Skip to content

Comment on Someone Forced World Internet Traffic Through Belarus and Iceland

Comments

Cowie said the really big Internet service providers ... should be watching for when smaller players advertise false routes.

How can an ISP tell if a route is "false"?

Tracing packages would do it, a false route would be longer as is explained in the article, where a package from Mexico suddenly -instead of just being sent north- is crossing the Atlantic and the length of Europe twice over, to get to D.C.

Unless I am missing something?

By knowing what IP ranges the smaller ISPs own. If a small A connects to bit B, and B knows that A has IPs 123.234.., then it should not accepts routes that route other IPs to A.

It's not that simple, an ISP that has multiple peering partners doesn't just accept traffic for its own IPs, but also for those of its peering partners (and their peering partners, recursively).

and it knows A has those ips by...

:)

Check routes recieved from downstream customers against routing registries and such. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPSL and http://www.irr.net/docs/list.html

The map could be where Renesys's "vantage points" are.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.