While no one can control the internet, you can certainly degrade it for many people.
We have a major technological hub in Sweden. Their internet provider (like many others in Sweden and Europe) use Telia as their communications provider. Over the last couple of days, our outbound emails kept queueing up in our systems, and some websites wouldn’t work.
Come to find out, Cogent, a major communications company in US and Europe, have actually depeered Telia from it’s AS routing, making it impossible for Nordic customers (as well as some in Europe, I would imagine) to access systems on Cogent’s network. Even alternate routing was turned off.
Apparently, this is because Cogent got ticked off because of contract dispute about the size and locations of certain internet pipes. They feel it was:
“…for the good of the internet.”
Also, coming from Jeff Henrikson, spokesperson for Cogent:
“Some traffic flow was impeded and some traffic was redirected further than it needed to go.”
“[Telia] wasn’t responding to requests to comply with the contract….[Cogent] wasn’t left with much alternative but to terminate the contract.”
Wow. Can you believe that? See the below links for more information:
http://www2.meltedcube.com/blog/web-internet-telecom/isp-quarrel-partitions-internet/
http://gigaom.com/2008/03/14/the-telia-cogent-spat-could-ruin-web-for-many/
