Nigerian Firm Takes Blame For Routing Google Traffic Through China (reuters.com) 56
Earlier today, it was reported that Google suffered a brief outage on Monday that pushed some of its traffic through networks in Russia, China, and Nigeria. Soon after Google said it would conduct an investigation, Nigeria's Main One Cable Company fessed up to the incident. According to Reuters, the company says it "accidentally caused the problem during a network upgrade." From the report: Main One said in an email that it had caused a 74-minute glitch by misconfiguring a border gateway protocol filter used to route traffic across the internet. That resulted in some Google traffic being sent through Main One partner China Telecom, the West African firm said. Even though Main One said it was to blame, some security experts said the incident highlighted concerns about the potential for hackers to conduct espionage or disrupt communications by exploiting known vulnerabilities in the way traffic is routed over the internet. Main One, which describes itself as a leading provider of telecom and network services for businesses in West Africa, said that it had investigated the matter and implemented new processes to prevent it from happening again.
Nigerian scam!? (Score:2)
Nigerian scam!?
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But we cannot Google it, that's the whole point! Nigeria stole Google!
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I had misread, "Nigeria's Main One Cable Company" as, "Nigeria's One Man Cable Company," which, frankly, would have made more sense.
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The real question in this case would be who is holding the majority of Main One's debt. They were leveraged to the hilt in 2011, and since they were planning on raising another 300 million in 2015 I imagine that's still very much the case.
I'm amazed this news ever got out (Score:1)
Any connections? (Score:2)
Re:Any connections? (Score:4, Informative)
First, the answer to OP's question is no, China Telecom has no stake in Main One. Second, your statement about indebted nations makes no sense, Nigeria has a very, very low debt-to-GDP ratio, they haven't been an "indebted nation" since the late 1980s. Read up a little before replying about something you know nothing about.
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Yeah no shit. Nigeria has oil & gas fields. Even with all the corruption and graft it's not like the country does not have money in it. It's just that it is mostly concentrated at the top.
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No, they do not.
Secure BGP (Score:5, Insightful)
We really need to figure out a way to secure BGP announcements.
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We really need to figure out a way to secure BGP announcements.
Wrong.
We really need a way to figure out a solution instead of bitching about the same problem for fifteen fucking years.
This is like bitching about WEP security in 2018. We kind of deserve it at this point.
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We really need to figure out a way to secure BGP announcements.
From whom?
I wonder if I'm to blame for all of that? (Score:5, Funny)
that prince said something bad would happen if I didn't help him cash in that inheritance
Nigerian Prince Needs you Help! (Score:1, Funny)
"Please dear sir,
I am writing this to you because I am in need of your help. You see I have a vast fortune that I need expedited to your country. I am in the process of immigrating there but to avoid the taxes from your country I wish to transfer to you my fortune. Well wait! When I am successfully in your country I will of course need to take possession of that money, but of course you will be handsomely rewarded for this small trifle of your time! All I need you to do is to reroute your financial informat
Time for better BGP security? (Score:2)
Maybe its time for BGP (the protocol that is used by all these networks to talk to each other) to get some security so that people can't advertise routes for IP blocks they dont actually own.
Re:Time for better BGP security? (Score:4, Funny)
Maybe its time for BGP (the protocol that is used by all these networks to talk to each other) to get some security so that people can't advertise routes for IP blocks they dont actually own.
Great idea, you should totally do that.
Tell all of the tier 1 networks not to advertise routes to your 'blocks' because they don't own them.
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Does he release that APK files run on Android and not Windows?
One Belt One Road (Score:2)
Some googling shows a number of articles that China is planning to dump billions of dollars into Nigeria in various areas. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that telecoms in Nigeria are also working closely with China and in exchange for money and favors, they are routing traffic -- ie: acting as an arm of the Chinese Intelligence agency.
I think the West should keep an eye on all the countries that China gets involved with via the One Belt One Road initiative, because those could be countries that might opt
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Time for a bit of reality, if your traffic is going anywhere near Nigeria, then it is already questionable. So traffic from US to Europe, would not touch Nigeria, etc. So Africa traffic routed through China, well, who the fuck cares. If secured routes get rerouted, then it is a problem but we all should know by now the US can tap into all the undersea cables done by US companies.
Research paper suggests this was deliberate (Score:2)
This article [zdnet.com] discusses the following research paper which analyses China's efforts to gain the capabilities that brought google down...
https://scholarcommons.usf.edu... [usf.edu] ....whilst minimising the opportunity of the US and the west to create a similar attack against China.
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