Next I ran a DNS test using my trusted rebol console (and hit escape getting bored waiting for a youtube DNS response):

Still a little curious about what was going on, I ran some more advanced diagnostics:

DiG 9.2.4 <<>> -t A youtube.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 55581
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;youtube.com. IN A

;; Query time: 1818 msec
;; SERVER: 69.56.222.10#53(69.56.222.10)
;; WHEN: Sat May 3 06:56:59 2008
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 29

That is a really slow DNS response. Trace-routes were failing from multiple sources? Is it really down, or is DNS just responding sooooo slooooowly that nobody can reach it? So that told me it could be taking 1818 milli-seconds for a DNS reply. Compared to 1 msec for google.com, and 43 msec for vvn.net. Yep, that confirms it. Something is happening with YouTube this morning.

I ran more tests from multiple sources just to check/confirm response times around the globe (using Host Tracker). Yep, YouTube is having trouble this morning:

If you know what’s going on, or what happened, please leave a comment. More later…

Updates (these are my updates as I hear about them, not necessarily an exact chronology of events or blog alerts this morning):

09:02AM (or is that 10:02) Paul McNamara at NetworkWorld News said his 6 year old son Max scooped the story, and published YouTube is Down, Everybody Panic.

10:13AM Mashable also reported YouTube down around the globe, about 6 minutes ago.

10:23AM Center Networks is speculating that a DNS hack is the culprit.

10:30AM It appears that YouTube.com is back online from my location, but still unreachable from many locations around the globe [responses: 12 Ok 33 Fail live report @10:30AM] (not reachable from Argentina, Brazil, France, Russia, and several major US cities, etc.)

10:41AM Chemboy at nerdsrule seems a little too happy that YouTube went down.

10:48AM I think Khyri got the real scoop, on what happened when she ran a Whois query.

11:11AM YouTube is working great from my location in Detroit. However, YouTube is “still down” (because of DNS trouble) at many locations around the globe – responses: 17 Ok 22 Fail

12:44PM Looks like YouTube DNS is fixed. Only Brazil having trouble – responses: 40 Ok 1 Fail