China, with its large population of experienced hackers and complete and utter willingness to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, has proven to be quite the aggressive foe for the Internet. First, there was the Great Firewall of China put up to block Chinese users from the greater Internet at large. Now, China’s turning its ability to control the Internet away from internal sources and aiming at the external. Recently, Chinese servers were able to hijack 15 percent of the world’s Internet traffic for 18 minutes by changing how the information routed itself.
“This is a troubling development. It could be innocuous, and China is claiming it’s an accident, but this has a pretty wide-ranging set of implications. That traffic could be eavesdropped upon,” said security expert Dmitri Alperovitch of McAfee. The ability to manipulate the Internet so skillfully is one thing, but to disguise it as well as China Telecom did is another, and that’s why Alperovitch is worried. “That they are able to take in that much traffic without breaking a sweat, I find that almost unimaginable. The capacity built into their networks must be astonishing. … Things worked miraculously.”
Well, I think we’ve figured out why China built the world’s fastest supercomputer, don’t you?
Tags: China, hackers, China hijacked the Internet, The Internet, Internet security, China rerouted 15 percent of Internet traffic through its servers, China hijacked 15 percent of the Internet, April 8, China Telecom, Dmitri Alperovitch, McAfee, Chinese servers hijack the Internet, unusual attacks, route announcements
