IP: China Hijacks Google's Domain Name

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Reilly, Patrick" <patrick.reilly () intel com>
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 12:01:50 -0700
To: "'Dave Farber (dave () farber net)'" <dave () farber net>
Subject: FW: China Hijacks Google's Domain Name

 
-----Original Message-----

China Hijacks Google's Domain Name
Tue Sep 10, 9:00 AM ET
Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service

Try to access Google ( news
<http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/pcworld/tc_pcworld/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.c
om/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=%22Google%22
&amp;c=&amp;n=20&amp;yn=c&amp;c=news&amp;cs=nw>  - external web site
<http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/pcworld/tc_pcworld/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.c
om/DailyNews/manual/*http://www.google.com/> )'s search engine from inside
China and there's a good chance you'll instead be sent to Tianwang Search, a
search engine operated by China's prestigious Peking University.

Internet users looking to reach Google from inside China are being rerouted
to Tianwang, and several other sites like it, after Internet service
providers in China hijacked the domain name for the Mountain View,
California, Internet search company.

The frequency with which Chinese users have been rerouted to other sites
depends on the Internet service provider and the location where the user is
accessing the Internet, indicating that traffic to Google is not being
rerouted at a national level, according to Duncan Clark, managing director
at telecommunication market research company BDA China.

Domain names and URLs are matched to IP addresses using Domain Name System
software. When an Internet user types www.google.com
<http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/pcworld/tc_pcworld/inlinks/*http://www.google
.com> , or any other URL, into a browser, a query is sent to the ISP's name
server which returns an IP address for the site. ISPs in Beijing and
Shanghai have apparently altered those addresses, redirecting traffic to
Chinese search sites, Clark said.

"It's not possible for someone else to do this," he said.
Government Censors
The Chinese government has sought to block access to undesirable Web sites
using IP filters since commercial Internet access first became available
here in 1995. Search engines Google and Altavista are the two latest Web
sites to find themselves blocked in China
<http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/pcworld/tc_pcworld/inlinks/*http://www.pcworl
d.com/news/article/0,aid,103865,00.asp> . But this is the first time censors
have hijacked a domain name and rerouted traffic to another Web site, Clark
said.

Not everyone in China is happy that Internet traffic meant for Google has
been rerouted elsewhere. "This is not what Tianwang Search hoped to see,"
the search engine said in a message posted on its Web site.

China frequently clamps down on foreign media in the run-up to politically
sensitive dates and events. With Chinese President Jiang Zemin ( news
<http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/pcworld/tc_pcworld/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.c
om/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news?p=%22Chinese%2
0President%20Jiang%20Zemin%22&amp;c=&amp;n=20&amp;yn=c&amp;c=news&amp;cs=nw>
- web sites 
<http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/pcworld/tc_pcworld/inlinks/*http://rd.yahoo.c
om/DailyNews/manual/*http://search.yahoo.com/bin/search?cs=nw&amp;p=Chinese%
20President%20Jiang%20Zemin> ) expected to hand power to a successor at the
upcoming Communist Party congress, Internet censors may be trying to tighten
control over information available on the Internet.

"It is in violation of the universal approach, changing the DNS system
<http://rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/pcworld/tc_pcworld/inlinks/*http://www.pcworl
d.com/news/article/0,aid,70764,00.asp> . When you type in a URL, from
anywhere in the world, you expect to get to that address," said Bruce
Tonkin, chief technology officer at Melbourne IT and chair of the Names
Council of the Domain Name Supporting Organization at the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

For Chinese users and Google alike, there may be little available recourse,
however. "China has not signed any agreement [not to tinker with the DNS
system inside China]. No government has. There is no legislation, no
mechanism to stop them," Tonkin said.


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