FUD: 15% of world's internet traffic hijacked

Thu Dec 2 10:15:04 UTC 2010

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 5:42 PM, Brett Watson <brett at the-watsons.org> wrote:
> I'm not able to get my fingers or thumbs to randomly (seemingly)
> select approximately 15% of all prefixes, originate those, modify
> filters so I can do so, and also somehow divert it to another router
> that doesn't have the hijacked prefixes I'm announcing but rather
> forwards the source traffic on to it's intended destination.

"What filters?"   "We don't need any stinkin' filters"
Sometimes disasters such as an accidental hijacking might be the
result of multiple different mistakes or errors that occured at
different times; separated by months or years,  it can include design
mistakes that were present all along,  and the earlier mistakes might
never have been detected, until they catalyzed later mistakes.

A device missing filters,  a missing config entry to actually apply
any filters, or a big hole in a filter set  are some possibilities,
where an operator would not need to make the same typo twice at a
later date.

The redirection of packets to the eventual proper destination is not
necessarily indicating anything intentional;  perhaps packets reached
a Chinese router that did not have the error,  or that had the right
filter set active.

So far, I saw nothing reported of sufficient detail to infer with high
confidence either that it was by accident or that hijacking was not an
accident;  it seems, you can proceed using either assumption, without
arriving at probable inconsistency  or logical contradiction.    "We
don't know for sure if the hijacking was accidental or not"   seems a
valid answer.

--
-JH