Este pequeño fragmento de código funciona bien en la JVM de mi Mac. Lamentablemente se bloquea cuando se ejecuta en Android 4.2.

import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.URL;

public class App
{
    public static void main( String... arguments ) throws Exception
    {
        HttpURLConnection connection = (HttpURLConnection) new URL( "https://github.com" ).openConnection();
        connection.setRequestMethod( "HEAD" );

        System.out.println( connection.getResponseCode() + "" );
    }
}

Si sustituyohttps://github.com conhttps://www.facebook.com funciona bien pero no logro entender por qué.

La excepción no contiene un mensaje; Así que aquí está, al menos, el rastro de pila.

java.io.EOFException
        at java.util.zip.GZIPInputStream.readFully(GZIPInputStream.java:206)
        at java.util.zip.GZIPInputStream.<init>(GZIPInputStream.java:98)
        at java.util.zip.GZIPInputStream.<init>(GZIPInputStream.java:81)
        at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.initContentStream(HttpEngine.java:541)
        at libcore.net.http.HttpEngine.readResponse(HttpEngine.java:844)
        at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getResponse(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:283)
        at libcore.net.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getResponseCode(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:495)
        at libcore.net.http.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.getResponseCode(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:134)