Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Networks trust each other's routing announcements, so a single wrong entry can redirect or swallow traffic. The figure is taken from IETF, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

Is this really a technology fact?

Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

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One mistyped route can take a country offline

Networks trust each other's routing announcements, so a single wrong entry can redirect or swallow traffic Border Gateway Protocol is how tens of thousands of independently run networks tell each other which address blocks they can reach. It carries little built-in proof of ownership, so a misconfigured router can announce addresses belonging to someone else. In 2008 a Pakistani provider blacked out YouTube worldwide for about two hours, and in 2021 a configuration change withdrew Facebook's own routes for six hours. It sits in Mondo's technology collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

IETF

Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.

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Tags: bgp, routing, internet

One mistyped route can take a country offline: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Networks trust each other's routing announcements, so a single wrong entry can redirect or swallow traffic. The figure is taken from IETF, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.