Yes, it appears Qwest was leaking routes, but they are fixing it...
Its always so much fun to watch billion dollar companies dance around the issues. Qwest's spokesperson could not confirm nor deny any problem, and even if such a problem existed considered it a confidential matter. On the other hand, C&W received top billing on the news story, probally because they were one of the few providers to actually give any information to the public and reporters. Grrr. I'm not a big fan of C&W, what are your peering requirements this week?; but I don't like to see providers getting zinged for being open about network issues. However the root cause is a very old issue. It takes two to create a route leak. One to announce the erroronous route, and one to listen to the erronous route. The proper router filters on either side of the connection would mitigate the problem. Everyone knows the basic issues. 1) cisco routers can't hold the extremely large access-lists required to fully filter peer-to-peer connections between large providers. 2) some providers don't make available the information needed to accurately verify their routing information. 3) review the archives. -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation