twitter.com routing to Russian ISP

[#1]

Hi,

Just noticed that, on my broadband, twitter.com is routing to mts-internet.net (a Russian ISP) and then looping. The website is obviously not working. It works fine on my Plusnet mobile 4G though

Any idea what is going on? I have a theory based on routes leaking from Russia but who knows...

$ traceroute twitter.com                                                             
traceroute: Warning: twitter.com has multiple addresses; using 104.244.42.1
traceroute to twitter.com (104.244.42.1), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  10.0.0.1 (10.0.0.1)  8.239 ms  7.860 ms  6.138 ms
 2  192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254)  7.406 ms  6.825 ms  8.734 ms
 3  251.core.plus.net (195.166.130.251)  15.027 ms  15.682 ms  13.902 ms
 4  84.93.253.91 (84.93.253.91)  15.795 ms  16.394 ms  15.913 ms
 5  195.99.125.144 (195.99.125.144)  16.146 ms
    195.99.125.140 (195.99.125.140)  16.539 ms  16.818 ms
 6  peer2-et-0-0-4.slough.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.252.118)  30.128 ms
    peer7-et-7-0-4.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (62.172.103.164)  41.003 ms
    peer7-et-3-1-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net (109.159.252.164)  16.596 ms
 7  * * *
 8  tct-cr02-ae2.192.ams.mts-internet.net (195.34.53.81)  25.888 ms
    anc-cr01-be5.204.ff.mts-internet.net (195.34.53.225)  32.262 ms
    tct-cr02-ae2.192.ams.mts-internet.net (195.34.53.81)  26.119 ms
 9  * anc-cr03-ae5.131.ff.mts-internet.net (212.188.42.18)  77.125 ms *
10  * a433-cr02-be2.77.msk.mts-internet.net (212.188.28.150)  75.181 ms  66.104 ms
11  * m9-cr03-ae11.77.msk.mts-internet.net (212.188.42.125)  72.175 ms
    a197-cr01-ae6.77.msk.mts-internet.net (212.188.2.190)  68.286 ms
12  a433-cr02-be11.77.msk.mts-internet.net (212.188.42.126)  66.155 ms
    m9-cr03-ae11.77.msk.mts-internet.net (212.188.42.125)  67.749 ms
...

[#2]

...and now it is working again. Someone obviously fixed their mistake

[#3 · Accepted solution]

Twitter Routing Issue in UK? | Hacker News (ycombinator.com)

... Something odd going on with network routing to Twitter in the UK right now. From a BT Broadband home connection, traffic seems to be flowing via an "mts-internet.net" addresses listed in Moscow. I've tried from a VPN and can access Twitter just fine. Downdectector shows a peak in reports of issues too - https://downdetector.co.uk/status/twitter/.

... Noticed in Slovenia & France too!

[#4]

Thanks!

[#5]

Strange happenings in Soviet cybersphere ... now why am I suspicious? After this ...

[#6]

This article:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/03/absence-of-malice-russian-isps-hijacking-of-t...

indicates that it was a hamfisted attempt to block twitter inside Russia.

However, the article also states that most ISP's prevented their twitter traffic from being mis-directed to Russia.

If the article is correct, BT group could and should improve the integrity of their BGP tables to mitigate against future mis-routings deliberate or otherwise.