China is using its access to the North American internet system to route traffic to Beijing, rather than the shortest point of travel. Packets can then be stored, analyzed and changed before they are sent on to its destination. This exploits the openness of the West, to China’s advantage. Yuval Shavitt of Tel Aviv University and Chris Demchak of the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, R.I., published a paper recently in Military Cyber Affairs, called China’s Maxim – Leave No Access Point Unexploited: The Hidden Story of China Telecom’s BGP Hijacking. It is a really good read.
