Fix To Chinese Internet Traffic Hijack Due In Jan. 92
alphadogg writes "Policymakers disagree about whether the recent Chinese hijacking of Internet traffic was malicious or accidental, but there's no question about the underlying cause of this incident: the lack of built-in security in the Internet's main routing protocol. Network engineers have been talking about this weakness in the Internet infrastructure for a decade. Now a fix is finally on the way."
Like other internet Upgrades (Score:4, Insightful)
So we're at phase 1, the "Hey, check it out" phase. You can expect this to reach a phase 2, the "actually possible" phase, after IPv6 gets implemented, which will then take years to reach phase 3, the "We should really get on that" phase. Phase 4, the "Okay guys this is actually becoming a problem" phase, comes a couple years later and will no doubt be brought up on slashdot a million times over. Phase 5, is still a theoritcal phase, the "Implementation and execution phase" has not yet been observed but we have reason to believe it might happen one day, if we wish upon enough stars.
This Is Different, the Chinese Stealed Our Net! (Score:4, Insightful)
So we're at phase 1, the "Hey, check it out" phase. You can expect this to reach a phase 2, the "actually possible" phase, after IPv6 gets implemented, which will then take years to reach phase 3, the "We should really get on that" phase. Phase 4, the "Okay guys this is actually becoming a problem" phase, comes a couple years later and will no doubt be brought up on slashdot a million times over. Phase 5, is still a theoritcal phase, the "Implementation and execution phase" has not yet been observed but we have reason to believe it might happen one day, if we wish upon enough stars.
Get politicians and pundits in front of the American cameras screaming "ZOMG Chineze Haz Our Intarwebz!" And you'll be simply amazed at how fast the sloth can move. If only they could have made the IPv4 -> IPv6 transition about nationalism or freedom or democracy or Al-Queda working with the Ruskies to undermine our securitization ... then that would have happened instantly!
Re:What... (Score:2, Insightful)
No, some moron working on China Telecom's Beijing AS posted the iBGP routing table to the eBGP side. It's that simple. It didn't cause too much trouble, really, since the only routers that were fooled by it were nearby routers - like the other edge routers in China, and those in S. Korea, Japan, and surrounding companies (in the network topology, which loosely mirrors real geography). The routers in the US would get two prefix advertisements, notice that one was too far away, and use the right ones.
This is some dipshit's attempt at pushing NPKI as the "solution" to prefix hijacking. The solution is not to send sensitive data unencrypted over the Internet. Period.