188
Milton L. Mueller
announcement is propagated to other ISPs and begins to affect routing patterns around
the world. Inaccurate or unauthorized BGP route announcements happen frequently
and are a well-known problem. While the USCESRC report did not explicitly assert
that the prefi x leak was intentional, the report framed the event as an “ interception
of Internet traffi c ” rather than as a routing confi guration error. Those hostile overtones
were picked up and amplifi ed by the U.S. mass media, which publicized the idea that
China had diverted “ 15 percent of the Internet ” to its own country. The “ 15 percent
of the Internet ” claim confused Internet traffi c volume with Internet route announcements — a completely false equation. Internet technical experts quickly weighed in to
correct the understanding of the situation. According to Arbor Networks ’ Craig Labovitz, “ This hijack had limited impact on the Internet routing infrastructure — most of
the Internet ignored the hijack for various technical reasons. ”
20 Labovitz wrote that
far from diverting “ massive amounts of the Internet ’ s traffi c, ” there was “ no statistically signifi cant increase for either [of the two Chinese Internet service providers].
While we did observe modest changes in traffi c volumes for carriers within China, the
BGP hijack had limited impact on traffi c volumes to or from the rest of the world. ”
21
Both the incident and the reaction to it underscore the global interdependencies
created by the Internet and the dangerous tendency for interstate rivalries to infl ame
mundane operational problems into military and political tensions. Correctly interpreted, the April 2010 Chinese routing hijack had little if anything to do with China
and its geopolitical rivalry with the United States, but instead should be viewed as a
spur for instituting more secure routing protocols on the Internet. Greater routing
security is something that would benefi t both China and the United States — and
proper implementation of such a goal would require cooperation between the United
States and China especially.
Cyber Espionage and the Blurring Line between State and Nonstate Actors
As China becomes a powerful state on the global scene it will — like other powerful
states before it — engage in power and spying games with its rivals. Just as traditional,
“ meatspace ” (i.e., physical) forms of spying and infi ltration provide governments with
ways to disrupt their enemies ’ plans or obtain valuable information, so does Internetbased espionage. Evidence in the West suggests that China has been especially active
and effective at using cybercrime tactics to monitor and disrupt its enemies.
In early 2009 the Information Warfare Monitor (IWM) released one of the fi rst
unclassifi ed reports detailing the activities of a cyber espionage effort.
22 The network,
dubbed GhostNet, appeared to have been controlled from commercial Internet
accounts located on the island of Hainan, China. A year later, another report from the
IWM and the Shadowserver Foundation uncovered more extensive evidence of a
China-based computer espionage network targeting India: its diplomatic missions,
Milton L. Mueller
announcement is propagated to other ISPs and begins to affect routing patterns around
the world. Inaccurate or unauthorized BGP route announcements happen frequently
and are a well-known problem. While the USCESRC report did not explicitly assert
that the prefi x leak was intentional, the report framed the event as an “ interception
of Internet traffi c ” rather than as a routing confi guration error. Those hostile overtones
were picked up and amplifi ed by the U.S. mass media, which publicized the idea that
China had diverted “ 15 percent of the Internet ” to its own country. The “ 15 percent
of the Internet ” claim confused Internet traffi c volume with Internet route announcements — a completely false equation. Internet technical experts quickly weighed in to
correct the understanding of the situation. According to Arbor Networks ’ Craig Labovitz, “ This hijack had limited impact on the Internet routing infrastructure — most of
the Internet ignored the hijack for various technical reasons. ”
20 Labovitz wrote that
far from diverting “ massive amounts of the Internet ’ s traffi c, ” there was “ no statistically signifi cant increase for either [of the two Chinese Internet service providers].
While we did observe modest changes in traffi c volumes for carriers within China, the
BGP hijack had limited impact on traffi c volumes to or from the rest of the world. ”
21
Both the incident and the reaction to it underscore the global interdependencies
created by the Internet and the dangerous tendency for interstate rivalries to infl ame
mundane operational problems into military and political tensions. Correctly interpreted, the April 2010 Chinese routing hijack had little if anything to do with China
and its geopolitical rivalry with the United States, but instead should be viewed as a
spur for instituting more secure routing protocols on the Internet. Greater routing
security is something that would benefi t both China and the United States — and
proper implementation of such a goal would require cooperation between the United
States and China especially.
Cyber Espionage and the Blurring Line between State and Nonstate Actors
As China becomes a powerful state on the global scene it will — like other powerful
states before it — engage in power and spying games with its rivals. Just as traditional,
“ meatspace ” (i.e., physical) forms of spying and infi ltration provide governments with
ways to disrupt their enemies ’ plans or obtain valuable information, so does Internetbased espionage. Evidence in the West suggests that China has been especially active
and effective at using cybercrime tactics to monitor and disrupt its enemies.
In early 2009 the Information Warfare Monitor (IWM) released one of the fi rst
unclassifi ed reports detailing the activities of a cyber espionage effort.
22 The network,
dubbed GhostNet, appeared to have been controlled from commercial Internet
accounts located on the island of Hainan, China. A year later, another report from the
IWM and the Shadowserver Foundation uncovered more extensive evidence of a
China-based computer espionage network targeting India: its diplomatic missions,