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Re: China ’s Maxim – Leave No Access Point Unexploited: The Hidden Story of China Telecom’ s BGP Hijacking


From: Blake Hudson <blake () ispn net>
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2018 11:30:22 -0500


Harley H wrote on 10/26/2018 8:52 AM:
Curious to hear others' thoughts on this.
https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=mca

This paper presents the view that several BGP hijacks performed by China Telecom had malicious intent. The incidents are:
* Canada to Korea - 2016
* US to Italy - Oct 2016
* Scandinavia to Japan - April-May 2017
* Italy to Thailand - April-July 2017

The authors claim this is enabled by China Telecom's presence in North America.
Not sure I agree with the author's argument of having Access Reciprocity between nations/governments (both as a technical solution or on political principle). Moving towards an ecosystem where prefix advertisements and AS paths are validated to prevent both accidental and intentional hijacks is probably a better solution to improve availability, integrity, and confidentiality. Encrypting traffic so that, even if it does go through a hostile network, it remains confidential and the integrity is validated is also probably a better solution than the proposed access reciprocity. With the number of players involved, neither of these will be short term changes. But, over time, we seem to be moving in that direction already.


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