A bit surprised this story didn’t get more attention, but apparently some sort of DNS networking “error” meant that certain computers in both the US and Chile came up against the infamous Great Firewall of China — meaning many sites were suddenly inaccessible (and, one assumes, Google sent folks to Google Hong Kong):
Security experts are not sure exactly how this happened, but it appears that at least one ISP recently began fetching high-level DNS (domain name server) information from what’s known as a root DNS server, based in China. That server, operated out of China by Swedish service provider Netnod, returned DNS information intended for Chinese users, effectively spreading China’s network censorship overseas. China tightly controls access to a number of Web sites, using technology known colloquially as the Great Firewall of China.The issue was reported Wednesday by Mauricio Ereche, a DNS admin with NIC Chile, who found that an unnamed local ISP reported that DNS queries for sites such as Facebook.com, Twitter.com and YouTube.com — all of which have been blocked in China — were being redirected to bogus addresses.
I’m reminded of the case when Pakistan tried to block YouTube and ended up blocking YouTube around the globe. Just a bit of a scary reminder of how fragile and interconnected the internet can be at times.
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