also get the IP resolving to 91.215.41.4, but pings
and the last half of a tracert time out, while PaleMoon tells me the
site is blocked. You can guess that I'm not exactly weeping about that,
the unreality of Russian reporting on the conflict is truly astonishing!

Take, for just one example, the various reports of war-crimes. Of
those, very many in number, being committed by Russian soldiers, for
which I know of currently at least four, though quite possibly there are
many more, separate and entirely independent lines of evidence freely
available to anyone in the West, and therefore certainly to authorities
in Russia, all are denied by Russian official media against this
overwhelming evidence. By contrast, of those, much fewer in number,
being attributed to Ukrainian soldiers, Ukraine have said they will be
investigated.

And why is it that male soldiers so often make enemy women the first
targets of war crimes, often in horrifying and sickening ways? It's as
though there's an ongoing 'virtual' war always going on between the
sexes, which, when allowed by circumstances - such as the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, or a real war - suddenly becomes a real war.

> (*) The mixture of DNS servers was an attempt to work around an
> intermittent problem where one Android phone on the network sometimes
> (for about a week) fails to connect to one specific web site, although
> all other devices manage it perfectly - so I wanted to be able to fall
> back to an non-ISP DNS if there was an intermittent problem with the
> ISP's ones. It didn't work! The fault remains, and is not cured by
> rebooting phone or router, or by clearing the phone's DNS cache. It
> fails almost 100% of the time for every attempt, then suddenly one day
> works perfectly for a week or so, then it almost consistently fails
> again. Since the phone is connected by wifi, it is difficult to gather
> LAN traces with Wireshark because WS on a Windows/Linux PC (even if
> connected by wifi) cannot see all the phone-router traffic. Running
> NetAnalyzer Pro on the phone shows that at times of failure, pings by
> URL or IP work, but that a port scan finds all the web servers ports are
> closed or blocked. I can't decide whether it's a phone or ISP problem,
> but it is significant that if I turn off the phone's wifi, forcing it to
> connect by Vodafone mobile internet, it always works... But if it was an
> ISP problem (which is what it looks like) why would it only affect one
> device?

In u.t.broadband, a respondent called Theo gave you some very detailed
analysis of why this was failing. Were you ever able to resolve it,
with or without his help?

--

Fake news kills!

I may be contacted via the contact address given on my website:
www.macfh.co.uk

[Brian Gregory]

On 13/05/2022 10:28, NY wrote:

Why would you allow your system to choose between OpenDNS, which filters
stuff and your ISPs own DNS servers that probably don't, or if they do
will filter it differently?

Plus it doesn't make any sense to use OpenDNS's main resolvers unless
you have either a static IP or use an updater to tell OPenDNS your IP
every time it changes. OpenDNS has configurable filtering so if you
don't tell them your IP when it changes you can just end up with a
random set of filters as configured by whoever last used that IP and did
configure the filtering.

--
Brian Gregory (in England).