[LINK] China has been 'hijacking the vital internet backbone of western countries'

[Glen Turner]

> A Chinese state-owned telecommunications company has been "hijacking
> the vital internet backbone of western countries," according to an
> academic paper published this week by researchers from the US Naval
> War College and Tel Aviv University.

Note that the policy recommendation in the paper -- "access
reciprocity", or allowing foreign PoPs in China -- is odd.

For example, that recommendation would defeat developments in Europe to
enable within-Europe telecommunications to touch only equipment located
in Europe.  That is, defeat attempts to limit US NSA interception
opportunities for within-Europe traffic.

A more obvious solution would be securing BGP so that BGP is limited to
only accepting authorised routes.  The lack of consideration of this
alternative makes the paper's analysis of suggested policy responses
rather weak.

I haven't gone through the examples offered. I am wary that the peer
reviewers of "Military Cyber Affairs" would be less able to review the
examples of BGP behaviour than the peer reviewers of SIGCOMM "Computer
Communications Review".

-glen