Boston, Nov 14 (AP/UNB) — A Nigerian internet service provider said Tuesday that a configuration error it made during a network upgrade caused a disruption of key Google services, routing traffic to China and Russia.

Even with MainOne's explanation, there was speculation that Monday's 74-minute data hijacking might not have been an accident. Google's search, cloud hosting and corporate-focused G-Suite collaborative tools were among services disrupted.

"Everyone is pretty confident that nothing untoward took place," MainOne spokesman Tayo Ashiru said.

But Jake Williams, president of Rendition InfoSec and a former U.S. government hacker, said a skeptic should not rule out meddling by a nation-state with something to gain. The level of corruption in a country like Nigeria is well known, he said.

The type of traffic misdirection involved can knock essential services offline and facilitate espionage and financial theft. It can also be used to block access to information by sending data requests into internet black holes. Experts say China, in particular, has systematically hijacked and diverted U.S. internet traffic.

But the problem can also result from human error. It's very difficult to tell the difference, said Williams.

Google said it had no reason to believe the traffic hijacking was malicious.

Ashiru said engineers at MainOne, a major west African ISP, mistakenly forwarded to China Telecom addresses for Google services that were supposed to be local.  The Chinese company, in turn, sent along the bad data to Russia's TransTelecom, a major internet presence. Ashiru said MainOne did not yet understand why China Telecom did that, as the state-run company normally doesn't allow Google traffic on its network.

The traffic diversion into China created a detour with a dead end, preventing users from accessing the affected Google services, said Alex Henthorn-Iwane, an executive at the network-intelligence company ThousandEyes.

He said Monday's incident offered yet another lesson in the internet's susceptibility to "unpredictable and destabilizing events. If this could happen to a company with the scale and resources available that Google has, realize it could happen to anyone."

The diversion, known as border gateway protocol route hijacking, is built into the internet , which was designed for collaboration by trusted parties — not competition by hostile nation-states. Experts say it is fixable but that would require investments in encrypted routers that the industry has resisted .

ThousandEyes said the diversion at minimum made Google's search and business collaboration tools difficult or impossible to reach and "put valuable Google traffic in the hands of ISPs in countries with a long history of Internet surveillance."

Most network traffic to Google services — 94 percent as of Oct. 27 — is encrypted, which shields it from prying eyes even if diverted. But work was interrupted on services like G-Suite, which Google CEO Sundar Pichai in February said had more than 4 million businesses as customers. G-Suite and Google Cloud combined generate about $4 billion in revenue each year.

Google did not quantify the disruption other than to say in a statement that "access to some Google services was impacted."

Indeed, the phenomenon has occurred before. Google was briefly afflicted in 2015 when an Indian provider stumbled. In perhaps the best-known case, Pakistan Telecom inadvertently hijacked YouTube's global traffic in 2008 for a few hours when it was trying to enforce a domestic ban. It sent all YouTube traffic into a virtual ditch in Pakistan.

In two recent cases, such rerouting has affected financial sites. In April 2017, one affected MasterCard and Visa among other sites. This past April, another hijacking enabled cryptocurrency theft .

Dhaka, Nov 13 (UNB)- A private university student won a brand new TVS motorbike in a raffle draw held for all the participants of a mega concert organised by Airtel recently in the city.

Chief Commercial Officer, Pradeep Shrivastava and head of HR, Md Faisal Imtiaz Khan of Robi Axiata Limited handed over the TVS motorbike to Mozahidul Islam Sohan, a student of BBA of Independent University Bangladesh.

Robi’s Vice President, Media, Communications and Sustainability, Ekram Kabir and General Manager, Airtel Business Unit, Masudul Amin Rintu were present at the programme.

Flipkart group CEO Binny Bansal resigned from the company on Tuesday, the e-commerce company and its parent Walmart said in a joint statement.

The company accepted Mr Bansal's resignation, which takes effect immediately, the statement noted, reports NDTV. "His decision follows an independent investigation done on behalf of the Flipkart and Walmart into an allegation of serious personal misconduct. He strongly denies the allegation," it noted. US-based Walmart earlier this year acquired a majority stake in Bengaluru-headquartered Flipkart in a $16-billion deal.

"Binny has been an important part of Flipkart since co-founding the company, but recent events risked becoming a distraction and Binny has made a decision to step down," the statement noted.

"While the investigation did not find evidence to corroborate the complainant's assertions against Binny, it did reveal other lapses in judgement, particularly a lack of transparency, related to how Binny responded to the situation," said the statement, released on its portal.

Kalyan Krishnamurthy will continue to be CEO of Flipkart, which will now include Myntra and Jabong, continuing to operate as separate platforms within the Flipkart business, it added.

Ananth Narayanan will continue providing great leadership as CEO of Myntra and Jabong, and will report into Kalyan. Sameer Nigam will continue to lead digital wallet PhonePe as CEO. Both Kalyan and Sameer will report directly to the board.

New York, Nov 13 (AP/UNB) -An internet diversion that rerouted data traffic through Russia and China disrupted several Google services on Monday, including search and cloud-hosting services.

Service interruptions lasted for nearly two hours and ended about 5:30 p.m. EST., network service companies said. In addition to Russian and Chinese telecommunications companies, a Nigerian internet provider was also involved.

Google confirmed Monday's disruption on a network status page but said only that it believed the cause was "external to Google ." The company had little additional comment.

The specific method employed, formally known as border gateway protocol hijacking, can knock essential services offline and facilitate espionage and financial theft. Most network traffic to Google services —94 percent as of October 27 — is encrypted, which shields it from prying eyes even if diverted.

Alex Henthorn-Iwane, an executive at the network-intelligence company ThousandEyes, called Monday's incident the worst affecting Google that his company has seen.

He said he suspected nation-state involvement because the traffic was effectively landing at state-run China Telecom. A recent study by U.S. Naval War College and Tel Aviv University scholars says China systematically hijacks and diverts U.S. internet traffic.

Much of the internet's underpinnings are built on trust, a relic of the good intentions its designers assumed of users. One consequence: little can be done if a nation-state or someone with access to a major internet provider decides to reroute traffic.

Henthorn-Iwane says Monday's hijacking may have been "a war-game experiment."

In two recent cases, such rerouting has affected financial sites. In April 2017, one affected Mastercard and Visa among other sites. This past April, another hijacking enabled cryptocurrency theft .

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ThousandEyes named the companies involved in Monday's incident, in addition to China Telecom, as the Russian internet provider Transtelecom and the Nigerian ISP MainOne.

Dhaka, Nov 12 (UNB) – Mobile operator Robi has launched an IoT-based telco enterprise solution-- Smart Attendance Solution.
 
Smart Attendance Solution is a complete end-to-end attendance and tracking solution with a smart device that is able to make calls and send SMS to a select group of people.

Robi’s Managing Director and CEO Mahtab Uddin Ahmed inaugurated the innovative digital solution at the Robi Corporate Office, said a press release. 

Robi’s Head of Enterprise Business Md Adil Hossain and Vice-president (Enterprise Business) Zayed Sadat were present on the occasion. 

Initially, the solution will be promoted in schools to keep the parents updated on their children’s whereabouts. Parents will receive SMS notification when their children enter and leave their respective schools.
 
When the children leave the school compound, parents will be able to track their location via mobile apps. The smart device also has an emergency button where calls will be made to parents and their exact location will be shown.