I ran
$ gem fetch -V github-linguist
GET http://rubygems.org/latest_specs.4.8.gz
302 Moved Temporarily
GET http://production.s3.rubygems.org/latest_specs.4.8.gz
200 OK
ERROR: While executing gem ... (Zlib::GzipFile::Error)
not in gzip format
then to my shock I opened the link in my browser and see this message
Norton DNS Malicious Web Site Blocked You attempted to access: production.s3.rubygems.org This is a known malicious web site. It is recommended that you do NOT visit this site. This site points to production.s3.rubygems.org.s3.amazonaws.com, which is malicious.
On pencil’s suggestion I ran namebench and have switched to OpenDNS-2.
Probably someone used AWS to distribute malware and some buggy automatism now blockes *.amazonaws.com
Must be a filter anywhere between you and Amazon (Router/Firewall, Proxy, ISP, Name Server, ...). Start by using different name servers (like Google's 8.8.8.8).