Bing Outage in China Not Deliberate

choi

Josh Horwitz and Cate Cadell, Bing Outage in China Was Technical Error, Not Censors' Block: Source. Reuters, Jan 28, 2019.
https://www.reuters.com/article/ ... s-technical-error-n

Quote:

"SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - Search engine Bing’s outage in China last week was a technical error, rather than an intentional censorship block, a source familiar with the matter said, although Chinese authorities and Microsoft have not commented on the topic.

"a person at Microsoft Corp told Reuters * * * But the company [Microsoft] had received no prior notice from authorities, and the disruption was not intentional on the part of the [Chinese] government, added the person, who declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the matter. [Neither Microsoft not Cyberspace Administration of China repliedto Reuters's requests for comment. The outage lasted a day Thursday to Friday (Jan 25)]

"Engineers at ExpressVPN, a provider of virtual private network (VPN) software allowing internet users in China to access censored websites, ran tests during the outage to determine its origin.  They found that rather than domain name service (DNS) poisoning, the most common means for blocking sites under the Great Firewall, Bing's outage appeared to employ a technique known as 'black-holing.'  With this method, rather than re-directing to a dummy server traffic headed for a specific website, the traffic is simply cut off en route, usually at the internet service provider (ISP) level.  Express VPN Vice President Harold Li said blackholing boosts the likelihood of an accidental block, versus the more typical DNS poisoning, though he added that the company could not confirm the exact nature of the outage.

My comment: There is no need to read the rest.