
For two hours, a large chunk of EU mobile traffic was rerouted through China - howard941
https://www.zdnet.com/article/for-two-hours-a-large-chunk-of-european-mobile-traffic-was-rerouted-through-china/
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SHAKEDECADE
Here is an earlier (~5 days) post with 33 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20123720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20123720)

[https://blog.apnic.net/2019/06/07/large-european-routing-
lea...](https://blog.apnic.net/2019/06/07/large-european-routing-leak-sends-
traffic-through-china-telecom/)

edit: Fixed the link

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tenpoundhammer
An academic paper published by experts from the US Naval War College and Tel
Aviv University in October last year blamed China Telecom for "hijacking the
vital internet backbone of western countries."

The report argued that the Chinese government was using local ISPs for
intelligence gathering by systematically hijacking BGP routes to reroute
western traffic through its country, where it can log it for later analysis.

While some experts have criticized the paper, Madory is one of the people who
stood by its technical accuracy -- albeit not by its politically-charged
accusations-- confirming that China Telecom has rerouted western traffic
through its network for years many times before.

However, Madory couldn't say if this was intentional, or a technical or human
error.

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toss1
Even if the magnification of the error was entirely do to incompetence on the
part of China Telecom (vs malice/espionage), any data mis-routed must be
treated as if it were fully logged and analyzed by China's security services
for military, industrial, and political advantage.

Another massive security hole from dealing with China.

They are taking advantage of open western societies to strategically run rings
around them.

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TaylorAlexander
The US has been installing backdoors in network hardware for its own
exploitation for years. No ones privacy has been respected by the NSA. The
behavior of both sides is reprehensible, but this is absolutely not a case of
mean ol China hurting us innocent westerners. Note that England and Australia
are collaborators on the NSA’s attempts at total surveillance of the global
web.

~~~
uoaei
An eloquent display of Whataboutism, to be sure.

Both are implicated, both are guilty. I fear there's little choice for the
average citizen besides picking a side and living in relative obscurity.

~~~
dnh44
While the term "Whataboutism" is effective rhetorically I find that it tends
to silence rather than encourage discussion when the discussion strays towards
pointing out hypocritical situations.

While I can totally sympathise with your second sentence I'm optimistic enough
to believe that we can do a lot more than pick a side and engage in tribalism.
Expressing criticism of immoral behaviour of one's perceived "own side" is a
way of fighting back and it's more effective when more people do it. It's the
raison d'être of free speech laws.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Excellent comment.

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gnu8
If we assume good faith, then they’re not committing espionage, they’re just
incompetent to an extreme. Why then should we take the Chinese telecom
industry seriously?

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iforgotpassword
It was a Swiss company making a config error on their side, how is this
incompetence on the Chinese end?

One thing you could criticize them for is that they're one of the few larger
ones that still don't use MANRS, which is most likely since they use BGP
spoofing domestically for censorship.

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ImprovedSilence
How do we know it wasn’t a Chinese agent inside a Swiss company making the
“error”?

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iforgotpassword
How do we know it wasn't a US agent disguised as a Chinese agent inside the
Swiss company making the error?

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majia
Internet infrastructure is very complex and some minor telecom configuration
mistake can easily cause non-optimal routing of packets. It seems that the
accident is caused by an error by a Swiss data center, but somehow Chinese
telecom is blamed.

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Xelynega
From my understanding it's an error from a Swiss data center that Chinese
telecom is constantly exploiting, so blaming the Swiss telecom is blaming the
victim for letting their guard down.

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CloudNetworking
One more reason to TLS all the things although it might not be enough to
discourage these practices.

A VPN would not change much unless the exit node is ran by an ISP/Hosting
provider not affected by the route hijacking.

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_ink_
Trouble is, if you control the IP you can obtain a valid certificate from many
CAs. BGP hijacking gives you control over an IP.

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CloudNetworking
Yeah, good point.

What I had in mind is this traffic being redirected for massive surveillance,
traffic patterns, etc - which TLS would not fully solve, but it adds extra
security or even partial obfuscation over your traffic patterns.

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EGreg
As a side note, when was the last time yall saw a zdnet link? I remember Ziff
Davis back in the day. But this was a blast from the past!

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enginaar
This reminds me the saying "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is
indistinguishable from malice"

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uoaei
The cynic in me wants to switch that saying around.

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midgetjones
I've recently (in the last fortnight) started getting voicemails from local
numbers, but in either Cantonese or Mandarin. I wish I understood the message;
it might make it less unsettling in light of this story.

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skykooler
They are scam calls targeting Chinese immigrants essentially saying "your visa
has been revoked and you need to pay $$$ to avoid imprisonment". They are in
Mandarin to target those who don't speak English and therefore can't ask local
authorities for help.

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microdrum
It was China Telecom re-announcing the bad routes <s>this</s> every time.

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onyva
Are there any other reports, maybe less inflammatory and based in facts.

As we know, there are very bad people on both sides.

Hard to take it seriously when the USA was the one meddling in other
countries’ affairs for such a long time (Iran’s Mosadek government in the 50’s
being my favorite peeve).

~~~
tdb7893
People here are very critical of the US for similar things, too. I'm not sure
what you're point is besides to try to derail the discussion?

