From:    "Mark R. Lindsey" 
To:      phil-sec@datasys.net
Date:    Fri, 24 Apr 1998 07:30:09 -0400

Around the world, thousands of large and small ISPs use BGP -- the
Border Gateway Protocol -- to exchange routing information. Many of the
routers that provide the connections between the innumerable small
networks that make of the Internet receive the information, and use it
when making decisions about how to route data to its destination.

Occasionally, a network operator will make a mistake, and instead of
having his router announce, ``Send me data for networks X, Y, and Z'',
it announces ``Send me data for ALL of the networks''. (In BGPese, of
course.) Many routers accept this information and use it blindly; this
can lead to major disruptions in network service. In fact, references
have been made to using this sort of error maliciously, as Internet
Terrorism.