I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the FFXI problem or not, but I can no longer download torrents through UTorrent. The port is being blocked.
I know for a fact that it has something to do with being in Korea because while I was in the U.S. for the past three weeks I was able to log on to FFXI and download torrents perfectly fine.
Perhaps it truly does have something to do with the ISPs and not SE, or vice-versa. We seem to be getting a lot of information, be it truly beneficial or contradictory, from everyone. We need to see who exactly has no problems in Korea, find out what provider they are using, and then hash out the differences.
I for one know I am not ready to give up a part of my life that I have grown accustomed to for the past four years just because someone flipped a switch somewhere and didn't tell me. If I have to change ISPs, then so be it.
Unfortunately, I am not as computer savvy as many of you are here. The most help I can be is calling SE and getting the same story over and over again. Getting into all those numbers/ports/ISPs/pings/proxies/blah/blah/blah makes my head hurt. I'm a simple first grade teacher, not a computer technician.
Who knows, maybe it will blow over on the 30th as someone had already mentioned.