Armando.info and El Pitazo Face Selective ISP Blocking in Venezuela (August 2018)
During August 2018, Armando.info and El Pitazo were subject to selective blocking by Venezuelan internet service providers. El Pitazo reported a new block starting on the night of August 1; OONI/IPYS documented DNS and HTTP manipulation targeting its domains on CANTV, Digitel, Movistar, and Movilnet, resulting in an approximate 50% drop in traffic. For Armando.info, OONI tests on August 13 showed intermittent HTTP failures, particularly on CANTV; OONI noted that the block was neither uniform nor conclusive as sole evidence of intent, although server issues were unlikely due to the use of Google Shield. The DDoS attacks against both media outlets remain a separate historical context: there is no public evidence of a single actor, botnet, or DDoS infrastructure involved in this episode.
Overview
Missing evidence
Impact details
OONI/IPYS and media outlets report documented selective blocking by the Internet service providers (ISPs) of El Pitazo and Armando.info in August 2018, including DNS manipulation and HTTP failures at CANTV and among private and mobile providers. DDoS incidents related to this context are separate and are not considered part of the same technical incident.
Classification & severity
- Category
- Availability
- Subtype
- selective isp blocking
- Confidence
- High
IPYS/OONI and media sources document selective blocking through DNS manipulation and HTTP failures among Venezuelan Internet service providers.
Severity assessment
Medium- Functional impact
- Denial (non-critical)
- Information impact
- None
- Affected scope
- Sector
- Critical service
- None
- Public confidence
- Limited
- Recoverability
- Supplemented
Selective blocking of access to independent media has been verified; no data compromise.
Timeline
Armando.info suffers a DDoS attack, a prelude to subsequent blockages.
El Pitazo reports another outage; its traffic drops by ~50%, and it reports DDoS attacks at least once a week.
IPYS Venezuela, in collaboration with Venezuela Inteligente and OONI, confirms through technical tests (10 out of 22 tests) that Cantv, Movistar, and Digitel are blocking HTTP access to Armando.info in Caracas, Carabobo, Lara, and Bolívar.
Caracas Chronicles and IPYS publicly report the third blocking of El Pitazo in 11 months and the double attack against Armando.info.
An investigation found that Armando.info was blocked in 625 out of 692 access attempts between August 17 and 22, 2018 (~5.5% availability).