A bunch of network companies have maintenance windows scheduled for tonight where they are going to reprogram their routers to route around Level3 blackholing Cogent address space. Most everyone should get the rest of the 'net back tonight, though the network routing topology will definitely be suboptimal. With luck, any resulting outages will be minimal.
I would add that blackholing BGP definitely violates convention for Internet network operators. As much as Cogent is a bottom feeder, Level3 is earning itself few friends with this very impolite behavior. They should have de-peered and left it at that. There is going to be a backlash because of this, though mostly invisible to the world, but the Internet will become stronger as a result.
Okay, this crap is starting to tick me off!
All this jargon is too much for me. What can we do to monetarily affect whichever party is to blame for this? You are claiming that Level3 acted unconventionally with the result of screwing up service for many people, right? Is Cogent any more or less to blame for this? I just want to know who to bitch at and how to hurt them. I was already pissed with RR's spotty "always on" connection, and now I really feel violated that I can't access certain sites period.
How can we financially damage whoever is to blame?